Practice Makes Perfect

Cap and I were on the water all day enjoying the glassy smooth ocean and taking up a load of traps "down below." First thing this morning I told Cap about the silly dream that I had about being able to fillet a cusk with two swipes of the knife blade. Cap and I periodically catch cusk in lobster traps offshore, but I've never filleted them on my own; I usually have Cap or my dad do it for me. Even they--two experienced fishermen--struggle to fillet cusk, since it has a thick and slimy skin that is very difficult to get ahold of. My dream was clearly a fantasy.

The first buoy that we hauled was one that had been "hung down" for a while and was recently showing. Another fisherman gave Cap a heads up as to its location a few days before. Turned out it was entangled in a huge snarl of 10 traps. Cap must have spent a half hour getting the mess aboard. I could have sworn that his line was going to part in the hauler from all of the pressure with such a weight on the other end. But, miraculously, Cap managed to reveal the ball of traps and I got to working on it. To my pleasant surprise, we caught 3 big cusks in those traps. Upon catching the first, I said "I guess my dream came true!" Cap replied "I was just thinking the very same thing." Each time he pulled a trap over the rail to find a huge cusk flipping violently he said: "Livin' the dream!" Their air bladders were inflated from the dramatic pressure difference as they surfaced, so I didn't even feel bad about keeping them.

When we got to the harbor, I saw my good friend sailing in on her brother's sail boat. Today is her birthday. I rushed to Back Cove where I decided to prepare the fish myself and give some to my friend for her birthday. My dream had somehow given me the confidence to go for it. I'd watched Cap and my dad many times, so I knew the steps, but decided that I just needed to get the feel for it myself by doing the action. The filleting itself was actually a lot easier than I expected, but the slippery skin did make the fish difficult to handle. My fillets aren't perfect.

There are plenty of bones and rough edges. But it worked and now I feel capable of tackling the task again.

My dad and my ex-boyfriend stopped by for moral support while I worked the fish. Both

demonstrated techniques that eased the process. I haven't been so proud of something possibly since my first "A" on a test! I found this newly-learned skill so satisfying because it enables me to process what we catch in the ocean so that I can eat it. It completes the cycle from trap to plate. Catch, fillet, cook, and eat!

I gave some of the fish away to my loved ones. Two fillets went to my farmer friend for her birthday present. My dad took two. And I plan on frying up a fillet for my fisherman friend as a thank you for all of the seafood he's given me. That leaves one fillet for myself, which will be a good three meal's worth. Plenty to go around. I love sharing the fruits of my labor.