The County Catch

County fishers face lean times, but there’s a silver lining

The waters around Prince Edward County are teeming with fish, but the commercial fishers of the County have so far had little reason to venture out to fill their nets with valuable yellow perch. They would typically head out to cast their nets as soon as the ice disappeared from the fish-rich bays, earning a significant part of their income by sending their catch to the processing plants along Lake Erie. But this year, those plants’ freezers are already chock full of perch—from countries such as Russia, Poland and Finland—and there’s no room for the County’s catch. Last year, those plants made huge purchases of Eurasian perch fillets at extremely low prices. The Eurasian perch is larger than its North American cousin, reaching up to six pounds, and at this time it is unknown how the Erie plants will market this product. What is certain is that they won’t accept Lake Ontario perch until at least the summer, and then only after giving the Erie fisheries first priority.

(L-R): Sleiman Al Jasem stands with his mother, Sawsan, together with Kendall and Joanne Dewey.

This is a severe economic setback to the commercial fishers from Brighton all the way up to the mouth of the St. Lawrence. On average, 51 per cent of their annual income is derived from yellow perch. There is currently a small market for other fish, such as pickerel and whitefish, which are a bycatch for most County fishers. But it is not economically viable for them to just keep those species and release the perch from their live-capture nets. David Baverstock’s family has been fishing these waters since 1898, and he has been plying his trade for about 50 years. He has yet to start fishing this season. “For me, 75 to 80 per cent of my catch would be perch,” he says. “I spent the whole winter making nets for perch. I’m a little bit more fortunate than some of the other fishermen because I have other species I may be able to target. I may try to catch whitefish and pickerel, and when the weather warms up, American eel. In the spring and summer it’s going to be a little tough for me to catch those fish. I’ll be taking a hit for sure.”

Most of the fishers in this area would ordinarily send their catch to Kendall Dewey, who operates Dewey Fisheries with his wife, Joanne.

The Deweys would then send a bulk shipment to the Lake Erie processing facilities. Last April, they shipped a total of 49, 813 pounds of yellow perch from 15 County fisheries, which represented 52 people actively fishing. That market has now disappeared, and the fishers are now only catching enough to supply a few local customers. “We are limiting how many fish we bring in out of our own catch,” says Kendall. “We’ve had to release well over 1,000 pounds of perfectly good yellow perch back into the water this year.”

County fisheries do not have the ability to expand their service to the local market to make up for the loss of supply to the processing plants. “We’ve limited ourselves to certain restaurants in Prince Edward County. We’ve sold to individual customers by word of mouth, but never, ever advertised,” says Kendall. “We don’t have a formal retail outlet. We’ve done some fish fries for local clubs, but we’ve really tried to stay hidden.” That’s because Kendall and Joanne simply don’t have the time during the busy part of the season. It is not unusual for them to work over 70 hours during the week. “By the time we’ve emptied our nets, and looked after our nets, and looked after everybody else’s fish when they come in, there’s no time to process [the fish],” says Joanne.

Sleiman Al Jasem fillets a yellow perch in the processing room at Dewey Fisheries.

The loss of the yellow perch fishery for the next few months will be a hardship for County fishers, but there is one small silver lining. The Deweys had been looking for someone to make use of their small processing facility, which mostly sits unused. After seeing the movie SponsorLand, which documents the arrival of a Syrian refugee family to the County, they approached the sponsoring group (PEC Syria) to see if any of the family members would be interested. They then met with 21-yearold Sleiman Al Jasem, who enthusiastically accepted this new opportunity. With the help of a governmentfunded program through the Prince Edward Learning Centre, Sleiman will be paid at the minimum wage for 17 weeks as he learns how to process fish and then market and sell the product. “Sleiman was certainly very interested in doing it, so we’ve been training him and now he’s at the point where he’s getting faster every day doing the processing,” says Kendall. “Anything that he’s processing right now, he’s selling and with any income he makes he still has to buy the fish, but we’ve basically told him the sky’s the limit. We’re excited. There’s still a viable local fishery here and we don’t want to lose that.”

In the three weeks since he started, Sleiman has become proficient at processing fish, although Kendall still offers him tips on how to maintain his posture so that he doesn’t become overtired during the long day. Over the weekend, Sleiman, with the help of his mother, Sawsan, processed more than 100 kilograms of fish. He has already supplied a small amount of fresh fish to a few local restaurants, but otherwise his only marketing has been through a Facebook page, (facebook.com/The- County-Catch-1810796799226295). Right now, most of his product is headed to the freezer so that he will have a good supply at the Wellington Farmers’ Market when it opens on May 19, but he will gladly supply small orders to anyone who wants to taste the bounty of the County’s waters—and at the same time help a fledgling venture take flight.

For more information, contact Sleiman at 613.919.4597 or sleimanalhsam@gmail.com