A Day in the Life of a Commercial Fisherman
by Vicki Burnett
28th November 2007
The life of a fisherman has many different facets. They are a different breed of men & women, and being part of this industry requires guts and determination. This certainly isn’t an industry for the faint hearted.
As I am involved in the Trawl sector of the fishing industry, I would like to give those of you who love your seafood or anyone who may be interested, a small insight as to what goes on in the life of a fishermen.
Their working days begin mostly at night, except for the days they actually go to sea. This part of the job begins days earlier preparing nets, checking motors, loading cartons, buying groceries and generally maintaining your vessel to ensure all your equipment and motors are in good working order. There is fuel to put on board, which has become our biggest expense as our vessels can burn anything from a few hundred litres a night to over a thousand litres, depending on the size of the vessel.
The day the boats actually leave port usually begins with last minute checks of everything throughout the morning, loading the boats with the groceries that have been bought, making beds, making sure they have enough clothes for a trip, oil checks and any last minute maintenance on the motors, getting the refrigeration up and running, so we can snap freeze and store our product at sea, if you are a refrigerated vessel, or filling your deck box with ice if you are not. The nets need to be layed out on the back deck in preparation to be shot away when you finally reach your trawl grounds.
On leaving port, it is not just a matter of throwing off the ropes and heading east.
As any responsible mariner would know you have to carefully navigate your way out of our busy Mooloolah River, then with great care put down your booms and lock them into place. These steel structures give our vessels a bit more stability but also somewhere to tow our trawl gear from.
Ropes and nets are double checked during the steam to work, to ensure everything is ready when you get to where you are heading.
Once the boats have arrived at the trawl grounds, wherever they may be, in close or out wide, the nets are thrown over the back of the boat and shot away. The depth of the water, will determine how much wire cable has to be let out so the nets reach the bottom, which is usually about three times the length of cable per foot of depth, and is done so, so that your nets are working at their optimum level.
Once the nets are down, the skipper usually keeps watch on his navigational equipment, and watch on other vessels around him. The crew prepares the deck for the night ahead in preparation for the first hauling in of the nets. There is dinner to be cooked, as man can’t work on an empty stomach. There is usually an hour or more to get all this done before they bring in the first shot.
I would also like to mention at this point that our trawl grounds are sandy bottoms and not reef as many people have the misconception of. We have thousands of dollars worth of equipment being towed behind our boats and simply can’t trawl on reef as our equipment would become snagged and could either loose our gear or worse, roll our vessels over. No fishermen are willing to take that risk.
Once the first shot hits the tray, the next stage of the work begins. Remember it is about 8 or 9 o’clock at night by now and they (the fishermen) have been going since around daylight, and so far haven’t made a cent. Still no guarantees this first shot or any shot is going to make them much either, we can only hope. Either way, once the seafood hits the tray it has to be sorted, graded into their different sizes, washed, cooked or kept raw depending on their size, weighed and boxed, before being snapped frozen on board. The non-refrigerated boats follow much the same procedure, except they are not weighed and boxed, they are put into a brine in the ice box and bought home fresh.
This routine continues throughout the night, many times until day breaks. Unfortunately it doesn’t stop there. Now the nets have to be bought on board, cleaned and checked for any damage. After the last shot is processed and all is stowed for the day, the boats working and processing areas must be cleaned as they are, after each shot throughout the night, as we have to follow strict food safety plan procedures to ensure you get the highest quality safe seafood on your plates.
During this time the skipper has found a good place to anchor for the day and has dropped his anchor.
It is getting well into the morning by now and the boys are hungry for a good hearty breakfast. The cooking duties are usually shared by the crew and they look forward to a good breakfast after a hard nights work.
Oh I forgot to mention the secretarial duties our fishermen must undertake, with logbooks that must be recorded after every shot.
We must inform the Government of nearly every little detail of everything our boats do throughout the night. We have to tell them exactly where we trawled, how much we caught and of what species.
Don’t think you can tell the Government anything you want, just to keep them happy, as they know exactly where we are at any given moment due to a VMS (vessel monitoring system) box installed in our wheelhouses. These bits of equipment do have an upside in emergencies they can be used to track the whereabouts of a vessel if in trouble, but unfortunately have been used to prosecute fishermen wrongly, due to improper legislative rulings.
There is also another manual (operations manual) legislated by Qld transport, which we must comply with which also includes secretarial duties with fuel logs, trip checks, crew inductions, and procedures involved.
Our wheelhouses are becoming clogged with manuals, with log books for the Qld DPI&F, operations manual for the Qld Transport, AA program manual, which is enforced by AQIS (Australian Quarantine Inspection Service) to make sure strict procedures are in place and testing is done on a regular basis to ensure the highest quality of seafood is delivered, our fishermen have become super secretaries as well.
Anyway once all the processing, cleaning, maintenance, secretarial duties and breakfast is taken care of, if you’re lucky you may get to have a few hours sleep. If there is any network or gear maintenance needed, it is usually taken care of at this time, and you fit sleep in where you can.
Usually around mid afternoon, if you were lucky enough to get some sleep, its time to get out of bed and the whole process begins again. This continues throughout the entire trip. Smaller vessels may come and go from port each day during shallow water season, while larger vessels will drop anchor and stay at sea.
I should mention at this time that on the back deck of a trawler is not like standing on the deck beside a pool. Our decks are continually wet and moving and constantly being followed by big hungry sharks. Now you know what I mean when I say “not for the faint-hearted”.
A trip can come to an end for many different reasons, if you’re lucky it will be that you have done the amount of nights you set out to do and you have a reasonable catch on board (not usually the case). Other factors can be breakdowns, bad weather, injuries, just to name a few, but I can guarantee it is never because you have a full load and there is no room left for any more product.
The boat is heading west now and looking forward to getting home and seeing the family and having a cold beer. On our steam home our nets are cleaned and bought on board and stowed in a manner that is safe and ready for when we have to get ready to go again. Sometimes there is the chance to scrub down the entire boat before arriving in port, otherwise this is one of the first jobs the day after we arrive home.
Most times, as soon as the boats get to the wharf they unload their catch, depending on the traffic. If a few boats arrive in port on the same day, some unload and some wait until the next day.
Unloading can be different between vessels, the smaller non-refrigerated vessels will scoop their prawns from the ice box into baskets and take them into the factory and have them weighed. They will then clean out the ice-box ready for next trip. The bigger refrigerated boats have all there product stored in cartons in a cold room which is in the hull of the boat. The crew have to get into the cold-room and physically throw every carton by hand to someone on deck who then inturn throws it to someone on the wharf to be stacked on pallets and wrapped and stored in factory cold-rooms. A carton count is done in the factory to give you a weight total, as each carton has already been processed and weighed at sea. Usually these are 5 kilogram cartons, but some boats still use the larger cartons which are not weighed until they are unloaded at port.
Following this it is time to relax a little. But only a little, usually the rest of the day is spent sitting around the boat having a few beers and catching up with family and friends who have come to lend a hand or watch you unload.
The next day it all begins again, the maintenance on the vessels, the preparation for the next trip, which can be the next day or the next week. The one sure thing in fishing is you are never sure when you will come or go to work, as we are not only highly regulated by the Government but ultimately by the weather.
We may spend a few weeks at sea with good weather, but we can also spend weeks at home ruled by bad weather. And this time at home, tied up at the wharf, is also no income.
Depending on the time of year, will determine how far you have to go to catch a feed. Later in the year leading up to Christmas, our shallow water season starts to kick in and our boats don’t have to venture to far to sea, working from just out the front of Mooloolaba to a couple of hours steam away. This will continue through Christmas period and into the first couple of months of the New Year, then our Deep Water season starts to show again. From here on in boats will go to sea for anything from two, three, or even four weeks at a time.
The fishing industry used to be a very viable industry, but with recent restrictions and regulations coupled with high fuel prices and poor markets prices for our produce due to the competition from imported products, it is getting harder and harder to make ends meet.
When we explain to people some of the rules and regulations we have to follow, they are amazed. The following are just a few examples of the requirements we must meet. Different boats have different amounts of nights they are allowed to work, there are mesh size limits, net size limits, horsepower limits, boat length limits, apparatus regulations such as, must have BRD’s (bycatch reduction devices) TED’s (turtle excluder devices) fitted to our nets, there are closed areas where we cannot trawl, and some of these areas we are not even allowed to steam through. All of these and many more rules and regulations have been accepted by the fishermen, some even implemented by them to ensure the future sustainability of our fishery. Unfortunately other outside influences, such as imported products and high fuel prices are now making it near impossible to maintain our businesses. Our trawl fleet over the last few years on the Qld coast has more than halved from around 880 vessels to just over 200. Just over a hundred of these were bought out through Government by-backs, the rest either sold out, got what they could and left the industry, or have simply gone broke.
I just wanted to give those of you who didn’t know, a little insight into just what a fisherman goes through on a daily basis. What has happened to fishing over the last few years has bought a once vibrant industry almost to its knees.
Fishing is a dangerous industry and as I said earlier it is not for the faint hearted and only those with guts and determination will continue to go to sea. Each time we send our husbands/fathers/brothers to sea, we do so in the hope of their safe return. Unfortunately this is not always the case, and in the last 20 odd years we have lost 7 commercial fishermen in the waters off Mooloolaba. We have recently had a memorial statue erected at Fisherman’s Park at the Spit, Mooloolaba to remember those fishermen who lost their lives, trying to put seafood on plates for everyone.
Most of our fishers are second, third and even fourth generation fishermen and do it because they love it. While they sacrifice a lot, with being away from their families for weeks on end and missing out on a lot of their kids school plays, concerts etc. as they grow up, their office and surroundings are far better than any other you will find, and the sense of achievement and knowledge that they have delivered fresh, quality, local, wild-caught seafood, is what keeps them going back next trip to ensure you all have the freshest of seafood on your plates.
So when you sit down table, or have seafood on the Barbie, or even just have fish & chips in the park, stop and think about how you come to get that mouth-watering seafood on your plates and what our men & women in the fishing industry go through to get it for you.
Next time you are down ‘The Spit”, or around any boat harbour, have a walk around the boats and see just what goes on down there, have a yarn to some of the fishermen, they really are a friendly bunch and only to happy to answer any of your questions.
But remember,
Without Commercial Fishermen there is NO mouth-watering seafood.
N.B.
Just as I had finished writing this I received a phone call about an accident that happened at sea last night.
One of the trawlers working off Mooloolaba has been hit with a ship. Earlier I wrote about the dangers our fishermen face every time they go to sea. This really highlights how out of nowhere these things can happen. Gratefully Jamie (the owner/skipper) and his crew were not injured but his vessel has suffered major damage. With just getting back to sea on the 1st of November following a six week Government imposed closure and with Christmas less than a month away, this is a devastating blow to this young fishing family’s life.
Surviving financially in this industry is hard enough with all things going to plan, but when something unforseen like this happens, it makes it near impossible. I don’t doubt for one minute that Jamie, Jodie and their two beautiful little boys will survive this setback, but it will be an enduring struggle. One thing I will say about our trawler fleet is, generally they go about their everyday business and get on with their own jobs but when something like this happens the industry quickly comes together and rallies around the ones in trouble.
Our fishermen and their families are made of tough stuff and the real people in our industry, after a few days of feeling like, “is it all really worth it”, will pick themselves up, dust themselves off and get on with the job. They say what doesn’t kill you, will make you stronger and I believe that is why our fishers are such tough, real people, because this industry is continually having something thrown at it.
Legally this incident will be sorted out but that doesn’t help those involved in the short term. These type of situation can take months sometimes years to be dealt with, in the mean time through no fault of the fishermen, he no longer has the capacity to earn a living.
I am grateful that Jamie and his crew are safe but this is probably the end of his trawler’s fishing days. People outside the industry probably think they are just a boat, go and get another one. Firstly these boats become part of you and it is like loosing a member of your family. Secondly they are not a cheap exercise, to replace a vessel like this, can cost many hundreds of thousand of dollars.
This story began to try and explain a typical day in the life of a fisherman but as you can probably tell by now, a day in the life of a fisherman is far from typical.
by Vicki Burnett
28th November 2007
The life of a fisherman has many different facets. They are a different breed of men & women, and being part of this industry requires guts and determination. This certainly isn’t an industry for the faint hearted.
As I am involved in the Trawl sector of the fishing industry, I would like to give those of you who love your seafood or anyone who may be interested, a small insight as to what goes on in the life of a fishermen.
Their working days begin mostly at night, except for the days they actually go to sea. This part of the job begins days earlier preparing nets, checking motors, loading cartons, buying groceries and generally maintaining your vessel to ensure all your equipment and motors are in good working order. There is fuel to put on board, which has become our biggest expense as our vessels can burn anything from a few hundred litres a night to over a thousand litres, depending on the size of the vessel.
The day the boats actually leave port usually begins with last minute checks of everything throughout the morning, loading the boats with the groceries that have been bought, making beds, making sure they have enough clothes for a trip, oil checks and any last minute maintenance on the motors, getting the refrigeration up and running, so we can snap freeze and store our product at sea, if you are a refrigerated vessel, or filling your deck box with ice if you are not. The nets need to be layed out on the back deck in preparation to be shot away when you finally reach your trawl grounds.
On leaving port, it is not just a matter of throwing off the ropes and heading east.
As any responsible mariner would know you have to carefully navigate your way out of our busy Mooloolah River, then with great care put down your booms and lock them into place. These steel structures give our vessels a bit more stability but also somewhere to tow our trawl gear from.
Ropes and nets are double checked during the steam to work, to ensure everything is ready when you get to where you are heading.
Once the boats have arrived at the trawl grounds, wherever they may be, in close or out wide, the nets are thrown over the back of the boat and shot away. The depth of the water, will determine how much wire cable has to be let out so the nets reach the bottom, which is usually about three times the length of cable per foot of depth, and is done so, so that your nets are working at their optimum level.
Once the nets are down, the skipper usually keeps watch on his navigational equipment, and watch on other vessels around him. The crew prepares the deck for the night ahead in preparation for the first hauling in of the nets. There is dinner to be cooked, as man can’t work on an empty stomach. There is usually an hour or more to get all this done before they bring in the first shot.
I would also like to mention at this point that our trawl grounds are sandy bottoms and not reef as many people have the misconception of. We have thousands of dollars worth of equipment being towed behind our boats and simply can’t trawl on reef as our equipment would become snagged and could either loose our gear or worse, roll our vessels over. No fishermen are willing to take that risk.
Once the first shot hits the tray, the next stage of the work begins. Remember it is about 8 or 9 o’clock at night by now and they (the fishermen) have been going since around daylight, and so far haven’t made a cent. Still no guarantees this first shot or any shot is going to make them much either, we can only hope. Either way, once the seafood hits the tray it has to be sorted, graded into their different sizes, washed, cooked or kept raw depending on their size, weighed and boxed, before being snapped frozen on board. The non-
This routine continues throughout the night, many times until day breaks. Unfortunately it doesn’t stop there. Now the nets have to be bought on board, cleaned and checked for any damage. After the last shot is processed and all is stowed for the day, the boats working and processing areas must be cleaned as they are, after each shot throughout the night, as we have to follow strict food safety plan procedures to ensure you get the highest quality safe seafood on your plates.
During this time the skipper has found a good place to anchor for the day and has dropped his anchor.
It is getting well into the morning by now and the boys are hungry for a good hearty breakfast. The cooking duties are usually shared by the crew and they look forward to a good breakfast after a hard nights work.
Oh I forgot to mention the secretarial duties our fishermen must undertake, with logbooks that must be recorded after every shot.
We must inform the Government of nearly every little detail of everything our boats do throughout the night. We have to tell them exactly where we trawled, how much we caught and of what species.
Don’t think you can tell the Government anything you want, just to keep them happy, as they know exactly where we are at any given moment due to a VMS (vessel monitoring system) box installed in our wheelhouses. These bits of equipment do have an upside in emergencies they can be used to track the whereabouts of a vessel if in trouble, but unfortunately have been used to prosecute fishermen wrongly, due to improper legislative rulings.
There is also another manual (operations manual) legislated by Qld transport, which we must comply with which also includes secretarial duties with fuel logs, trip checks, crew inductions, and procedures involved.
Our wheelhouses are becoming clogged with manuals, with log books for the Qld DPI&F, operations manual for the Qld Transport, AA program manual, which is enforced by AQIS (Australian Quarantine Inspection Service) to make sure strict procedures are in place and testing is done on a regular basis to ensure the highest quality of seafood is delivered, our fishermen have become super secretaries as well.
Anyway once all the processing, cleaning, maintenance, secretarial duties and breakfast is taken care of, if you’re lucky you may get to have a few hours sleep. If there is any network or gear maintenance needed, it is usually taken care of at this time, and you fit sleep in where you can.
Usually around mid afternoon, if you were lucky enough to get some sleep, its time to get out of bed and the whole process begins again. This continues throughout the entire trip. Smaller vessels may come and go from port each day during shallow water season, while larger vessels will drop anchor and stay at sea.
I should mention at this time that on the back deck of a trawler is not like standing on the deck beside a pool. Our decks are continually wet and moving and constantly being followed by big hungry sharks. Now you know what I mean when I say “not for the faint-
A trip can come to an end for many different reasons, if you’re lucky it will be that you have done the amount of nights you set out to do and you have a reasonable catch on board (not usually the case). Other factors can be breakdowns, bad weather, injuries, just to name a few, but I can guarantee it is never because you have a full load and there is no room left for any more product.
The boat is heading west now and looking forward to getting home and seeing the family and having a cold beer. On our steam home our nets are cleaned and bought on board and stowed in a manner that is safe and ready for when we have to get ready to go again. Sometimes there is the chance to scrub down the entire boat before arriving in port, otherwise this is one of the first jobs the day after we arrive home.
Most times, as soon as the boats get to the wharf they unload their catch, depending on the traffic. If a few boats arrive in port on the same day, some unload and some wait until the next day.
Unloading can be different between vessels, the smaller non-
The next day it all begins again, the maintenance on the vessels, the preparation for the next trip, which can be the next day or the next week. The one sure thing in fishing is you are never sure when you will come or go to work, as we are not only highly regulated by the Government but ultimately by the weather.
We may spend a few weeks at sea with good weather, but we can also spend weeks at home ruled by bad weather. And this time at home, tied up at the wharf, is also no income.
Depending on the time of year, will determine how far you have to go to catch a feed. Later in the year leading up to Christmas, our shallow water season starts to kick in and our boats don’t have to venture to far to sea, working from just out the front of Mooloolaba to a couple of hours steam away. This will continue through Christmas period and into the first couple of months of the New Year, then our Deep Water season starts to show again. From here on in boats will go to sea for anything from two, three, or even four weeks at a time.
The fishing industry used to be a very viable industry, but with recent restrictions and regulations coupled with high fuel prices and poor markets prices for our produce due to the competition from imported products, it is getting harder and harder to make ends meet.
When we explain to people some of the rules and regulations we have to follow, they are amazed. The following are just a few examples of the requirements we must meet. Different boats have different amounts of nights they are allowed to work, there are mesh size limits, net size limits, horsepower limits, boat length limits, apparatus regulations such as, must have BRD’s (bycatch reduction devices) TED’s (turtle excluder devices) fitted to our nets, there are closed areas where we cannot trawl, and some of these areas we are not even allowed to steam through. All of these and many more rules and regulations have been accepted by the fishermen, some even implemented by them to ensure the future sustainability of our fishery. Unfortunately other outside influences, such as imported products and high fuel prices are now making it near impossible to maintain our businesses. Our trawl fleet over the last few years on the Qld coast has more than halved from around 880 vessels to just over 200. Just over a hundred of these were bought out through Government by-
I just wanted to give those of you who didn’t know, a little insight into just what a fisherman goes through on a daily basis. What has happened to fishing over the last few years has bought a once vibrant industry almost to its knees.
Fishing is a dangerous industry and as I said earlier it is not for the faint hearted and only those with guts and determination will continue to go to sea. Each time we send our husbands/fathers/brothers to sea, we do so in the hope of their safe return. Unfortunately this is not always the case, and in the last 20 odd years we have lost 7 commercial fishermen in the waters off Mooloolaba. We have recently had a memorial statue erected at Fisherman’s Park at the Spit, Mooloolaba to remember those fishermen who lost their lives, trying to put seafood on plates for everyone.
Most of our fishers are second, third and even fourth generation fishermen and do it because they love it. While they sacrifice a lot, with being away from their families for weeks on end and missing out on a lot of their kids school plays, concerts etc. as they grow up, their office and surroundings are far better than any other you will find, and the sense of achievement and knowledge that they have delivered fresh, quality, local, wild-
So when you sit down table, or have seafood on the Barbie, or even just have fish & chips in the park, stop and think about how you come to get that mouth-
Next time you are down ‘The Spit”, or around any boat harbour, have a walk around the boats and see just what goes on down there, have a yarn to some of the fishermen, they really are a friendly bunch and only to happy to answer any of your questions.
But remember,
Without Commercial Fishermen there is NO mouth-
N.B.
Just as I had finished writing this I received a phone call about an accident that happened at sea last night.
One of the trawlers working off Mooloolaba has been hit with a ship. Earlier I wrote about the dangers our fishermen face every time they go to sea. This really highlights how out of nowhere these things can happen. Gratefully Jamie (the owner/skipper) and his crew were not injured but his vessel has suffered major damage. With just getting back to sea on the 1st of November following a six week Government imposed closure and with Christmas less than a month away, this is a devastating blow to this young fishing family’s life.
Surviving financially in this industry is hard enough with all things going to plan, but when something unforseen like this happens, it makes it near impossible. I don’t doubt for one minute that Jamie, Jodie and their two beautiful little boys will survive this setback, but it will be an enduring struggle. One thing I will say about our trawler fleet is, generally they go about their everyday business and get on with their own jobs but when something like this happens the industry quickly comes together and rallies around the ones in trouble.
Our fishermen and their families are made of tough stuff and the real people in our industry, after a few days of feeling like, “is it all really worth it”, will pick themselves up, dust themselves off and get on with the job. They say what doesn’t kill you, will make you stronger and I believe that is why our fishers are such tough, real people, because this industry is continually having something thrown at it.
Legally this incident will be sorted out but that doesn’t help those involved in the short term. These type of situation can take months sometimes years to be dealt with, in the mean time through no fault of the fishermen, he no longer has the capacity to earn a living.
I am grateful that Jamie and his crew are safe but this is probably the end of his trawler’s fishing days. People outside the industry probably think they are just a boat, go and get another one. Firstly these boats become part of you and it is like loosing a member of your family. Secondly they are not a cheap exercise, to replace a vessel like this, can cost many hundreds of thousand of dollars.
This story began to try and explain a typical day in the life of a fisherman but as you can probably tell by now, a day in the life of a fisherman is far from typical.
