Commercial Fishing Boats By Piper Cassidy & Harris Philpot

Fishing Techniques Trolling Gillnetting Seining (Purse, Drag, Beach) Longlining Otter Trawling Bottom Trawling Mid-water Trawling Weirs and Traps

Trolling Trolling is a salmon fishing method in which fish are caught on hooks towed on lines behind the vessel. Troll-caught salmon bring in top prices because they are cleaned and iced or frozen immediately after being caught and are not scarred by net marks.

Gillnetting Gillnetting is one of the oldest forms of fishing, practiced around the world for thousands of years. A gillnet is a long, horizontal mesh sheet with floats along the upper edge. It is set perpendicular to the path of the fish and designed so that incoming fish can get their heads but not their bodies through the mesh The types of fish caught are: salmon,carp, catfishes and spiney- rayed fishes,herring, eulachon, smelt

Seining Seining is a method of fishing in which a net is used to encircle fish. Two types of seines are used in BC: the purse seine and the drag, or beach, seine.

Purse Seining Purse seining is the predominant seining method used today. It works on the same principle of encircling a school of fish with a long length of net held afloat by a corkline or buoys on the top. The difference is that the lead line on the bottom is pulled up under the water, closing the hole in the bottom of the circle so that the fish are enclosed in a small purse-like pocket of net. Purse seining requires the use of two boats no electronic or marine gear is really needed to find the fish. By knowing the spots and watching for signs, such as seagulls overhead or jumping salmon, fishermen can detect where schools of salmon are.

Drag Seining Drag seines were used in river mouths where salmon gathered before heading upstream to spawn. First Nations fishermen used two canoes, but later, rowboats called skiffs were used. The two boats would each carry a piece of the net and make a circle with it. Paddling or rowing the boats to the same place closed the net circle trapping the fish. The nets were then hauled up into the boats, catch and all.

Beach Seining Beach seining was possible only at locations where salmon gathered in large numbers close to shore. At such locations nets could be placed or held on shore by one fisherman while another, in a boat, let out the line and set the net parallel to shore, keeping it in place with stone anchors. The boat would then return to shore, having encircled the school of fish, and hand the line off to another fisherman standing on shore. The two fishermen on shore would then slowly haul in the net, trapping the salmon between the net and the beach.

Longlining Longlining is a hook- and-line fishery in which long lengths of baited hooks are laid on the ocean floor to catch halibut, sablefish, rockfish, dogfish,swordfish and other species of groundfish.

Otter Trawling Trawling, or dragging, is a commercial fishing method in which a trawl vessel (trawler or dragger) drags a cone- shaped net with a rectangular opening through the water to trap fish. Trawling is used to take a wide variety of species in a number of separate fisheries including shrimp, euphausiids, scallops and groundfish The wings of the net are spread by large wood or steel "otter boards," or "doors," which are connected to the winch drum on the vessel and keep the doors straining outwards from the wings.

Bottom Trawler The bottom trawl has rollers along its bottom edge, while floats on the top edge keep the net open. The groundfish trawl fleet consists of 142 licence holders (of which about 80 were active in 1999); during the 1990s they landed an average of 140,000 tonnes annually with an estimated wholesale value of $133 million. Most groundfish trawlers must carry government-approved observers to gather data needed to manage the fishery and comply with regulations.

Mid-water trawling Mid-water trawls do not require rollers because they do not come into contact with the bottom, but they do use weights, floats and doors to keep the net open. Mid-water trawling accounts for more than 76% of the groundfish catch by volume, mostly hake and turbot.

Weirs & Traps Weirs and traps are devices that were employed traditionally by First Nations fishers to catch salmon and trout migrating through tidal waters or travelling upstream to spawn. A weir is a fence-like structure constructed from rocks and/or posts and latticework set across a stream to block the passage of fish.