"Sustainable Traditions"
By Sara Thompson

It is July in Legoe Bay.

Figures in orange perch high above the decks of their boats. They wait patiently as the warm sun beats down, but a steady northerly wind assuages the heat. Soon the salmon will arrive, and they will give the order to close the nets. Caught sockeye will be quickly transferred from the cold water of the bay to the live well on the boat. Few fishers use this ancient art known as reef netting, but off the west coast of Lummi Island, a rare breed hopes to reinvigorate the salmon fishery through this method.

Reef netting caught Dave Hanson’s attention because of its cultural and historical significance. Before he arrived in Bellingham in 1986, he fished using gill nets in Bristol Bay, Alaska.

"It seemed to me that (reef netting) was the way you should catch a fish in Puget Sound," Hanson said.

Reef netters fish in pairs of boats. They employ an underwater funnel attached to anchors at the bottom of the sea. Fish swim into the net, which is placed in their normal spawning route. At the end of the funnel, a net is strung between two boats with weights that anchor it in the vertical position. The net is pulled up and the fish are released into a live well. Fishers can then sort through the fish for the targeted catch. Hatchery fish, the targeted catch, are marked by removing the adipose fin, the small fin on the back between the dorsal and tailfin. Endangered, out of season or wild fish are released to the sea unharmed.

"This all takes place in one minute. We raise the net, transfer 50 to 100 sockeye to a live well, then we drop the net again and we are ready to fish," Hanson said.

Reef netting is one of the safest methods of selective commercial fishing available, but only 11 permits are available for fishers — eight around Lummi Island and three around other San Juan Islands. The Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife has been searching for more selective means of fishing because of the weak return of salmon stocks to the region. Reef netting allows fishers to sort through the fish for the targeted catch, and avoid killing endangered steelhead, chinook and coho.

In 1998, 41 permits were available until the government bought out 30 to lower the number of fishing groups in the area, said Ryan Vasak, former onboard observer for the Pacific Salmon Commission.

"Reef netting is so small — we’re practically invisible," said Riley Starks, a local reef netter.

Starks moved to Lummi Island in 1991 and took up reef netting on the island during the summer. It was a part of the culture, he said, and he wanted to make it an integral part of his life.

"It’s a labor of love," Starks said.

In 2000 Starks and Hanson formed Lummi Island Wild, a co-op of five reef netters and two sets of gear; they hope to gain membership from other reef netters.

The environmental impact from reef netting is low, and because reef netters prepare their fish a certain way, they want to set their fish apart from the rest.

"Selling fish is harder than catching fish, by far," said Hanson, who still gill-nets in Bristol Bay to make a living. "Our hope and belief is that eventually everyone will belong to one co-op, marketing all the reef net salmon as ‘reef-net-caught salmon.’"

The fish has a higher quality, a longer shelf life and less scales that are lost when the fish are taken on board, said Pete Granger, a program leader for SeaGrant. Fish are less bruised when caught in a reef net.

Hanson said people should know they have a voice in fishery management by what they purchase.

Other methods of fishing have more deleterious effects on the environment and larger bycatches. Bycatches are the fish unintentionally caught that usually die before they are released back to the water. Many of the bycatch are species that are listed as endangered or threatened.

"Reef netting has the lowest mortality bycatch rate of any gear," Vasak said.

Wild chinook salmon are listed as endangered and are illegal for commercial fisherman to catch in Puget Sound. If a gill netter or a purse seiner were to catch a chinook salmon, the fish would most likely die before the fish was released. A reef netter would be able to release a chinook and have the salmon swim out fine, Granger said.

Department of Fish and Wildlife officials say it hopes to work with the commercial fishing industry to provide an effective method of selective fishing to increase harvesting opportunities but protect the weaker salmon stocks. Because of their concerns about endangered stocks, they consider reef netting as a part of a possible solution to help low salmon populations.

Vasak said reef netting is seasonal and couldn’t replace all other fishing methods completely, but has the lowest environmental impact of all commercial fishing methods.

In 1936, Legislature outlawed fish traps and restricted reef netting in the process because it was labeled as stationary gear, Granger said. Stationary gear is any fixed fishing gear that remains in a single location.

The courts later reversed the law for reef nets because they aren’t fixed. They can move to and from different locations if necessary, even though the nets norm- ally stay at the same locations. The gear is removed at the end of the season and brought ashore.

The Lummis, who historically were reef netters but have not reef netted since the law was passed, are working with Granger to open more sites to the Lummi, said Elden Hillaire, chair of the Natural Resources Commission for Lummi Nation.

"A lot of sites were taken over by non-tribal reef netters," Hillaire said.

The Lummi didn’t act fast enough to regain sites after the law was reversed, he said. He said they would like to some day include reef netting in the education of their youth and make reef netting a part of their culture again, Hillaire said.

Granger also is working on a proposal to bring reef netting to more areas, including the Columbia River, because of its environmental benefits.

"I firmly believe reef netting will be here long after the other gears," Starks said. "It’s sustainable, historic, and a part of the culture here on Lummi Island."