The ThunderBlogs

An eye looked up from a large orange bin of slimy crushed ice— the eye of a sockeye salmon.

Stephanie Arnold, who works for Organic Ocean Seafood, stood under a blue canopy Sunday afternoon selling sockeye on the False Creek Harbour Authority fish sales dock. The long and silver fish sold for $20 each or three for $50. Arnold said this was the last of the sockeye because the sockeye season ended Saturday.

Small groups of people gathered near the canopy to discuss the fish as the sun succumbed to mist and cloud. Laughter flowed as Arnold joked with one man after he said he was going to give his fish a name. She told customers and potential customers how to store and cook the fish, and how the fish was caught.

“They’re all line and hook caught,” said Arnold, wearing a grey hoodie and capris. She said this is a sustainable method of fishing.

According to the Organic Ocean website, “To limit the catch to only targeted species (and to avoid the non-targeted bycatch of vulnerable stocks), we troll salmon by hook-and-line (with species-specific lures) and harvest in terminal net fisheries (directing the catch in areas where only the targeted species is present).”

“2010 is turning out to be a banner year for Fraser River sockeye salmon, with this year’s return currently set at just over 25 million fish, one of the highest returns in the last hundred years,” according to a statement released in late August from Gail Shea, minister of fisheries and oceans. While the number of sockeye was high this year, the government it would keep working on sustainability with the fishery, according to the statement.

Mark Jorgensen, one of the fishers of the sockeye, sat on the edge of the dock. Jorgensen, who was wearing shorts and a blue Seattle Mariners t-shirt, said the fish was caught just south of the Fraser River.

Arnold said people are starting to better understand sustainable fishing, but it just depends on who comes down to the dock.

“I’m going to a play. I don’t think I should take my fish with me,” said a woman with a gold and silver coloured bag on her arm

She said she’d be back.

“Most people I tell them when they first come up [how the fish is caught] and they’re like ‘oh that’s interesting’ you know and then they want to buy it because it’s sustainable,” said Arnold.