December 3, 2020 — Walter Deyerle, captain of the F/V SeaHarvest IV, explains the basics of the process he and his crew undertake to land sablefish in the waters of the Monterey Bay.
First they lay out a long line, usually set with 2,000 pre-baited hooks, on rods that carry 250 hooks each. The hooks are set 18 inches apart and once the lines are dropped, they expand over about two-thirds of a mile over the sea floor.
Three hours later, the lines are pulled back onto the boat.
“And hopefully,” Deyerle says, “there’s a lot of fish on them.”
A lot of fish means something different during the Covid-19 pandemic. Restaurants are ordering less because there are fewer customers. Exports to Japan are down, because they too have less demand. But when fishing is your life’s work – as it is for Deyerle and his entire family, with aunts and uncles who own the Sea Harvest restaurants, his father running a fish-processing plant while working alongside Walt and his brother, also a commercial fisherman – there has to be a way to get local catch into local bellies.