THE WAY WE WERE
Captain Jim Broderick – setting day 2010
Bras d’Or Gut
I look today at the 65 or 70 fishing boats fishing out of the Gut and wonder if any of these fishermen give much thought of how it was fifty, sixty or more years ago. Things have changed so drastically that one wonders at the spread of technology over such a relatively short time.
Even as a kid I can remember many of the small single men boats were rowed to and from the fishing grounds. George Forrester comes to mind rowing alone to the fishing grounds and returning in the early afternoon day in and day out. Some were a little more sophisticated and had a small engine usually what was called a “one lunger make and break.” Others watched the tides and winds and hoisted their small sail(s) and came and went in that fashion.
Certain families were the high liners of fishing in the Gut in those days. Certainly the Bungays have to be counted as leading the way. The Dugas boys were not far behind. These were the men who kept at it through good times and hard times. Today you pretty much purchase your gear from the retailer or the wholesaler ready to put into the water. Not so at the turn of the century and on up to the 1950’s and 1960’s. Fishermen didn’t have the luxury of hiring a tractor and low bed and taking their boats home and placed into a warm comfortable barn where they could be pampered and painted during the winter months. Men and boys in order to prepare for spring fishing had many varied chores to perform prior to getting out on the water. If they were lobstermen, there were traps to be built. This meant going into the woods and cutting bows and steaming them so that they would bend. There were heads to be knitted as well. Every kitchen window usually had a nail driven into the bottom of the window frame so that you could knit heads. Usually laths were purchased from a local mill. Once the drift ice left, you got a dory out and searched the shores for suitable flat rocks for ballast. Hinges for the trap doors were usually someone’s worn out boot tongue. Men and boys had to go into the woods and cut trees to make buoys. Buoys had to be cut and shaped and painted with the owner’s colours an holes drilled in them to fit snoods. (I don’t know if this is the correct spelling but it the correct sound and is a word you never hear now).
If you were ambitious you usually had a few herring nets set before the season opened in order to get some early catches of herring for a feed of spawn and herring but more importantly bait for the lobster traps. Not everyone had the luxury or the money to go out to Nickerson’s to buy bait. In order to be prepared to catch herring there were nets to be repaired and soaked in tanning lotion and hung out to dry. (Anyone remember seeing a net drying on a clothesline?). When we talk about bait for lobster traps one of the dirtiest jobs I ever had was preparing bait for my father. My Uncle Johnny was a cod fisherman so my father would get him to save the guts of the fish and he placed them in a large barrel at the end of the wharf. There they would boil in the spring and early summer sun. My father would dispatch me to the shore with some burlap bags and with instructions to make small bag squares and fill each with the bubbly guts from the barrel and place in his lobster boat for the next morning. Apparently and according to my father the lobsters tired of the fresh herring and were waiting for this delicacy from Uncle Johnny’s cod catch. Fact is I could never get the stink off my hands for days after.
Of course preparing their boats for the season was no easy chore. Engines had to be tested and repaired and where necessary and sometimes replaced at considerable expense. Boats were hauled up over the winter subject to the elements so had to have running gear checked and repaired and often replaced. Boats had to have a fresh coat of paint. For protection below the water line they had to be copper painted. Men fishing for cod fish had to prepare trawls and kegs and place new hooks on them and add buoys and markers and a whole host of functions related to trawl cod fishing. More bait required.
Getting ready for sword fishing was a whole new experience and was normally a bit of a vacation for the lobster fishermen certainly if they had a successful season. There were masts to be stepped, rigging to be repaired and fitted. New rope, darts, and kegs to be purchased and prepared. I can still see Russell Fraser coming back from North Sydney with a full supply of these items purchased for Uncle Willy. Russell always would buy four or five long billed sword fishing caps for the crew and he himself would start wearing his immediately even if the season was weeks away. Ah yes, the way we were. Things are different today but the men and women still must work long hard hours and oftentimes not for good prices for their catch. No matter how modern our equipment there is always the safety issue when you have to go to sea to make a living. God keep them safe.
Cape Breton News 
Recent Comments