It’s time to reconsider commercial harvesting of caplin
There’s so much environmental outdoor stuff in the news lately. I hardly know where to begin, and most of it not good news I’m afraid. All sorts of stocks are down, not fickle financial markets, a human creation anyway, but rather species that we share this planet with are in jeopardy. Some we hunt, some we fish, but no matter our stake in their decline. I believe deeply in conservation for its own sake, and respect for our planet and its creatures.
Obviously low moose and codfish numbers will affect the level of my chest freezer. But more importantly, I like having moose living in the woods that I roam in. I can always eat chicken or pork and survive. Beyond our hunting, fishing, or bird-watching interests, there is something deeper, abstract, yet still tangible that connects us to the natural world. No surprise, we are part of it, despite a disconnect created by technology. We live in centrally heated homes and moose do not, nor do whales nor cod. But we all emerged millennia ago from the same primordial soup. We really need to be better stewards of our world.
I read in the news not long ago that caplin stocks have declined 70 per cent in the last few years. That is absolutely outrageous, troubling and disturbing. These tiny fish are pillars in the ocean food chain, and are a major protein source for many species, including the cod and salmon that we fishers are so concerned about. DFO is not pushing the panic button according to what I read. They say that the decline is more due to environmental factors, like late spawning. If they spawn after a certain date their offspring starve, or so the story goes. It seems that the hatched caplin larvae feed on copepod subsequent to hatching on the beach. If they emerge from the eggs after the peak of the copepod
Caplin always arrived on time before the commercial fishery began in the ’70s. Common sense dictates that a commercial harvest at the base of our ocean ecosystem’s food chain might not be the best idea.
population then food is scarce and many perish. That is bad. Copepods are tiny cetaceans in the 0.2-mm to 17-mm range. I think we might refer to them collectively as sea lice.
I’m not sure if I buy all this. DFO is saying that our human commercial harvest is having very little effect, if any, on caplin stocks. They say that despite a 20,000-tonne commercial harvest, sufficient eggs get deposited on our beaches. That’s because food for the larvae is the limiting factor. I hope they are right. I’m not a biologist and I’m sure DFO knows caplin science far better than I. However, in my lifetime I have seen huge astronomical changes in caplin. The only thing different since I was a boy is commercial caplin fishing. Caplin numbers on the beaches around Spaniard’s Bay are a miniscule fraction of what they were before commercial caplin fishing started in the mid ’70s.
When I was a young lad going to school rolling caplin was a source of great excitement and adventure. Not adventure of the travelling to foreign lands sort, but frolicking and fun by the seashore. It is well known by learned scientists and common folk alike that caplin are critical nourishment for bigger swimming sea critters, and birds also. We kids were well aware. So, we’d head to the Spaniard’s Bay beaches, mainly Middle Cove and Back Cove, with fishing rods in hand. Yes, fishing rods, mostly of the cheaper closed face casting variety, to fish for the bigger fish that always preyed on the caplin as they approached the beach for spawning and their yearly reproduction schedule.
The caplin would be rolling on the sand and gravel, doing what caplin had done for millennia. Older and more serious people would be intent on securing a stock of caplin for culinary or garden-fertilizing purposes. We kids were there just for pure fun. Adults filled salt beef buckets or metal pails, or maybe dinner boilers, using either cast or dip nets. Little children would run out in the cold saltwater and pick up the silvery fish in their hands, attempting to hold as many as possible in their tiny fingers. They’d sprint for a bucket with outstretched arms, but invariable most of the slippery creatures would slip from their grasp and go flying in the air. Mothers would remind them of knee rubber height, typically to no avail. It was a spectacular event, the coming of the caplin in June. It seemed like the whole population filled the beaches.
Did I say June? Yes June, before we started commercially fishing caplin with seines and traps, these fish invariable came to our beaches in mid-june. We kids would run to the beaches after school. I remember it very well. It was like that in my father’s and grandfather’s time. It was so when my first Smith ancestor set foot in Bishop’s Cove in the 17th century. Now DFO says that low caplin numbers are because they came to our beaches late and starved. I say that there might be some other factor going on that is not included in the hypothetical model, because caplin always arrived on time before the commercial fishery began in the
’70s. So this is like a chicken and egg scenario. They are scarce because they came late. Maybe, just food for thought, but they might arrive late due to depleted numbers. I don’t know for sure, but I feel we should give commercial fishing of caplin some serious thought.
Nowadays the caplin never roll on the beaches of Spaniard’s Bay in June. It’s typically mid-july or early August before they arrive. And the numbers are pitiful compared to what I saw during my childhood. They are coming later and fewer every year, in what I reckon to be a linear decline since the beginning of the commercial fishery. What do you think? I would love to hear. I hate to be overly critical of DFO science, but I really think we are getting smoke and mirrors on caplin stocks. Common sense dictates that a commercial harvest at the base of our ocean ecosystem’s food chain might not be the best idea. I think it is time to halt commercial harvesting of caplin based on common sense until science catches up. Why are they late?
I’ll end on a light note about the good old days of surf fishing in the caplin scull. We had it figured out. We’d cast our Red Devils outside the main body of caplin, out where the bigger predators were lurking. A cod was the main prize, a most honourable catch that you’d surely bring home to Mom for supper. But mostly we’d snag guppies, conners, flats, and sea cats. How many of you know what a sea cat is? I’m not really sure either. They are long and slinky with big heads and humungous gaping mouths, brown to reddish in colour, and particularly slimy. I think they might be a sort of monkfish. Anyway, we had tons of fun catching them.
I just had a thought. This year when the caplin arrive, if they do at all, I’m going to take a fly rod to the beach and toss out a baitfish pattern. I wonder what I might catch lurking out there. Maybe I’ll get a few cod or a flounder. I better check the regulations. Much has changed since I was a boy.