After a few months when my father came out of the hospital, he decided to return to fishing. I thought it was unreasonable for a man with one leg to do fishing, but he surprised all of us by diving sea egg and continuing his fishing. I then took up my fishing career with my father and brother and we worked
together for many years.
I felt strongly about walking in my father's foot steps. Fishing was very difficult because the boats used at that time were sail boats and very easy to be turned over by high waves and strong winds.
I remember we would always know when there was a great catch. When we got to the channel we would see branches of smoke. We knew there
were great catches from the boats that came in before us, because the majority of children, men and women would be roasting fish.
In those days, fish prices were very low. I have sold flying fish at 50 cents per 100 and sold dolphin and king fish at 4-6 cents per pound. In those days sea eggs were being sold at 4 cents a shell.
I was a very lucky fisherman, in that in my 53 years of fishing, I never went a drift nor had to swim on the ocean with a boat that capsized.
In those days, a fisherman would get a big potato, place it in the fire and roast it, then put it up for the night. The next day you would put it in a bucket or skillet and off we would go to sea. Some days we had nothing to take.
On the days we had great catches of fish, we would have to get Horse and Carts and travel all over the Country to sell the fish. Very often we would never get them sold. We would have to return to Bayfield and dump them.
I remember leaving home to go fishing some evenings at 4:30 PM and returning the following day at 5 or 6PM. At skeetes Bay you had to swim through the water to get to your boat. If you have ten thousand flying fish you had to swim shore with them, don't care how warm or cold the water was. Fishing in the East part of the Island at Skeetes Bay was very difficult.