Yellowknife (Aug 09/06) - A deck full of stinking, bloated whitefish, some so rotten they're oozing, is just part of the job for Yellowknife's three fishery officers.

Gerald Fillatre, Craig Schwartz and Paul Donnelly hauled two abandoned nets out of Great Slave Lake and splattered their rotten spoils onto the deck of the FPV Reliance last Wednesday.

Pulling rotten nets is far from pleasant, but Fillatre said it's satisfying.

"You come home stinking, but you feel good about it," said Fillatre. "I like doing it because I know at the end of the day that net isn't fishing any more."

The officers had received a complaint about the fishing net near the Wool Bay fish plant. It had reportedly been left unchecked for about a week.

Regulations require nets be checked every 30 hours in summer, and all nets must be marked.

The first net the officers pulled last week was marked. After hauling in the 100 yard net and picking out the dead, rotting fish, the officers took photos as evidence and packed the fish into tubs to take back and freeze onshore.

Calling it "the glamorous side of the job," most of the smelly work fell to newbie Donnelly and Murray Somers, a field biologist assigned to the Yellowknife office for the summer.

"Sometimes they're so bad they're growing fungus," observed Schwartz, as he recorded the catch numbers from a safe distance. "They'll fall apart when you touch them, or they'll fall out of the net."

After pulling the first net, they spied a second net nearby, which also turned out be rotten. Those fish were worse than the first, and the officers packed them away still tangled in the net, as they were too putrid to handle. As a crowd of seagulls gathered around the Reliance, a fish broke apart as it touched the deck, its tail end floating off into the lake.

The fine for leaving a net unattended ranges from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand, said Fillatre.

The call-out about the nets gave the officers the opportunity to get acquainted with their new 38ft boat, which, until this summer, had been assigned to the Hay River office.

It's now the largest government boat in Yellowknife, and will be used not only for Department of Fisheries and Oceans business, but also for search and rescues.

The abandoned nets were very close to the Wool Bay fish plant, where commercial fishermen drop off their catches for transport to Yellowknife, Hay River, and eventually Winnipeg. The proximity puzzled the officers, since it would have taken minimal effort to harvest the fish and take them over to the plant.

Most commercial fishing licences for Great Slave Lake are issued through the Hay River office. Hay River has 23 boats and 72 fishermen registered, where Yellowknife has about eight boats and nine fishermen.

Having no less than three DFO staff is a novelty for Yellowknife. Fillatre used to be the only fishery officer, until Schwartz came up from the Prairies division a year and a half ago, and Donnelly joined them this past May.

Before, all Fillatre's time was spent reacting to problems.

"With three, we now have time to do more pro-active stuff," said Fillatre.

Aside from responding to complaints and checking on commercial fisheries, Yellowknife's DFO officers also patrol Great Slave checking sport fishing lodges, and sport fishing licences.

Fishing licences are so cheap and plentiful in the NWT, they estimate only one or two fishermen in 100 doesn't have one.

"We've only charged two people this year," said Schwartz.

For the record, all adults 16 and over require a licence to fish in the NWT. The licence is free if you're 65 or older.

Last week the three were on an eight day trip out to Reliance and back to monitor sport fishing along the East Arm.

In the winter, the officers patrol by snowmobile and, as part of their seasonal duties, check the construction and maintenance of ice roads to make sure fish habitat is not damaged.