One of our new friends, who we met after moving to the Pacific Northwest, grew up on one of the islands in he San Juans. He knows the waters and islands in our area of the Salish Sea like I know the creeks and drainages of the Boulder River valley in Montana. I find it fairly easy to remain oriented on land and am aware of the four directions, I find travel on the water to be more confusing. Whether riding on the ferry or cruising on another boat, I rely on the captain to keep us going in the right direction.

Our friend owns a modest boat and is a skilled fisherman. Last night we sat down to an excellent dinner that featured a large Halibut filet that he gave us. I baked the fish with butter, paprika, garlic, and salt and pepper. The meat was tender and flaky. A few beans fresh from the garden boiled and then sautéed in a bit of olive oil and a tossed salad rounded out the meal.

Halibut fishing in the Salish Sea around the islands is tightly controlled. Anglers must have a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) catch record card and record the size and weight of each fish caught. The limit for halibut is one fish per day that meets size requirements with a six fish per year limit. halibut are caught in the spring and in the fall. I suspect that the portion of the filet that ended up in our freezer was part of preparing the freezer for another fishing trip. It came from a big fish. Our piece was over 3” thick and was more than enough to feed two of us for dinner. The leftover fish is going to make a great lunch.

I’m not going to become a great fisher. I grew up fishing for trout in the creeks and streams of Montana and I learned a bit about fishing in lakes and reservoirs over the course of my life, but I have never had a passion for fishing like that of some of my friends. I do, however, love to eat fish and I know several ways to cook fish. It is different for our friend. Like his innate sense of location when he is out on the water, fishing comes from deep in his past. He grew up on boats on the water fishing for salmon, halibut, rockfish, lingcod and Pacific cod. He can’t remember the first time he went fishing with his father and uncles. It is just something that he has always done.

The sea offers a rich bounty of food for those who know how to harvest it. The local parks and recreation district offers classes in harvesting crabs, clams and mussels. I plan to take those classes, but so far have not made the time. I’d like to know more about harvesting food. I don’t intend to ever own a boat big enough for offshore fishing. I can use our small row boat and probably even a canoe to set a few crab traps once I learn the rules, the places to go, and the proper techniques. All of that, however, is still in the future for me. I have not yet disciplined myself to learn the skills needed.

I do my “fishing” at the Lummi Seafood Market. there is a tribally owned market on the reservation a few miles from our house that sells crabs, clams, mussels, and fish fresh off of the boats. The Lummi nation has a fishing fleet and historic treaty rights to harvest seafood.

Salmon is considered by many to be the most important resource of the Salish Sea. Salmon are the nearly exclusive diet item for the resident Orca and they are a primary food source for porpoises, seals and sea lions as well. Since time immemorial salmon has been the primary protein source for coastal people. Before we moved to the Pacific Northwest, I thought of salmon as a single species of fish. There are, however, nine different species of salmon in the Salish Sea. Five species are the primary ones in the waters off of our section of the coast: chinook, coho, chum, sockeye, and pink. Salmon are caught offshore as well as in the rivers of the region where they hatch and where they return to lay their eggs. Each species has its own timing of the runs and each has a distinctive flavor and texture. Our friend the fisherman can tell which species by taste and texture. My palate is not yet that sophisticated. What I do know is that whatever is currently running will be what is available at the market and that I can count on consistently excellent eating from the salmon sold there.

We’ve been doing a bit of sorting in our freezer lately. Perhaps that is what brought the halibut filet to my attention. It has been in the freezer for several months. In the early summer, our freezer needs to have room for the cherries from our tree. Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries join them in smaller quantities. When I’m lucky, there might even be a few huckleberries, though those usually are consumed before they make it to the freezer. Today we will drive across the mountains to the fruit stands on the other side of the Cascades for a fall stock up of apples, peaches and apricots. We don’t freeze apples. They will keep crisp long enough for us to eat a case. We do dry a few for winter snacking. But the peaches and apricots will go to the freezer for winter eating.

We also have chicken and beef from the farm in our freezer. We also will need to have a little room in the freezer for one more thing. I’m not a bird hunter but decades of living in the Dakotas has given me a taste for pheasant. Even though we’ve moved from the Dakotas, we still have one source of pheasant and will have a bit in our freezer this year. Our friend, the fisherman, makes the drive to South Dakota each year for pheasant hunting. And just as is the case when he is on the water in his boat, he keeps oriented and doesn’t get lost when he heads out into the prairies of the Dakotas.