A story from my book Through Waves and Gales Come Fishermens Tales: One of nearly 100 stories about the men and women enduring what Mother Nature wills. Jake Ellefson, a Washington Island commercial fisherman, recalled one day back in the winter of 1955 that he and his brothers Klemmet “Kay” and Steve ventured out to retrieve some nets that had been set northwest of St. Martin Island. The whitefish harvests were lean that year and every day was important and possibly offered a chance for a big lift. Jake recalled: A Way We Go In a Snowy Blow One foul weather day, I remember, we were in the Esther C. It was in the mid 1950s. We were trying to make our living, you know, we shouldn’t have been fishing. There wasn’t hardly any fish around, but we had our nets set northwest of St. Martin Island in January — hard place to be. Of course, you had to have an east blow in order to get up there — in order to have the ice clear off St. Martin. When we finally got going that morning out of Jackson Harbor, it was blowing hard, but we managed to make it out of the “cut” with the Esther C., and of course we only had a 30-36 horsepower Kahlenberg engine, and so the way we went, and, oh, did it blow hard and it kept freshening. We got up there and found the nets and then it started to snow — just a blizzard, you know, 40 mph out of the southeast. We found the buoy and began lifting the nets. Of course, once we made the lift, we didnt have brains enough to keep them in the boat, we reset them. It was blowing so hard we didnt worry about snow and ice accumulating on the boat. After resetting the gang, we went east, found Gravelly Island Shoal, and came right up on that and worked our way south along St. Martin’s. Steve and I thought we’d better lay in by South Bay for the night — it was miserable. In those days, “Butch” [brother Klemmet] was the skipper and he said, “I got a course on Rock Island — we’ll make er all right.” By golly, we hit Rock Island dead center. It let up a little bit, so we worked her around and hit a big sea coming around the southeast point, but there wasn’t a lot of ice in the “cut”. I don’t know why there wasn’t, but there just wasn’t. We made it – just barely to see enough to get in. We just about scared our parents to death. All three of us brothers were on the boat that day. That was the first big blow I remember — I was thirty years old. After that time, he [our father] didn’t worry so much. Another time we were out in the Esther C. in our traditional chub grounds — 10 to 12 miles out — a little east, southeast. We were in Detroit Harbor that time, and we left heading up there, because we knew we could get a lift. It was blowing hard, and it was tough pecking for that old tug, but we finally got to the nets. Then it [wind] freshened some more. We lifted and then reset the gang of nets. On the way home, there was a big following sea. I thought they were going to pile right over the stern, but it never did. It didn’t get the comber at the right time. We made it home. We got back into Detroit Harbor. No sooner than we tied up, the snow came, just thick. You talk about luck. Snow in my book, you know, bad snowstorms are by far the worst. You just can’t see. You can see ahead a little ways, but with heavy snow you can’t look into it — it’s impossible. Years ago, some of those old fishermen, like the Richter’s [Earl and Roy] would run to the Guiken Reef from Detroit Harbor — leave at 11:00 p.m. Earl was the skipper then, and they would run into a heavy northeast blow. They’d leave from the East Channel in the spring of the year – six hours to the Guiken Reef, and how in the world did he know, running clock and compass, how much time he’d lose? How did he know? By golly, he never failed to find the net buoy. Many fishermen thought he was the best skipper they ever saw or worked with. Some days there was a lot of current, and some days not so much. How are you going to know that? Those old boats would lose a lot of time in bad weather — no fathometers or anything. It was amazing how some of those old fishermen could navigate with so little. Trygvie Jensen
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 11:51:23 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015