New Gulf Island Gourmet Cruise

A day of fishing, seafood cooking class and dining on the sea

Saturday December 1, 2013

 

Limited to 6 spaces

$150 per person

$25 special price for 3 lucky CSF members who join by May 9^th

These 3 spots will be selected by draw from all members whose Member Share Forms and payments are received by May 9^th (opening day of prawn season).

Michelle Rose is trying something new this year. There was so much interest in our draw for the day out fishing this spring, the lucky winner Jody from Victoria coming for her prize day at sea this Saturday, April 27th. We’ve also been getting lots of questions about the best ways to cook salmon, prawns and crab. So, I’m offering a cooking class cruise that will take you all the way from catching, to cooking and eating a simple and sumptuous meal of fresh seafood out on the water. 

Full price is $150 per person, but everyone who has paid up their 2013 Community Supported Fishery member share by May 9th will be entered in a draw for one of 3 spots for a day of cruising, cooking and eating on the new Michelle Rose at a nominal cost of $25 each.

What will we do? Included will be a day out fishing for prawns and crabs in the southern Gulf Islands.  This will give you a first-hand experience of a day-in-the life of a small boat fisherman and his crew.  You’ll see how seafood is sustainably caught on a working fish boat and get a tour of the Michelle Rose to understand how a commercial prawner/ salmon troller is set up, and how we live on board during the season. We’ll tell you able what makes our type of fishing low impact and sustainable as recognized by Ocean Wise. And of course we’ll catch, clean and prepare for cooking some prawns and crab.  This will be as hands-on as you want, or you can sit back and take it all in. I’ll share some of my favorite recipes that I cook both when I’m out fishing with the crew and back at home with my family - simple but good.

We will also cruise up to the new conservation area at Sansum Point in the narrows between Cowichan Bay and Maple Bay. This unique area is only accessible by boat and has changed little from when my father traveled in this area back in the 1920-30s.

We’ll come back at dusk to participate in the annual Christmas lights sail past in Cowichan Bay and be back at the dock by 7:00pm.

 

In addition to the draw for CSF members, there will also be 3 tickets available for the regular price of $150 per person.   It will be a great day.  Hope you will consider joining us.

Going Fishing!!

Hello Everyone
  Well after a beautiful summer ,but no fishing we are finally leaving for the grounds . Chum salmon have been showing up in larger than predicted numbers and we will have an opportunity to fish, silver brite chums up in Johnstone Straits north of Campbell River for a good part of October. I left with my friend and CSF member Geoff tuesday afternoon to get the boat up north ready for fishing. Monday was the first real SE blow in a long time, it was still blowing SE 25-35 knots by nightfall tuesday so we anchoured up south of Dodds narrows for the night. We got a early start the next morning and where happy to see the winds had gone down. We had a nice crossing of Georgia Strait and arrived in Campbell River late Wednesday night. My usual crew are off doing other things, Sebastien is back at McGill University in Montreal working on his BSc.Rosalie is at UVIC for her first symester and work on shore for the winter down in Victoria, Clay has gone Tuna fishing ,when there where no salmon opportunities this summer, he has been ranging up down the west coast of the Island and Haida Gwaii looking for Tuna.    Cam who fished with me for many years before he became a Fireman ,has arranged some time off and is coming up for the Chum fishery. As well Sam a friend of Rosalie has just come back from working up north with his Dad and after a couple of days home will be coming with us .
   The final pick up day for those who do not have all their share will be in late  October or early November. I will send out a email to all those who have fish to pick up .
Guy and the crew

Recipe: Octopus greek style

After selling octopus to the CSF for the first time this year, we thought it would be appropriate to give some tips on cooking the under appreciated seafood delicacy. Here is a recipe à la grecqe!


Octopus greek style

• 1 fresh or frozen octopus (1.5 kg)
• 1 tsp sugar
• ½ cup (125 ml) olive oil
• 2 cups (500 ml) tomatoes, diced
• ¾ cup (177 ml) custom red wine (1/2 cup 125 ml light red wine and ¼ cup 60 ml sherry)
• 2 Zucchini, cut in ½ inch rounds
• 2 small purple or Chinese eggplant, cut in ½ inch rounds (see picture below)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Place octopus into a medium sized pot and fill with water until octopus is just covered, add sugar and boil lightly for about 1 hour. Octopus should be tender when poked with a fork and should be cooked enough to strip off the skin and suckers. Drain, set aside and cut legs apart. In a clean pot add olive oil (about 1/8 inch deep), and add octopus pieces, salt and pepper to taste. Saute for about 10 minutes then add tomatoes, zucchini, wine mixture and eggplant. Cook until vegetables are soft, serve immediately.

Note: Need to cook the octopus enough to be able to strip off the skin and suckers. The long, purple eggplant is usually found in oriental grocery stores. The Cretans make an interesting home-made wine from their own grapes. The flavour, as best we can describe, is a light (cheap) red wine and sherry mixed. The proportions above have not been tested yet. Serve with a Greek salad and Retsina. Enjoy!

Here is a link to the recipe should you want to print it

Prawn Season /Salmon 2012

It has been an eventful season this year. There where 2 vessel roll overs this season. Capsizing is the constant threat in the prawn fishery, we leave for the fishing grounds with empty holds and our decks loaded with traps , moving the vessel's centre of gravity up and making the vessel less stable. The prawn industry has been working hard to reduce the number of capsizings and fortunately there was no loss of life in either of the accidents. I represented the prawn fleet in the first vessel stabilty course on this coast developed by Fish Safe ( a fishermen run safety organization). We were the feed back group to make sure the course was well designed for us as fishermen.

    The first vessel to roll this season was not too far from the coast guard station in Bamfield, the crew was rescued quickly. The other boat up in Hecate Straits -probably crossing to Haida Gwaii never even got off a MayDay. The crew mamged to sail their life boat to the west side of Banks Island and made it a shore which can be no small feat that time of year on the exposed western shore. They were fishermen from well known Haida fishing families, being freezerboat fishermen no one would even expect them in for 2-3 weeks ( the time of a regular trip) much less start to looking for them. They said that once they where a shore they lived well from the bounty of the seas. They were lucky it was only 10 days they spent ashore as the west side of Banks Island is a pretty lonely part of the coast. By chance a boat was passing by where they came a shore and they where able to attract his attention and were rescued.
    On the Michelle Rose things where decidedly less adventful. We started the season up at the north end of the island and after a few weeks of mediocre fishing moved south and finished off the season fishing the gulf islands close to home.

       Towards the end of prawns I was able to track down a north coast salmon troll license, so we will be fishing salmon this year for the CSF. The south coast where we usually fish is on an off cycle year and theres little likely hood of us being able to fish down here. We will leave  for the north coast and see you all come the end of August/early September!

Start of Prawn Fishing

May 1st:  We set out from Cowichan Bay on Sunday April 29th, but did not get to far before we discovered a problem with an alternator over charging and had to pull into Ladysmith to get things fixed up. Left from Ladysmith on Monday afternoon and made good time up to Lasqueti Island where we stopped for the night. The weather held for us as we continued early the next morning for Seymour Narrows. Fair tides and light winds allowed us a uneventful rest of the trip up the coast.

Arriving to the snow covered mountains in the inlets we traveled to where we like to fish and proceeded to get the traps baited and ready for opening day. We are not expecting a big prawn season here up here north as the signs at the end of the last season pointed to an average to low season this year.

May 8th:  We have been fishing for a few days now and it appears that fishing will be down from last year as we expected. With less prawns around we are only finding them in the favoured feeding areas (called honey holes). With less prawns there are also less and smaller octopus.

The salmon farms use Slice a insecticide to get rid of sea lice from their fish. The Slice is also  toxic for other shellfish like prawns and crab, so there is a dead zone for a mile or so around farms that have been treated this past winter. We will be moving more this year to different grounds throughout the season.

We may not be fishing much where the King shrimp are, so there may not be any for the CSF this year. The weather is warmer and dryer, the ocean temperature 3 or 4 degrees higher than the previous year.

This year the crew is my Son Sebastien back from University and my daughter Rosalie who has finished high school and is coming for her first full fishing season this year and Clay Minette-Crow is back again to round out the crew.  We will update you with news of the fishing season from time to time

Out of the shipyard!

We are out of the shipyard now, and working hard at getting everything done before we head out! ( To weeks!!!)
Here are some photos; Clay is splicing new lines for our traps to go onto, and of course my girl, getting her belly cleaned, and all the royal treatments!

Get your shares in soon! :)

More and more photos

"sometimes they get really tired ... and i take pictures of them"

.."and when there's no fishing to be had, we make the best movie theatre in town, to settle down and watch Thor"

"..and sometimes we see a tree standing in the water, and its the topic of the week."