Pretty soon we were hauling in the fish as fast as we could. We would put our jigger down in the water and have one haul and you would get a fish. If you never got a fish with your first jig you were guaranteed to get one with your second jig. The fish were savage. I never seen anything like it before in my life. The fish were flying in over the boat as fast as we could haul them in. Not only were we catching fish, but we were catching big old gaffers. All the fish were big in size. The smallest fish we caught that day was thirty-six inches long. Some fish were so big one hand could not get it in the boat. Sometimes when you hooked a fish it would be like trying to haul up a whale, the fish were that big.

We kept jigging nonstop for couple of hours. There was no letting up in the fish. By now the boat was getting pretty full. We almost had a full load and we were getting tired and hungry. So we decided to head home. When we got home we cleaned the fish and we had ten quintals of the loveliest fish you had ever seen.

That evening the storm the forecast called for struck. It blew a gale and it rained. Two days later the storm was over. Again we jumped aboard the motorboat and headed up to Spear Point where we had jug all the fish. We tried jigging there for the longest time that day but never got a single fish!

When I was growing up there was no shortage of trout. I used to live in a part of Fox Harbour called Tub Harbour. I remember standing on the stage head and watching schools and schools of salt water trout pass by. In those days people did not go far to set out their trout nets. Some people would set nets off their stage heads, the trout were that thick. In June before the fish and salmon came I would set out a net to catch a few trout. In one or two days I would have to take up the net because I had enough trout. I would row a small ways up Tub Harbour in my punt and set the net. Then I would hit the water with the paddle. This would scare the trout and they would take off in all directions. I remember the trout would hit my net and drag it under the water. Then I would haul the net and pick out all the trout. I usually got a dozen or more trout at a time. Those trout were a nice size. Most of them weighed between 2 and 3 pounds each. I would usually eat a meal or two of trout and I would also salt some for the winter.

We used to have a cod trap up in Deer Harbour. I remember sometimes we would catch a hundred or more trout in the trap at a time. Some of the trout would be meshed and others would be mixed in with the codfish. I remember looking down in the trap and seeing some of the smaller trout swim out through the mesh holes. Sometimes I would take some home for a meal, but most of the trout would be let go.

Sometimes when I would be paddling up Tub Harbour in my punt I would feel my paddles pass through the schools of trout, they were that thick. Today the trout are not nearly as plentiful as they used to be. Now people have to go to Deer Harbour or up the Bay to set nets in order to get any trout. Most of the time you only catch one or two trout, if you catch any at all. How times have changed. Years ago we use to throw trout away and today we can barely get enough to eat.