Hey, That Fish Is Someone's Dinner!

The first job I took after graduating from Whitman College was longlining for halibut on an old 73ft steel boat in Kodiak, AK. It was a miserable experience that I did for four years. The guy who owned the boat was determined to either turn me into a “real” fisherman or show me that I had no business fishing and get me to quit. To this day, I am not sure what his goal was but the time I spent with him in the Gulf of Alaska was full of harshly worded lessons…about everything. Some practical things like how to clean a halibut and coil a longlines, others like the “correct” way to peal garlic and the exact level the buoys need to be tied on the railing I could have done without. To say, fisherman are not always the most nurturing teachers is a bit of an understatement. However, there was one comment, that embedded itself in my mind and has shaped the way I have approach my career as fisherman and fishmonger. 

I was trying to wrestle a live 60lb halibut onto the cleaning table as we sloshed around in a storm. The fishing had been slow for months, the weather was terrible, and I missed my girlfriend who was home in Seattle at a Halloween party. Losing my temper with the flopping fish, I kicked its head to stun it. Suddenly the hauler stopped, and the captain yelled, “Hey, that fish is someone’s dinner!”. 
It sounds so obvious, but I truly believe that so much that is wrong with our food today is that the people producing, processing and delivering it often forget this. Having worked on commercial fishing boats for 20 years, I can attest that it is sometimes easy to forget. In the heat of the battle, when it is stormy, you haven’t slept more than a couple hours in the last few days, and you are trying to fill the boat, it is easier to treat the fish as a commodity instead of hundreds of dinners. 

However, this has become an ethos for me. A line that I have used, hopefully with a more benevolent tone than it was first delivered to me, to remind crewmen that the fish we are catching should be cherished. As fishermen, our job is not just to catch fish it is to provide delicious, healthy food to be eaten and enjoyed by people. With something as perishable and fragile as fish, the minute anyone in the supply chain forgets that what they have been entrusted with is food, it all falls apart and that dinner that someone was excited to eat, and share is often ruined. Unfortunately, this happens all the time. This ethos is something that I am excited to carry on from my boat and be able to actually hand deliver fish that I know has been cherished every step of the way.