PANNIQTUUQ/PANGNIRTUNG
When Pang seasonal fisherman Dave Sowdluapik hauled in his line on the sea ice last weekend, he was astounded to discover he had hooked 92 turbot - about twice as many as he'd ever caught on a single line.
Ninety-two turbot lay piled up beside the sea ice hole where Dave Sowdluapik's one long line caught a personal record number of fish. -
photo courtesy of Dave Sowdluapik
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"That doesn't usually happen. Once in a blue moon we get luck like that," said the 34-year-old, born-and-raised Pangnirtuurmiuq who fishes for a living. "I started fishing when I was a kid with my dad and I've been fishing ever since."
His dad taught him to fish and now every year, when the turbot licenses come available, Sowdluapik and dozens of residents go fishing. Turbot fishers spend frigid days from January to April out on the frozen bay at holes drilled through the ice dropping lines with about 140 hooks apiece. A good haul for one day is 40 to 50 fish, but last weekend's 92 was a personal best for Sowdluapik who brought his catch in to Pangnirtung Fisheries Ltd.
"They probably have never heard that before," he said.
"It's quite possible they're catching better per line than they were in previous years," said production manager at Pangnirtung Fisheries Ltd. Gordon Duffett about Sowdluapik's big fish haul. "I don't be out on the ice with the boys. All I look at is what they bring into the plant with a full catch.
"They're doing a lot better this year. It's coming in a lot faster and they're fishing a lot closer to shore than they were in previous years," Duffett said.
Without diminishing Sowdluapik's huge catch, Duffett said the turbot are smaller this year, due to the area they're fishing. Still, with the fish plant paying fishermen $1.30 per pound for the catch, it has paid more than $552,000 to local fishermen this season, as of last week, which is good for them and their families who depend on the fishery.
"That's a lot of turbot and that's a lot of money for this area," said Duffett, adding he sees the money in everyday uses such as children wearing new shoes. "(The fishers) do spend it on their families, I've noticed that. In the past few years when the fishery's going good, you see youngsters with more gadgets and new clothes and things like that, so it's a big boost for the community."
As for Sowdluapik, who lives with his wife Anne and has three young daughters and a son, he said come April he may take them fishing the same way his dad once took him.
"It's good fishing but it's too cold for the kids to come fishing right now," he said, explaining how after waiting for his fish to be weighed and a cheque to be issued, he will head back out again alone, hoping for another big haul. "We just go back and forth like that."
