Searching for tuna in heart of the big blue
P.E.I. offers catch-and-release charters full of fishing thrills on the Gulf of St. Lawrence
NORTH LAKE, P.E.I.— Things get rowdy on the Shine Shack at 10:55 a.m., two hours into our private tuna charter on the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The fish finder goes berserk. There’s a tuna nearby. Captain Gerard Holland rips open a cardboard box filled with a bag of herring. He and first mate Jamie Hebert toss pieces of dead, stinky fish overboard to tempt the tuna.
It’s windy so guts and scales fly back into the boat and get tangled in my hair.
Fishing. You either love it or you just don’t get it.
“Most people, the average Joe, just want a whale-watching tour,” Holland allows. “Catching a tuna can be a long, hard process.”
People come from all over to fish here in the bluefin tuna capital of the world. Today, three friends from Drummondville, Que., have booked with Wicked Sea Adventures.
First, we must put out our lines and troll for mackerel. They go into buckets filled with water until needed as live bait.
When the tuna alarm beeps, the mackerel lines come up and three custom tuna fishing rods are let out with live bait on the hooks.
“Here fishy, fishy,” Holland and Hebert say in unison.
“I’d like to get a 1,000-pound one today,” Hebert admits. “Call the wife and kids, tell them to come to the shore, watch the crane, get pictures.”
Tuna charters in Prince Edward Island are usually catch-and-release. Anglers love the thrill of the chase and have no desire to keep, eat or mount these gigantic beauties.
Unbeknownst to us, today is supposed to be different.
Holland pays upwards of $40,000 a year for the right to run catch-andrelease charters and keep one tuna a year. The tuna must be caught in August or September. It’s mid-September and today, he figures, will be the day to tow the tuna back to the dock, have a crane lift it to be weighed, and then entertain offers from North American buyers or send it to Japan on consignment, where it is beloved for sushi.
You’ve read those crazy stories about tuna selling for insane prices in Japan. In January 2016, a 440pound endangered bluefin tuna sold for almost $118,000 (U.S.) at the first auction of 2016 at Tokyo’s Tsukiji Fish Market.
That only happens in the off season, Holland says, when hardly anyone is fishing. Today, he hopes to get $5,000 to $10,000. He is not familiar with Vancouver Aquarium’s Ocean Wise program, which advises conscientious diners that bluefin tuna have been severely overfished around the world (not necessarily here, where they’re being picked up one at a time by a rod and reel instead of netted or caught on longlines with multiple hooks). It suggests three other types of tuna should be eaten as a sustainable alternative.
Actually, Holland doesn’t even eat tuna. His first mate only eats the canned stuff in sandwiches. The Quebec anglers don’t seem to eat it either.
“There’s a fish right there,” Holland yells at 11:19 a.m.
He has been tracking a “boil” — sort of a swell or wave — beside the boat. We rush to the side of the Shine Shack and peer at the sea.
“We’ll have a hookup by the end of the day,” Holland vows, using local slang for a tuna on the line.
I don’t know if you can come to fishing randomly, late in life, by just showing up on a fishing charter. I fished every summer as a kid. Some winters, too, through the ice. There’s a rhythm, language and ritual to fishing that is understood not explained.
The Quebecers dress, talk and move like seasoned anglers. They’ve paid $1,250 for this private charter and take my unexpected appearance in stride. (My private outing two days earlier got delayed by winds.)
We don’t speak much French. They don’t speak much English. We make do with a lot of “tabarnacs” and Leafs jokes and smiles.
Steve Ross, an oilpatch worker, is wearing a patch behind his ear to ward off seasickness. He gets seasick on the ocean, not on lakes. He’s joined by Benoit and Alexandra St.Laurent. Alexandra is feeling queasy from the metre-high waves. So am I. We are a motley crew. “Fishing is good therapy for PTSD — being on the water, enjoying people’s vacations,” Holland muses while we wait.
He suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder from a decade as a paramedic. He switched to lobster fishing in 2008 and added tourists in 2013, taking people on short whalewatching or mackerel and cod fishing jaunts, as well as daylong tuna charters.
“I find you don’t want to be too professional,” opines our maverick captain.
“You want people to go home and feel like they’ve been with a real P.E.I. fisherman and not a tour boat and tour guide. I think the key is to be more authentic for people.”
Truthfully, I can’t tell you half the stuff that happened on our adventure. What happens on the Shine Shack stays on the Shine Shack.
I can tell you that we wind up surrounded by fishing boats, including one that has a hookup. An envious Holland makes a call to see what’s up. Most of these guys work together, share information and help each other out.
“Everybody’s anxious to get their fish and get their money,” Holland says. “Tuna fishing is all about minimizing your mistakes. It’s a lot like hockey.”
Talk turns to what will happen if we catch a tuna. Holland will start the engine to keep up with the fast and strong tuna when it takes off. It might take hours for us to take turns reeling it in.
“Just hang on a bit,” Holland says abruptly. “There was a splash here.” Another false alarm. I had actually asked to go tuna feeding, not tuna fishing. Schools of herring congregate at this time of year and you can fish for herring, then hand feed them to the tuna that are drawn to the tasty gathering. Alas, my attempt to simply admire bluefin tuna was not to be.
By noon, things quiet down. Fish eat big meals in the morning and evening, just like us, and retreat from the bright, midday sun.
“Tuna fishing is kind of like bear hunting,” Holland opines. “It can be hours of boredom and seconds of terror.”
I may never know. I’ve got a flight to catch and can’t risk missing it for a tuna. The captain runs me to shore, mumbling: “I hate to take people in without a fish.” He calls up a buddy who is towing a tuna to the dock and gets permission to pull up alongside his boat to take pictures.
I say my goodbyes at the dock and wish everybody good luck.
“For sure, if I get any kind of fish other than mackerel, I will send you a picture,” promises Ross.
“No big fish for our gang,” he emails three days later.
“Lot of fun with you and the two fisherman,” Ross signed off.
Holland would surely be pleased to hear himself referred to as a fisherman and not a tour guide. Jennifer Bain was hosted by Tourism PEI, which didn’t review or approve this story.