Recreational cod fishery a joy for many

By Aaron Beswick

FOR THE SOU’WESTER

All manner of boats hit the water from the Northern Peninsula and Southern Labrador for the recreational cod fishery.

There were speed boats and sail boats, row boats and cabin cruisers, all chasing a fish on which our culture was founded.

Randy Johnson headed out St. Anthony, N.L. harbour with his children for the first time since he left in 1978.

“First time back and we’re not doing very good,” said Johnson.

As if to prove his point, Charlie Colbourne, who’d taken them out in his trapskiff, quickly hauled up a rock cod. Young Pat and Zoe Johnson, raised by Johnson in Alberta, watched in face-wrinkled wonder as Colbourne dropped the fish at their feet.

At coffee shops and stores, conversation turned to the size and quantity of fish being landed more often than the weather – a welcome change.

“The indications so far on the Northern Peninsula are that some of the fish are small and it’s taking many people some time to get their legal limit,” said Bob Lambert, chief of enforcement operations with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO). “A lot depends on the experience of people going out and when fish are in each particular area.”

Meanwhile, he says, people for the most part are complying with regulations keeping them to five fish per day, with a maximum 15 fish to a boat. DFO has only recorded violations in the entire province.