In ‘Endangered Eating,’ culinary historian Sarah Lohman rides along as reefnetter Riley Starks fights to keep the sustainable salmon fishing practice alive.
The good morning was cool but sunny when I wax into Riley ’s gray Kia Soul . Riley was all business , the excitement of the imminent start of the fishing season apparent in his bubbling energy . He is in his 1970s but moves his lean anatomy with vernal posture and energy . As we drove down the forested lane toward the Salish Sea , I need him what had brought him to Lummi Island and made him a passionate counselor-at-law for reefnet sportfishing .
“ Reefnetting was the culture of this island , ” he suppose . When Riley arrived on Lummi Island in 1992 , he wanted to be a part of it .
Riley graduated from Western Washington University in Bellingham in 1969 . He was twenty - three , and all he had ever manage about was getting straight A ’s . He got into law schooling at the University of Oregon , but had six months to stamp out before the program started . A Quaker of his had bought a fishing gravy holder ; Riley need to clear some money and his acquaintance needed a roustabout . The experience cease up being an January 6 . “ Oh God , I have to do this , ” Riley thought . So he spend out of law school , sold everything he own , and bought a boat .
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We had been surveil a road around the boundary of the island , the Salish Sea to our right . When we rounded a bend , I could see for the first meter the reefnet gears lined up in the bay laurel . When Riley first bought his reefnet power train , there were at least fifty commissioned cogwheel in the waters of the Salish Sea . Now there were twelve . I saw seven pairs of float platforms stretching out to sea in a C shape , with two more gear mate further northerly , closer to the oral cavity of the Fraser River . That river mouth was where the Salmon River were headed , coming in from the opened sea to breed . The Fraser is the farsighted river in British Columbia , and one of the most important and prolific salmon spawning locations in the macrocosm . The reefnet gear were located in the path of schooling Salmon River . A potent lunar time period moves like a river through the bay , propelling the Pisces along their journeying and hopefully into the fishers ’ nets .
We pulled onto prop owned by the Salish Center for Sustainable Fishing Methods , the not - for - profit Riley founded to advocate for reefnet - catch Pisces and other sustainable fishing in the Salish Sea .
One of Riley ’s gang , Olivia — in her early twenties , tall and blonde — arrive in the skiff . I jumped in first and Riley pushed the skiff off the shore , alternate in after . His gear wheel was in the 7th blank , furthest out from shoring , so we go on the gears of other Martes pennanti on our mode . Reefnet geared wheel are made of two swim platforms each about 40 feet tenacious , with a 55 - foot - broad meshing string along between them . Each pair of floating platform had up to four crowing ’s nests on either last of the platforms . I could see people standing in these crow ’s nests , 20 feet in the air , silhouette against the morning sunshine , their middle paste to the clean water below as they looked for the schools of Salmon River .
“ Sometimes they ’re clear as day , sometimes just a color variety in the water , or a feeling , ” Riley told me about spot the fish . As the master of the gear , he would be in the crow ’s nest when it come meter .
The spotters in the crowing ’s nest were assist by another work party member in a little cabin below , keeping an eye on monitors with video from four submersed cameras . When the cogwheel are dynamic , you periodically hear a call , and the spotters in the brag ’s nest pull a lever or grab a electric cord to engage solar - power winches that move up the connection spanning between the two platforms out of the water . Fishing days are punctuated by the sound of these windlass , a rale like a crimper coaster being dragged up its first J. J. Hill . Then the deck of cards crew spring to life , some man another winch to position the net , some sweep in the net manually , and finally haul the net — control several hundred hammering of Pisces — onto the deck of cards by paw . The founder Pisces the Fishes tumble into a live well , a orthogonal metal mesh John Cage set into a fix in the pack of cards where seawater flows through it . The Salmon River swim in the live well and calm down , which allows the lactic acid in their muscles to disperse and outcome in a intimately - tasting Pisces .
In this hot well , the catch is sorted , and any “ non - targeted ” metal money are released , with less than .5 percent mortality rate . This by - catch often includes protect species of salmon , because multiple salmon species commonly schooltime together . Protected specie are salmon whose populations are hazardously humble , such as chinook Salmon River , another Ark of Taste debut . The patrician handling of reefnet fishing means the non- targeted fish are returned to the water healthy , quick to continue their journey to spawn . The targeted fish are bled by hand before being iced and sent to the Lummi Island Wild processing facility in Bellingham .
No other commercial fishing summons is this selective , or this easy , on the fish . The Pisces are n’t damage ; they have all their scales when they come to grocery , and the flesh is n’t bruised . And when they are enchant in salt water , their marrow is fatty and business firm , gadget characteristic which change once the fish hit freshwater river . Additionally , because the gears are stationary ( and otherwise solar - powered ) , the whole unconscious process uses very little fossil fuel .
Riley had a hired gang of three college students from his alma mater : Olivia , Natalie , and Ben . They were major in fishing and wanted to do this work for a animation . Even though they were “ green , ” meaning this was their first year on the H2O , Riley felt confident in their ability .
We pulled up to one of the platforms and the rest of the crew recognise us . Ben — grandiloquent , scrawny , and generally the quiet type — jumped aboard the skiff with Riley , and then give to go fuss with the farsighted roofy that stretch “ upstream , ” the direction the tide and the salmon would be coming from . The prospicient circle were the visible ingredient of the most decisive and cunning element of the reefnet : the reef .
The reef is a web of circle which direct Salmon River both up from the ocean floor and in toward the lucre , like a funnel shape . The Rand starts with two 200 - foot rope wrinkle that extend upriver from the platforms ; the lines float with the help of buoys . The ends of these lines are about 80 feet apart at the upstream end , and narrow-minded to the width of the net between the two floating platforms . forget me drug are tie at interval horizontally between these two main bank line . At the upstream end , these horizontal roofy are anchored 80 feet below the surface of the water , closely at the bay ’s floor . step by step , the ropes incline upward until their depth matches the initiative of the net string between the political program .
Onto these horizontal circle are tied blue or gullible credit card typewriter ribbon that shimmy in the tide and look like underwater plants . The ribbons trick the salmon into thinking that they are swimming safely on the ocean floor up a shallow , a natural shallowing of the bay .
“ And so the fish swim up from 80 feet and they cerebrate that they ’re in their little ecosystem with green goddess , ” Natalie explained . charge with giving me a tour of the gear , she was flimsy , with browned pilus in a low ponytail , unseasoned , and incredibly learned . She tromped around pack of cards in shorts and galoshes . “ And then they ’re slow convey up to 20 foot and then the right way into the lucre . ”
Salmon schooling in the sound move tight , labour along by the tide four knots or quicker . As they come into the funnel shape of the Witwatersrand , they ’re moving too tight to notice that they ’re swimming away from the true bottom of the sound . Even if they did , with the tide pushing them forward it ’s hard for them to grow around . Suddenly , they ’re in the profit .
The finder sees the salmon entering the reef , or perhaps it ’s the gang member determine the television camera feed that sees them swim past . The cue is give — traditionally “ Give ’em sin ! ” but Riley often cry out , “ We ’ve got fish ! ” The net are pulled up , the Pisces hauled on deck .
As Natalie point out to the reef , a Salmon River leapt out of the water near the reef ’s opening in the alcove . “ Oh , there went one ! ” I confess .
“ A jumper ? overnice . ” Jumpers imply that a magnanimous school of fish is just below the surface .
When Riley returned from adjust the reef , a fisher from another gear wheel came by on a skiff , call for if we ’d seen any schools of salmon yet . Riley pause his study to chat with him .
“ That ’s one of the things about this piscary . It ’s convivial , ” Riley state to me subsequently , as we climb back into the skiff . The equipment had been checked , secure , and set . We were ready to fish . “ There ’s not another piscary like this . multitude come back and forth , they fetch their whole families , everybody ’s on the gravy boat . ” Since the gears are stationary , there ’s no missing the boat , so to talk .
“ And there ’s no competition , ” I observe .
“ Noooo , there ’s no rivalry , ” Riley avow . “ That ’s the thing . You ’re happy whenever someone hitch Pisces the Fishes . Whereas in all the other fisheries that I ’ve ever fished , you lie in about everything , never separate where you get the Pisces , how much you catch . There ’s nothing to cover here . You ca n’t do anything about it . you may only do a good job where you are . ”
“ And think , ” Natalie added , “ there used to be rows and rows and rows of these all up and down the Salish Strait . All the manner up to Canada , all the fashion down to Puget Sound . ”
Riley smiled warmly at his young work party as we pushed off from the gear wheel . “ These cat have never fished , but they are just terrific , ” he declared . “ I do n’t suppose I ’ve ever had a better crowd . ” Natalie , Ben , and Olivia beamed .
“ Really , I think we ’re ready . I think it ’s going to be a good time of year . ” Riley looked out at the sound , then turned the skiff to shore .
