The Universe Below the Surface: Orcas, Polychetes & Wolf Eels
A few stories from Skylar Campbell.
Killer whale
Skylar, a commercial fisherman, like many who spend a lot of time on the water, finds picking just one memorable encounter to be extremely difficult. So he takes us on a journey filled with orcas, octopuses, white sharks, wolf eels and more creatures than you can toss a net over.
SKYLAR CAMPBELL is a commercial fisherman in Monterey Bay by day and a professional musician by night. As he says, he has two part time jobs that amount to two full–time jobs. Skylar’s day job is operating his own commercial vessel for open access fishing. He currently fishes for hagfish, also known as slime eel, which is not an eel, but a jawless, boneless fish without vertebrae. Skylar says they are more like a pre-historic type of sea worm. He also fishes for rock crab, open access, and has a limited-entry salmon license.
At night he plays music in local bars and clubs. As a musician he plays drum set and saxophone. He came up through the Monterey Jazz Festival, taught music and now plays gigs locally.
Previous to owning and operating his own commercial fishing vessel, he worked on a spot prawn boat for four years. It was a nine-month season, but he worked during the extended California drought (‘three years of summer’). Ocean conditions were insane all the time. No wind, no swell. Fuel prices were down and the price of prawns was up. They made hay while the sun was shining. He averaged being out on the water every other day. Now he figures he’s on the water six months out of the year. The other six months he’s on the boat doing other things like unloading his catch, boat maintenance and various odds and ends in the harbor.
Skylar sells his catch to wholesalers that sell to restaurants. The hagfish are shipped straight to Korea, as there is no local market for these odd, eel-like, slime-producing creatures. The crabs and salmon go to Robbie’s or Monterey Fish or Fisherman’s Choice. Skylar notes that a fisherman’s work is constrained by a series of permits from the city, county and state. In frustration, he voices his opinion that fishermen are considered criminals before they commit a crime.
Skylar was born at home in Pacific Grove, CA in 1987. He grew up in Pacific Grove and lives in the house where he was born. His mother is also a Pacific Grove native, but his dad came to the United States from Bavaria when he was fourteen. He joined the US military, moved around a lot, and ultimately came to Monterey where he met Skylar’s mom.
Skylar has no formal marine education, but has spent most of his life in, on or around the water. His parents’ attitude was basically do whatever you want, check in after school, then be home for dinner. So Skylar and his brother went down to Lover’s Point where they spent time figuring out how to poke pole [1]in the rocks at the end of the pier, They’d also practice jumping off the rock over on the west part of the beach, or what they call Beach II. As kids they used to call it The Cliff, because it was the biggest thing you could jump off of and not kill yourself. That’s how Skylar spent his weekends and after school. The boys were always in the water, always free diving, fishing with a Hawaiian sling[2], shooting perch, stuff like that, and surfing. Skylar’s brother followed the surfing gig, while Skylar preferred skateboarding, but they were always going out on the pier and fishing for stuff.
When he was seventeen, Skylar got his first boat, a little boat with a little outboard on it, which enabled him to continue to spend time in, on and around the water. And the rest is history.
You can watch Skylar’s story on Youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZBhoezRqIw
THE UNIVERSE BELOW THE SURFACE: ORCAS, POLYCHETES & WOLF EELS
So to me that question about my most memorable wildlife encounter kinda seems like there’s an event, you know, that’s made an indelible mark on me.
But being in the line of work that I’m in, it feels like that all the time I’m on the water: all the hours and the days where you see the seasons change, and you see what comes into the bay, what leaves the bay, what starts showing up – you know jelly fish, or anchovies, or squid, this and that. It’s like a bombardment of just the coolest stuff all the time.
It’s like everyday, even on the worst day, is like a really cool National Geographic magazine. Our area is not the Caribbean. It’s not a coral reef. It’s not, you know, the most pleasant place to be as far as temperature, but the diversity of life in the ocean in this area is incredible. It’s just the nature of the Monterey Bay that it’s so dynamic. There’re not a lot of places where you can go and see such incredible stuff. Out of Moss Landing, you go a mile out of the harbor and you’re already in over a hundred fathoms, and it keeps getting deeper and deeper and deeper.
It’s all happening for me on a daily basis, because I’m in the business of taking fish, as in a ‘take’ means killing. I deliver a lot of product, but I know where it’s going. I see a lot of stuff out on the water. I see everything from the whales that come by my boat and spook me, you know, to little tiny sand fleas that come up. Or little octopus - I see hundreds of these.
Just with the volume of what you see everyday with the wildlife, you’re able to notice little changes. Oh, the anchovies are a little bit bigger, or there’s a different kind of mud coming up in the traps. Oh, there’s a polychaete[3] that came out of the mud in the traps. What does that mean, you know? There’re all these little indelible marks.
One incident that just comes to mind, and I thought about it, is a whale thing. We were heading out to go crabbing. We were going up to Half Moon Bay, so we left from Monterey with a load of gear on the boat, and it was around, it was getting dark, and I’d never seen a killer whale before – orca, an orca before.
I was having a cup of coffee on the back deck, as we were probably making it past the whistle buoy near Pt. Pinos, and I saw this huge killer whale. And the white parts that I thought in my mind were gonna be white were actually like a dark gray. And I don’t know, it was really, it was only just a glimpse of it, and it was following us. And it spooked me. It was really unsettling, but it just kind of reminded me of the universe below the surface, how it’s incredibly dynamic and diverse.
It’s a whale story, but it was one of those things you just kind of look over and there’s like the most amazing thing you’ve never seen before.
And you know, I’ve also seen great white sharks cruising between our boats when we’re hook-and-line sea bass and halibut fishing. You know, blue whales, whales running into our boats and everything like that, but that was one, the orca, that just pops up in my mind every time.
I can tell you a bunch of other stories, too.
Well, sometimes we get wolf eels in our shrimp traps, I think that’s what they are, the purple ones, yeah, and we’re having to fight – gotta get the thing out of the trap! It’s in there! I’ve got to put it back in the water! And just having a battle with a wolf eel off of Cyprus Point!! He was big, too! I don’t know how it got in the shrimp trap, which has an opening like this (makes 4” hole with hands). You know, somehow this, you know, four-foot long eel…. Have you seen their teeth? They’re like fangs….and the jaw on the thing, it like bit through my boot. It was just altogether a really hectic thing, but it was pretty cool. That’s not a whale story!
[1] Poke pole fishing, aka poke poling, is a method of procuring rockfish and eels from the intertidal zone that is as effective as it is peculiar – a method of fishing that sees a tool, referred to as a poke pole, continually thrust into cracks and crevices, this fishing style is actually one of great antiquity.
[2] Hawaiian slings and pole spears are somewhat similar in that they both make use of a sling or band to fire the spear shaft, but there are some key differences in their appearance and how they are operated. The Hawaiian sling makes use of a shooter, which is traditionally made of wood that uses a high-powered rubber strap to fling a spear shaft forward—similar to a bow and arrow.
[3] A type of bristly marine worm
