Squiddin In days gone by, this time of year - August and - TopicsExpress

Squiddin In days gone by, this time of year - August and September - was very important for anyone in the fishing industry and that was just about everyone. It was squid jiggin time, squid being bait used in the trawl fishery. In those days fish meant cod; everything else was what it was. A young boy walked out onto the wharf when the motorboats came in from fishin and asked: “What kinda fish is that, Poppy”. “Don’t you be so foolish, das not a fish das a mackerel”. A fisherman had to have bait. No bait no fish; no fish no money or credit with the merchants; no credit, not enough food; not enough food, weariness, hunger and worry; weariness and hunger, susceptibility to sickness and disease which could lead to very serious consequences. As an indication of the necessity to have bait, and in particular squid, Bar Haven fishermen were known to have travelled to Come-by-Chance, a two hour run by motorboat, found a ride to Sunnyside, borrowed a dory to jig some squid, found a truck to take them back to Come-by-Chance and then on back home. Fortunately that wasn’t a regular occurrence. Still a normal day wasn’t easy. You got your squid either late in the evening or, if that failed, be up and trying again at half-past two or three in the morning so as to be on the fishing grounds by daylight. For young boys however, it was mostly fun. Though it may have happened, I never did see a girl in the jiggin cove. This may be a challenge for any girl who was, to tell her story. We probably started out with one jigger instead of two as the pros would have. There would be no instruction, just let your jigger a fathom or so down and saw up and down until you felt weight. When we hooked our first squid we couldn’t resist the temptation to look over the side as we pulled it up; only once though. When the squid juice hit us between the eyes or passed our gizzard we soon learned to “shut up and jig”. In very short order we advanced to two jiggers and learned to direct the squid squirt at something else or someone else. Bar Haven island fishermen had several places for squid jigging; the two places they regularly used were the Tickle-ace Rock just outside the harbour point and Western Cove, about twenty minutes away from the harbour. I have some memories of the jiggin cove, a few of which I can relate. First you’d need to know that motorboats in the jiggin cove were anchored such that they were separated from each other with enough space between them to jig squid. On this particular evening, eight or ten boats were anchored at the Ticlkle-ace Rock for a while sawin their jiggers but with no luck. After a half hour or so the Smith brothers, Jack and Frank came out, anchored a hundred feet or so from everyone else, threw out their jiggers and hit the squid right away. A man in our group, the usually quick-witted Doug Wadman said, “ Now boys, look at that. The devil must have told them the squids were there”. It didn’t matter. Pretty soon the squid came our way and everyone was happy. The second occasion I remember was in Western Cove. It was dark, calm and also quiet since the squid hadn’t arrived yet. It might help to know that this was in the mid 1950’s and radios were turned on only to hear the Doyle New Bulletin and The Big 6, Uncle Mose and maybe Second Spring. There was very little conversation when out of the blue one of the men said, “Boys I was listenin to that fella Elvis Presley. He’s not a bad hand to sing you know”. As I recall, there was no comment. The man who said that was surely ahead of his time. We knew him pretty well since his brother Jack and he would take part in the trap fishery with my father. It was Peter Mulrooney. The third and most vivid squid jigging memory was a morning occasion somewhere between Drudge Bar Cove and Green Point outside Western Cove, the one and only time we used that as a jiggiin cove. It was a morning after an easterly wind, still a bit rough, rainin hard and a bit cold but we got lots of squid. The old man and myself were the only motorboat out of the harbour that morning. Why I don’t know. It must have been that for some reason we didn’t get squid the evening before. None of this was what made it memorable though. While it may be a common sight for real fishermen, what I saw that morning is still my most memorable jiggin cove experience. Off twelve or so miles distant around Tack’s Beach was the most incredible display of lightening I have ever seen. It was from sky to land in a variety of patterns – explosions in the sky - and went on for a half hour or more. That was in a time when the only thing we were likely to know about thunder and lightening was blankets up to the window and over the iron bedposts and blankets hauled over our head in fear of lightening. Seventeen times the word squid, eighteen now, has appeared in this little spiel. That’s probably an indication of the importance of squid, oops nineteen, in those bygone days.