Interesting coincidence.

Six or so years ago when we were just beginning to build the BIG house and after having stayed a summer in the ‘boathouse’, I was in the market for a bigger genset than the little Coleman workhorse I had used for building till then. I thought I might need as much as 15 Kw for house power but I have since learned I really need only 5, maybe as much as 8. But, at the time, I was looking for a 15.

I am still looking for a good 5 to 8 hp diesel genset.

Through Craigslist or some other means I found a fisherman who was selling a big ol’ Isuzu powered 15 Kw that was pretty much worn out but still running and he was only asking $3,000. I went to see it at an ‘equipment yard’ in Steveston one night and found out that he went fishing for prawns up in our area every season and the season was opening in a month or so.

“Tell you what. I’ll pay full price if you take this sucker all the way to the prawning grounds and put it on my beach. How’s that?”

“Deal!” said Paul. And so it came to be. And we’ve been ‘seasonal friends’ ever since. He and his crew often come for dinner once or twice a season. We’ve met the family. We know his friends.

Prawning season begins officially around the first week of May. Aboriginals arrive around the first of April and take a goodly portion before that but that ‘breach of the rules’ seems to be overlooked by Fisheries. Well, everything is overlooked by Fisheries, actually. They don’t even have a boat anymore to go see the ocean!

Aboriginals, it seems, have no rules. They are exempt either by law or because there is no law or because there is no one to enforce the law or because there is no one to enforce the law on them. Either way, they don’t have to follow the rules.

Just so you know, I don’t think that is right. Having said that, just about everyone up here is up here so that they don’t have to follow all the rules that modern society is making up at a prolific rate. So, I don’t really blame them. Nor do they take any more than the ‘white guys’. They just take ’em first and after the estimate counts. So their catch is not used for determining the state of the fishery.

I just worry about the prawns and the other fisheries.

I think we employ some 5000 DFO employees, most of whom are in Ottawa and none of whom are ‘on the water’ around Campbell River, the so-called Salmon Capital of the world. Given their track record, there can hardly be a greater waste of tax payers money than DFO.

Well, there are the fighter jets we are thinking of buying………..

Don’t get me started on DFO. Or fighter jets. Suffice to say that the DFO screwed up the East Coast Cod fishery and are intent on a resounding repeat with West Coast fisheries of all kinds. These guys just don’t seem to ‘get it. I swear to God, a bunch of retired kindergarten teachers from Saskatchewan in plastic rowboats could do a better job!

If you want to know more about this ongoing fiasco, Google Alexander Morton at: Salmon are sacred.org. That woman does more good than all of the staff and scientists and bureaucrats and politicians at DFO combined by a factor of at least 1000. She is truly a hero.

Anyway, the prawn guys are good eggs, too. They follow all the rules and fastidiously so. I don’t think they make much money but they have a boat to run and a crew to pay so they haul a lot of prawns out of here. One good thing: they are ‘hawkeyes’ for the pregnant, egg-carrying prawns and those always get thrown back.

I am convinced that, if we left the management of the prawn fishery to Paul-the-prawn-guy and his friends, it would be sustainable and likely made healthier. As it is, it is slowly diminishing. Each years catch below last years.

Quél suprise! DFO is managing this.