Cod Fishing

On one of our free days, I signed up for cod fishing.  Boris took 4 of us out in his motorboat.  We didn’t go very far and this is what we used to fish with.

He called it Norwegian jigging.  The process is that you let out this fishing line until the sinker hit the sea bottom.  He said it was around 130 feet.  Then you lift the sinker and hooks about 2-3 feet, then just jerk the line a bit – I think this is where the term jigging coming from.  There is no bait, and for some reason, you catch a fish.  Then you haul in the line and the fish doesn’t fight back at all.

I’m going to add this part about the wood piles in northern Newfoundland, because I don’t know where else to add it.  When we drive around the area, there are random wood piles alongside the road.  They don’t seem to be near anyone’s house.  Apparently they aren’t allowed to cut the nearby birch, and they probably don’t want to burn the soft, stunted spruce trees.  So they contract with the government for wood in the island’s interior.  It’s cut and a semi delivers the logs to a place they’ve claimed alongside the road.

They also do the same thing with gardens.  Since it’s too rocky and salty to grow at their houses, they pick a spot along the road and put in a garden.  I’m thinking all this land belongs to the government.  There are few people up here, and they all respect the arrangement.