The Whitefish Nets We Brought Back

Why Not the Wardens

I want to answer something right away, because people have asked me since.

Why didn’t I call the conservation wardens that Monday? Why didn’t I call the sheriff and have them go knock on Lyle’s door?

I did think about it. Toivo thought about it too. We sat in the wheelhouse that afternoon with that cut line on the dash between us and talked it all the way through.

The wardens would come. They are good people and they know us. They would take a report, and look at the line, and say it was cut, and ask if we saw anybody do it.

And we had not seen anybody do it. Not with our own eyes, out there on the water. We only knew who had a boat and a knife and a reason.

A report like that takes a month. Maybe more. And every single day those nets sat on the bottom unmarked, they were still fishing.

That is the part people do not understand. A gill net does not stop catching fish because nobody can find it. Whitefish swim into it and hang there. In June, in two or three days, they spoil.

So every day we waited for the law, we were losing fish we could not sell, and our nets were filling up with dead whitefish that would rot the twine and draw every sculpin and burbot on the bottom.

And there was one more thing. The state looks at your catch reports when your license comes up. A license that is not fished does not stay a license for long.

Lyle knew all of that. That was the whole idea. He did not need to sink my nets forever. He only needed them gone long enough to make me tired.

So I made up my mind before we even got back to the dock.

We were not going to wait for anybody. We were going to go get them.