SHRIMP FISHING One shrimp boat, the Pacific Rancher, is fishing in our area almost every day, storms excepted, and never on Sunday. Today being Sunday, I thought it might be docked in the Comox boat harbour, so I went to investigate. Sure enough, there it was, the Pacific Rancher.
It is a good sized boat, solidly built of aluminum. At the stern are its nets rolled up on a large reel. The fisherman wasn't there but I talked to the fisherman in the next boat selling the salmon he had caught up north.
The shrimpboat's owner is "Ledo" he told me. And the area he fishes (just off Hornby) is commonly called "Ledo's Lane". He's fished there for years. There used to be a big black boat fishing there, I told him. I liked its name - the "Love and Anarchy".
That boat was owned by Ledo also. Ledo's father is the owner of "Portuguese Joe's Fish Market" in Comox. Joe died a couple of years ago but Ledo's mother carries it on.
Ledo's boat, "Love and Anarchy" was sunk off the west coast of Vancouver Island a couple years ago - that's why you don't see it any more. But Ledo is fishing again in the "Pacific Rancher" and he's back in his old territory.
I feel that Ledo and his shrimp boats are part of our neighbourhood just as our eagles are, just as George (the gull) and the cormorants are, just as the harlequins are and all the other creatures. I'm sure our eagles feel the same way - always watching for by-catch discarded from Ledo's boats.