The goal is higher-quality fish.

That’s why one Canadian offshore fishing company is ditching gill nets in favour of hook-and-line fishing.

The Arctic Fishery Alliance (AFA) of Nunavut just bought a 52-metre longliner from Iceland to fish its quota of Greenland halibut (turbot) in the Davis Strait, near the Arctic Circle.

AFA general manager Harry Earle told SaltWire Network the vessel — currently named Anna — is undergoing some upgrades in Iceland and will join the AFA fleet in 2023.

In addition to adding modern processing equipment on board, the vessel will be fitted with a Mustad longline system, enabling the ship to deploy 40,000 fishing hooks daily.

To fetch the best possible price in the market, a turbot fillet must be pure white.

“And you don’t get that using gill nets,” said Earle.

Fish caught in gill nets are often bruised, and by the time the net is hauled the fish could have been dead for hours.

In Iceland, he said, where they’ve been using the hook-and-line system for years, “The first thing they do is cut the throat of the fish.”

With the new boat and fishing gear, the AFA will be able to do exactly that as soon as the turbot comes aboard, creating a “superior quality” product for the marketplace.

“This improved quality will result in increased market access and returns for Canadian turbot,” said the AFA.

A unique feature of the vessel, which was built in Norway in 2001 as a factory freezer longliner, is the “moonpool” in the centre of the ship to retrieve the fishing gear.

On their current vessels, crew retrieve gear from the side of the ship.

The moonpool allows the catch to be landed directly through a channel in the bottom of the ship, close to the below-deck processing lines. It also allows bycatch to be released quickly, and live, back to the ocean.

It also makes for safer, and more comfortable, fishing for crew members because they won’t have to fish from the deck, where they are exposed to the weather.

The hook-and-line system should also help reduce the risk of whale entanglements, a problem common with gill nets, according to a spokesperson for the company that’s supplying the technology.

Kerwin Wellon is the Eastern Canada manager for the Norwegian company Mustad Autoline, with a storefront in Mount Pearl, Newfoundland. https://mustadautoline.com/

He told SaltWire the system being installed on the AFA vessel is all electric.

It’s quiet, he said.

The noise from hydraulic systems, he explained, seem to attract marine mammals, like whales.

“It’s like ringing a bell for a dog,” he said, as whales and other mammals are attracted to the sounds of fishing because it leads to an easy meal as the gear is being hauled.

But that causes problems, like entanglements.

Quieter fishing gear could reduce that risk, suggested Wellon.

Jaypetee Akeeago, executive chairman of the AFA, said the new vessel will also have more space for crew, with accommodations for 29 people, during the turbot fishing season that runs from May until November.

“This expanded accommodation will enable us to operate the vessel 24 hours per day on a two-shift basis and, most importantly, permit us to have a major increase of Inuit harvesters in our crew working in a much more comfortable work environment than on our current smaller gillnet vessel Suvak,” said Akeeago.

The Anna — which will be renamed Kiviuq 1 — is also ice-strengthened to ice Class C, meaning it will be able to operate safely in ice conditions in waters adjacent to Nunavut.

The Artic Fisheries Alliance is the first Canadian offshore company to use the e-longline technology for turbot fishing.

Inshore boats in Newfoundland and Labrador have also started to ditch gill nets in favour of hooks and lines to catch cod, halibut and turbot.

Lee Melindy, who fishes out of Lumsden in Bonavista Bay, was one of the first to install the system on his 40ft boat.

This is his fifth season using the hook and line technolgoy.

"We're getting good catch rates," he said, adding it's also saving them time on the water.

"We usually set around midnight. It takes about four to five hours to set out the hooks. Then we wait an hour or so and start hauling."

The fish come aboard live, he said, and are bled right away and stored in a slush ice system for the trip back to land.

Wellon explained the system for the inshore fleet uses hydraulics, which costs a little more to operate than an electric system.

Still, he said, it saves time in terms of equipment loss and fishing time.

Usually, he said, a gill net will last a few weeks to a month, depending on how frequently it’s used. Fish harvesters constantly have to replace the mesh in the net, or trash it and buy a new one.

Gill nets also go missing, breaking clear of their moorings in bad weather and becoming refuse in the sea.

Typically, he said, fish harvesters set their gill nets and leave them to sit for a day or so, then go back to retrieve them.

With the hook-and-line system, he said, the “soak time” is around an hour.

The lines can be hauled the same day they’re set, meaning less chances of loss, and less time steaming to set and retrieve gear.

“Even if you do have to leave the hooks and lines in the water, they’re sitting on the bottom (and) not still fishing," he said.

Wellon has already sold 40 inshore boats in Newfoundland and Labrador on the idea of hook and line.

Most of them are on 65-foot longliners, he said, but just last week they installed one on a 40-foot boat.

He’s also getting interest from some skippers in Nova Scotia and Quebec.

And he’s heading to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, to try to sell harvesters from that area on the longline system.

The technology has been proven, he said, noting countries like Iceland and Norway have been using the technology for years.

“They’re been doing a lot of research on this system. It’s come a long ways, and it’s proven,” he said.

Atlantic Canada, it seems, is just starting to catch up.

Arctic Fishery Alliance Limited Partnership (AFA) is a 100 per cent Inuit-owned and governed partnership consisting of four Nunavut communities — Qikiqtarjuaq, Grise Fiord, Arctic Bay and Resolute Bay — and their respective hunters and trappers associations (HTA). AFA owns and operates two 30-metre (99-foot) steel fixed-gear fishing vessels: the Suvak and the Kiviuq.  These sister ships are equipped with freezing-at-sea capabilities.  The Suvak operates in NAFO divisions 0A and 0B during the summer, catching AFA’s Nunavut turbot quotas.  The Kiviuq conducts marine research and delivers supplies to AFA’s owner communities during the summer and fishes Atlantic halibut off Newfoundland on the Grand Banks in the winter. With the arrival of a new vessel, the Anna, in 2023, the Suvak will be retired.

Source: http://www.arcticfisheryalliance.com/

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