You can recognize a troller by the very tall trolling poles that stand straight up higher than the mast when the boat is not fishing. When fishing, the poles are lowered to at least a 45 dgrees and hold several fishing lines each. Each line has a series of leaders with hooks and lines attached. Trolling involves pulling these lines along in the water behind the boat. Trollers target faster species of fish that will chase a lure, like salmon or albacore tuna. The type of lure used and how they are arranged on the lines allow them to target a desired species. An example is to use small red coloured lure to catch sockeye salmon.

Fishwheels are often used in rivers when fish are returning to spawn. Fish wheels are old technology making a comeback. They work like water wheels, and turn because they are pushed by the flow of the river current. Fish swim into the steps of the wheel and are lifted up and into floating pens. There the fish can be sorted and non-target fish easily released without harm.

In British Columbia sunken longlines are used to catch halibut, rockfish, dogfish, and blackcod ( sablefish). In warmer parts of the word, floating longline gear catches swordfish and tuna. Some longlines may be miles long and have thousands of hooks.
A sunken longline is anchored. The anchor has a line to the surface with a buoy and a flag. As the longline gets set out into the water, hundreds of short lines with baited hooks are snapped onto the longline. Another anchor, with a buoy and flag, is attached and dropped at the other end of the line. This gear fishes by itself. After leaving the lines to “soak” for a few hours (or days) to attract fish, longline fishermen return and haul in their catch. As the line is “drummed” aboard fish are quickly removed, hooks are re-baited and the line is set again, so the crew are always busy.

A trawl is a cone-shaped net that is dragged behind a boat. It has a big mouth at the front and tapers back to a narrow “cod-end”. Different types of trawl nets are used to fish in the midwater (pelagic trawling) and along the sea floor (bottom trawling). In BC trawling is used to catch flatfish, rockfish, types of cod, hake and shrimp. Electronics and depth sounders are used to pick the time and place for the playing out of the net. The net is set out cod-end first while the boat is running. The floats on one line and weights on the bottom line help pull the mouth up and down and it is spread open by a long beam (beam trawling, see photo) or by the pressure of the water on two otter boards (otter trawling). Trawling is very efficient, maybe too efficient as it catches everything in the way that cannot out swim the drag-net. That is why trawlers have had to develop methods, like escape grids (see bycatch article) to minimize their impact on other species/bycatch.

Traps, or “pots” , are basically baited cages dropped down to the sea floor. The traps are loaded with bait to attract their catch and then left to soak. For commercial fishing there may be many traps all tied together in a line. Traps are usually used for fishing bottom dwelling species like crab, shrimp, and some fish (sablefish, rockfish). The animals that are too small can escape through the holes in the mesh. Fishers can also decide which animals to keep when they bring up the traps. These days, sections of the traps must be attached with thread that will degrade in sea water. This means that if the trap is lost in a storm it won’t continue catching animals. After a while the trap door will fall open.

Gillnets are long flat nets that hang like curtains from a surface line of floats. They are usually hung close to shore and are continually tended. From underwater gillnets appear almost invisible. They are like a fence that a fish cannot see. The nets are designed so that the spaces are just big enough for the head of the fish, so that when the fish startle and try to back out their gills become trapped in the net, a “gillnet”. In BC, gillnets are used to catch salmon and herring. How deep the nets hang, when they are put out, and the size of the mesh (holes) allow them to be selective and target certain species and sizes of fish. Checking the nets often for bycatch species and the use of revival tanks for fish on board also help make this fishing method more sustainable.

In purse seining, a school of fish is encircled with a seine net which is tightened up below like a drawstring purse so that the fish cannot escape. The net is then pulled aboard. The last part of the net to come aboard is called the bunt, and this is where the fish end up being concentrated. Two boats are needed for purse seining, the seine boat and a smaller skiff, between them the net is pulled out and around in a wide circle. In BC, purse seines were illegal until the 1900’s and were only allowed for herring and pilchard until the late 1930’s when they started being used for salmon. Modern seine boats are very powerful and effcient with large nets and hydraulic winches. If the catch is very large, the entire stern end of the boat can tilt down and the fish are “ramped” up into the boat. This is called ramping and it can be very hard on the fish, often crushing them. Another problem with purse seining is that sometimes bycatch, like marine mammals, get mixed in with the schools of fish and cannot escape from the net once it has been pursed. Seiners are also becoming more sustainable by using revival tanks, avoiding ramping, and putting escape panels in the bunt-end of the nets.

Many people love to fish. But, besides individual sports fishermen, the recreational fishery is also big business with many charter and fishing lodge operations. Sometimes it doesn’t seem like there is that much sport involved, with high-powered boats, modern electronics and fish finders, and power driven downriggers doing most of the work. However, individual fishers with a single pole and line in hand do have the abiltiy to be very selective about what they catch and keep. The use of barbless hooks and species specific gear can help reduce unwanted catches. Also, sport fishing where all the fish caught are released could be promoted. In the Northwest Territories of Canada, “catch and release” fishing has been a success for tourism.

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