Fishing at Sea 1947-1956

In the decade or so that the Jean B was fished by brother Dick he targeted mainly salmon but when a tuna run developed after the war, chiefly in August and early September, he switched over. Fishing began in May and most of the fish were “spring” salmon also called king or chinook. Fishing was usually in the waters outside Barkley Sound and loads were not very big - more like shake down trips. Spring salmon (over 14 pounds a “mild cure”) commanded the best price. Coho runs came later peaking in later July, and August.

The boat fished from the west coast of the Queen Charlotte Islands, now Haida Gwaii, to the mouth of the Columbia River off the American coast but mainly around Vancouver Island. We also fished Swiftsure Bank on the American side of the entrance to Juan de Fuca Straights off the “ big bank” ( La Perouse)twenty miles out from Barkley sound and Uclulet as well as Cape Scott and off the upper tip of Vancouver called the Goose Island banks.

The tuna fishery developed right after the war when it was determined that the warm Japanese Current, populated with schools of tuna averaging 20 pounds, came within reach for the Canadian and American fleets. The prices gradually increased to as high as $ 720 a ton in 1947 but dropped back when the Japanese gradually entered the market as they recovered from the war. However, while it lasted it was like a gold rush. Boats rigged up and headed to the tuna grounds. There were stories of fist fights at the ice plants as people jostled to load ice quickly and get going.

Tuna fishing was forty or fifty miles straight out from the West Coast or sometimes as close as 15 miles off Haida Gwaii one year. Water was bright blue an 70 degrees F. The fishing technique was completely different than with salmon . The boat had to be re rigged. The large side trolling poles were equipped with many short spaced lengths of heavy tarred lines thirty or forty feet long. At the base of each line was a length of World War II extendible parachute shock cord. At the end of each line was tied a 3 or 4 inch feathered coloured lure or jig with a large a double barbless hook for quick release. These multi lures were trolled on the surface at about 5 knots. The powerful fish would hit the lure at top speed and without the shock cord absorbing the impact would have torn off the line or the fish would become detached. When we hit a school we would try and get it to follow us by “chumming” - throwing scoops full of whole iced herring from the hold. Once we were in a tuna school all lines filled up and the fishing was frantic. We wore heavy gloves and the fish were all individually hand over hand retrieved, a tough job with the boat moving ahead quickly and a heavy fish determined to dive. The method was to retrieve quickly to get them on their side surfing along so they were easier to land.

When the tuna hit the deck they were out of the seventy degree water and had to be allowed to cool down a bit before putting them into the ice otherwise you would lose your ice. Also they had to lay parallel to each other or else in their death throws they would vibrate against the deck violently and drive their sharp “ beaks” into another fish and damage it. They did not require “gutting” and were sold “in the round”.

Our biggest day tuna fishing began at daylight when the lines filled-up and remained so until dark. We landed and processed upwards of 500 fish. The decks were loaded and they were sliding into the cabin. Between pulling and icing we had to keep moving to get the fish into the hold  as we were worried about the boats stability. We had no time to eat. I opened a tall can of baked beans and put a spoon in it. As we dashed by to the wheelhouse to correct the course we would gulp a couple of tablespoons of the cold beans. I don’t remember whether I had time to pee. My wrists were so sore from “pulling” that I could hardly hold a cup of coffee in the morning. The next day we only caught 20, the school had moved on.

Whale surfacing in Barkley Sound

Fishing operations proceeded in all weathers. On the tuna grounds far from land, we could only turn into the huge waves and keep the bow pointing upwind just running slowly ahead. Some long nights. Only high winds close to shore, of which there were many, would shut things down and result in harbour days or anchoring in sheltered waters. It was rumoured that there was a perpetual high stakes poker game on a barge in Ucululet with seasons money on the table. In a stiff west wind we would sometimes anchor in Florencia Bay at the deserted Long Beach. One time I went ashore in the dinghy and found an intact American emergency life raft, and  it was fully equipped. Later we were told it was a type to be dropped from a rescue plane. I helped myself to some chocolate. We notified the Coast Guard and they picked it up.

Summers in Bamfield

Bamfield was still the centre of operations. Access was only by boat or the occasional plane. There was no road until, I think the mid fifties when various logging roads were linked for connection to Port Alberti. Fuel and provisions could be obtained in Bamfield but ice could only be obtained at Kildonan, a small settlement up the Alberti Canal. We rarely had to go there as we were selling our fish in Victoria or Vancouver.

When I was in high school I was often on the loose in Bamfield in the summer staying at Dicks when he and Fred were fishing. I got to know quite a few people. I pitched for the softball team. Our field was a big fenced lawn in front of the Coast Guard station. If you hit it over the fence you were “out”. We played home and home games against the Sarita logging camp, Dodgers Cove native village, and Ucululet. At Dodgers Cove we started the game on the sand beach on an ebbing tide. As the game went on the outfield got bigger until the tide turned and flooded back, around half way through. When the pitcher and first base guy could almost shake hands the game was over. The water was again “out.”

Our Bamfield softball team

The transpacific cable station in Bamfield employed a group of young men mainly from Australia and Britain. The were key tab operators which involved transmitting the messages along the line to other parts of the world. They were a jolly group and I  spent quite a few hours playing pool and visiting in their large comfortable residence. They had a five guy band that came across the inlet and played at dances. Any misbehaviour and they were grounded and not allowed across.

Beach parties at Brady’s Beach nearby were very popular. Trips to Pachena’s beautiful beach was always an adventure on a home made “car” over a rudimentary trail. The local girls were pleasant- the Hughs, Wickams and others. Other families such as the Ostroms were great favourites and I was fortunate to maintain a close relationship with the survivors of the early family of Roald, Ebba and Carl  who over the years passed on.

Ebba and Len’s daughters, Suzanne and Katherine  remain part of the community to this day. After a hiatus of many years when I was busy in medical practice I renewed contact with them and for years made an annual visit to them and parked my camper in their back garden. Of course sport fishing was an element. These visits were the highlight of my year.

The last summer fishing with Dick was in about 1956. Afterwards I was too busy and he had access to other deck hands. I finished high school in 1949, went on to Victoria college for two years where I liked to say that I majored in rugby, beer and socializing. Then on for a science degree and finally an MD from  UBC graduating in 1958 followed by an internship at Vancouver General Hospital. The nest egg from fishing and various scholarships and bursaries meant that I finished my training debt free.

So ended my fish for money career. Later in life I got back to the fish and eventually took up fly fishing. Through that I met a lot of people many of which remain friends to this day.

The Jean B

The resettling of the family in Victoria BC in 1944 was more or less completed in the spring of 1945. Dad became thinner and more sickly. However he never complained, at least when I was around. The lawns were planted and a three feet high rock wall at the back not far from the back door was constructed one stone at a time. Beyond that, extended the long undeveloped lot that begged to be developed, at least in dads opinion. Shrubs were selected and a bit later an extensive cypress hedge was planted on each side of the length of the lot. This grew beautifully for a couple of years until we experienced one very cold winter in 1947 which killed most of it.

Ola and Alex Brumwell in the backyard at Lovat Avenue

The rear lot was designated to be a large Alberta type vegetable garden . In preparation I was handed a spade and told to get to work turning the sod over in preparation for cultivation and planting. It was a lousy job. I was told to come straight home from school and get digging! No rototiller or power tools. It took me weeks.

Dad had a plan. Dick and Noreen had just married and didn’t have a bean to their name. He sold his saxophone for some money to pay for the wedding. He had joined the army in 1944 and undergone basic training but the war ended in may 1945 so he was demobbed. They were back on the Prairies living in Taber with her family,I think, and picking up the odd job.

The Newlyweds, Dick and Noreen

Don was working as a mechanic in Vauxhall and later qualified as both an electrician, diesel specialist and later in Victoria at the Esquimalt naval base in charge of maintenance and the repair of ship radar and electronics. 

Dad decided that, from successful years in the farming industry that he would enter the West Coast fishing industry by having a boat built and move Dick to the Coast to learn to run it and earn a living. At some point he became a qualified electrician but I’m not sure when that happened.

The boat design chosen was a 42 foot 8 inch ice-packing west coast troller of which there were already several of the same type in the fishing fleet. It was designed to carry up to ten tons of crushed ice. The Fisher Boy ll and the Ju Ju I fished out of Bamfield on the West Coast. They were built at Falconers Marine in Victoria so they had the plans and were familiar with the construction. Another boat , with a stern wheelhouse was built there at the same time called the Nipentuck, especially for the developing west coast tuna fishery. Falconers had been busy with war contracts but at the end of hostilities it moved quickly into building for the fishing fleet. Later as orders dwindled they closed up.

Bye and bye the contract was signed and construction begun in early 1946. A new world beckoned.

The Jean B, named by dad for his favourite and only daughter, was launched sometime in late 1946 or early 1947. It was registered at 49 tons just under the 50 ton cut off where it would have come under a higher steamship classification with all sort of regulations.  The rigging and equipping took several months. The mast was raised with the traditional lucky silver dollar placed under it. It was considered to be a state of the art for the times. It was powered with a Chrysler Crown marine gas engine. I was told that dad hated the smell of diesel and had struggled with balky diesels on the farm so he went with this one. Top speed 6 or 7 knots.

The troller Jean B, fresh out of Falconer's Shipyards, Victoria

The Jean B dockside

My sister Jean, the Jean B's namesake , with Dad on her nursing graduation from the University of Alberta

Electronics included a reliable marine radio with all the channels and a huge Echolite depth sounder with a curious rotating arm on a clock like face that “clunk” with each rotation and registered the depth with a small lighted bar on graduated depth numbers on a big clock like face. There was an “ iron mike” automatic steering device which when engaged kept the boat on course with a loud pulsing grinding  sound.

Down below toward the bow was the forecastle with three bunks and right at the very bow through a small door leading into a pump salt water toilet “a head” which was complete luxury. Lots of the older boats just had a deck bucket which was dumped overboard.

The engine room was amidships with the large fuel tanks secured to the hull on each  side. On the aft deck was the hatch cover which led to the fish hold down a short ladder, and where the cleaned fish were dropped down in preparation for packing them carefully in deck high bins - gills and guts removed, with the cavities filled with crushed ice. It was necessary to work in a bent over position which was hard on the back as was the tossing around in rough weather.

 The stern area was the scene of the actual fishing .  A waist deep “cockpit” spanned the beam of the boat so the gear could be reached on each side. Mounted on the railings on each side were a bank of three brass “gurdies” , powered large spools on which were wound lengths of heavy woven metal “main” lines at them end of which were lead balls weighing between approximately 15 to 40 pounds. Just ahead of this were a series of low bins each of which held 200 pounds of fish, called “ checkers” into which hooked fish were landed and dispatched.

On the deck was a removable “ gutting” trough which fitted into a slot on the top of the hatch and protruded over the side. A length of water hose from a small salt water deck pump supplied running water for washing the cleaned fish. I spent many hours up on the pitching deck gutting and cleaning salmon. In heavy fishing, especially in warmer weather the fish couldn’t be left on the deck too long. The cohos were particularly subject to “ belly burn” where very caustic digestive juices would begin leak into the body cavity and auto digest it’s lining. This reduced quality and their sale price.

View from the "cockpit" in heavy swells. Gutting fish was a challenge in these seas

In heavy fishing you had to develop speed and skill cleaning the fish. One trip on one day in August I cleaned over 600 cohos timed up to three per minute. A very long day ! Then they all had to be packed in ice in the hold .

Me at 17 years old gutting up to 600 coho a day in high season

The boat was taken to Bamfield on the West Coast to complete outfitting. Dad hired an experienced “ skipper” Fred Barber who lived there to fish the boat for a while to show Dick how to fish, navigate etc. Under his supervision large trolling poles were cut and installed, one on each side amidships and two smaller ones on the bow. At the tips of the main poles were two spring loaded lever arms to which a “ tag” lines were attached. These poles were carried in slots in a cross member on the main mast when travelling. For fishing they were dropped with a pulley system out 30-35 degrees.  The shorter smaller bow poles angled out from the front deck.

Jimmy Goldie, a fish buyer for the Bamfield Co-Op has a laugh with us onboard the Jean B

Bamfield Harbour, the Jean B's home base

So for fishing there were six main lines with variable lead ball weights which carried them at different depths and angles to prevent tangling. Off each line up to six (usually four) short leaders were attached and on the ends of these were attached various lures ranging from shiny spoons, plugs, flashers, several dozen being trolled at once. In heavy fishing many of these lures would have fish on them. I won’t go into any more detail about these methods. There’s lots more I could say

So.......off to sea

Dick shows off the bounty