Living off the land

With a last minute decision to bring the crab and prawn traps, we took the dinghy over to Granville Island on Saturday morning to purchase a fishing license. $24 later and we were determined to live off the land. our fist seafood venture in the Copelands was very successful: during a dinghy adventure we found a cove where you could simply pluck the oysters from the beach, no tools required. Fresh oysters on the BBQ:

Our next stop was a nook up Malaspina Inlet. We drop the prawn trap in 300 ish feet of water off Sarah point, mainly because there were already 3 others pots down. We also dropped the crab trap in 30ish feet by an oyster farm (Kristine had some notion that sea life was in abundance around these farms). After a trek to the lake/bog, we stuffed our face with salmon berries and I harvested sea apparatus to eat with the crab I was certain we would catch. However when we went for the crab trap it it was gone, not to be seen at all. Perplexed we went home and I cooked up the sea asparagus to eat with out previously frozen, Atlantic caught cod. So far this living off the land thing would leave us very hungry. Sea asparagus in the pan:

In the morning we decided to look for our crab pot once more and sure enough, there it was. Turns out the tide and come up and the weight of the pot had sunk the float. Gleefully we pulled it up. It felt heavy… but it was full of big, orange sea stars. Ah well, we still had the prawn trap.
Using the anchor windlass we pulled the trap over the bow roller. 300′ is a lot of line. Forever later I could see the prawn trap- there was something in it!!! Bring it on deck, and nada. Just an unlucky rock cod and a tiny crab.

Since then we have dropped the prawn trap 4 more times, in various places and Walsh Cove. Loot is as follows:
1) 1 prawn, 3 weird crayfish/crabs,
2) 7 prawns, 25 weird crayfish/crabs,
1 rock cod.
3) 1 ghost shrimp
4) 3 prawns

Still waiting for the mother load. We did collect a few more oysters from Pendrell sound. They were small and delicious, and not of the Pacific oyster variety. Kolby figures they are escapees from oyster farms. Now we are heading for Teakerne Arm, our last Deso stop before heading North. I hope our seafood haul increases once we leave these nutrient poor waters!