It's Snagging Season

The salmon are here.

And so are the fishermen. They surround the boat, jumping the fence and fishing off the piers. From inside Mazurka, it feels like we are under attack.

Wednesday afternoon, I was working at home when I noticed men six feet from our home hurling fishing lines off the piers and vigorously reeling them in. It’s called snagging: the idea is that you throw a heavy lure out and reel in fast, hoping your hook will “snag” a fish. It’s not really fishing, and it’s not legal.

I went outside and chatted up the fishermen; their whole family was standing in front of our boat, watching them. I did some outdoor chores, like filling the water tanks. For the most part, I don’t really care that people jump the fence and fish – that’s their business, and they’re not really hurting anything. Often, they get the point when they see me around – they’re not supposed to be on the docks; they can fish from the other side; they usually leave.

Thursday afternoon, there’s a new set of fishermen. I was cooking dinner, and so I repeated my performance, going outside, doing chores. I asked one guy casting close to us what he was fishing for – he explained the salmon have come in, and in a month they’ll be feeding and you can catch them on lures, but for now, you have to snag them. He says they’re okay to eat because they come from way out in the lake. He was very excited because it was his mother’s birthday, and she loves salmon, and they were going to fix her a surprise salmon dinner.

I watched him snag two fish right in a row, calling to one of his partners (with a whistle sounding eerily similar to calls used on the street to run drugs); his partner came by with his pole, snagged the fish, and they hauled it up together. I asked if I could take their picture; they proudly agreed.

One after another the salmon were snagged, brought in, two or three feet long, and heaved over the fence. The guys worked quickly, like thieves – they began to get greedy, rushing to the end of piers, looting the harbor for all the fish they could snag, while Mark and I sat eating dinner, under siege.

And then somebody spoiled the fun and called the police. Two squad cars showed up. The cops kept two of the guys at the fence for a long time, checking their licenses. One of their teammates evaded the police and lay on the dock, before finally crawling onto the back of a boat and ducking down, waiting. The cops took all their salmon – 7 or 8 long, strong fish – and heaved them over another fence, into the bird sanctuary. It was disappointing and a sad to think of these salmon just a few days earlier, large and free, swimming cold, deep Lake Michigan. And then they made the mistake of coming into Belmont Harbor, snagged by thieving fishermen, thrown as a feast for thieving raccoon.

The hiding fisherman sat on the back of a boat for a very long time, after his friends were let go, while the cops still milled around. By this time we were out on deck, getting ready to push off and head for the pump out dock. The guy on the back of the boat started to get up. I motioned for him to stay put, that the cops were still there. He sat back down quietly.

As we approached the pump out dock, the police had worked their way down the harbor, asking for driver’s licenses, fishing licenses, checking poles and lures. One of them helped us tie up. The fishermen with licenses and legitimate lures were allowed to stay, others had to leave.

It was pretty quiet on our end of the harbor for the rest of the night, but the fishermen stayed throughout the rest of the harbor. At 2 AM, Mark went out to check the bumpers (they had turned in the wind and Mazurka was hitting the dock). When he came back to bed, he described the line of fishermen opposite Mazurka, reeling in fish. This morning at 5:30, the harbor was still teeming.