It was a nice sunny morning in Murray's Harbour in late July of 1990. I got up and got ready for fishing as usual. Glen and Joy, my son and daughter, went in speed boat and my other son, Darry, went with me in motorboat. We set out to haul our traps. We went up to Salt Pond first to haul our trap up there. Then we went over to Seal Bight Head and hauled our trap over there. We still didn't have a load of fish so we decided to go and haul our third trap at Fling's Island.

Glen and Joy took off ahead of us in speed boat. They went in over the trap and were just about to hook up the center line when Gordon Penney passed by and called to them to get away from the trap because there was a whale in it.

When I arrived at the trap, they looked frightened as Joy was always afraid of whales. There was nothing we could do with the trap so we just went home. When we got home we used the CB to call the Fisheries Officers in Fox Harbour. I told them that we had a whale in our trap. They told me to stay away from the trap and that they would send somebody down to help. That day a breeze came on and it lasted 3 or 4 days and the Fisheries Officers could not get down. All this time I was saying that is the end of the trap for sure.

When the breeze calmed down Carl Bradley and Ronnie Rumbolt came down to Murray's Harbour. We all had dinner at my house, then we went back up to Fling's island to free the whale. When we got to Fling's Island we sank down the trap with rocks. All the time I was thinking that the bottom of the trap will be gone for sure. When the head of the trap was sunk the whale just swam out. It so happened that he was not tangled up in the trap. He just could not get out over the head ropes. The whale dived and went a small distance and then surfaced again. It was a funny thing that happened, the whale waved his tail as if to say thank you and good bye.

We took up the trap and to my surprise there was only a couple of holes in the trap about the size of a tote box. It was a great ending, nobody got hurt and in a couple of days I had my trap back in the water again.