Door County Almanak – Hickey Brothers Fishery

Monday, July 18th, 2011  |   Posted by :  marybeth

Excerpt from Almanak No. 1

Hickey Brothers Fishery: Following in the Steps of Grandfather

Commercial fishing: a chance to play for a living. You get a little exercise, a little fresh air, a little action. You ride around in a boat and catch a few rays while you work. The fish are free for the taking out there, so it’s an easy way to make big bucks.

Such was the attitude of the job-seeking young collegian that interrupted my conversation with Dennis Hickey, who with his brother Jeff owns Hickey Brothers Fishery operating out of Baileys Harbor. And this is a notion shared by many of us who have gleaned our knowledge of the industry from reading Moby Dick and admiring the seascapes of New England artists.

Dennis Hickey soon shatters that romantic visions people cherish about his way of earning a living.

Commercial fishing is in the Hickey blood. Martin Hickey left Norway in the 1860s and fished the waters of Lake Michigan with the help of his sons until 1919. In 1965, his grandson Dennis abandoned a future as a journeyman meat cutter, and his grandson Jeff, a job with Wisconsin Public Service, to become commercial fishermen. And thus Hickey Brothers Fishery, now one of the larger operations in Door County, came into existence.

We’d have made more money if we’d kept those jobs,” Dennis Hickey laughs. A big man with blue eyes and blond hair that contrasts dramatically with his tanned face, his appearance reflects his Scandinavian ancestry. “But we value the independence and challenges faced every day we fish. We don’t punch a time clock. We do what we want to do. It’s not for money.”

Of course, there is money to be made in the industry, he admits. But there is a tremendous investment in time, in work, and in equipment. And there is that big chance factor.

Hickey describes two basic fishing operations: the use of gill nets and the use of pound (pronounced “pon” by local fisherman) nets. The gill net technique is used to harvest whitefish and chubs, with only incidental catches of smelt, the only species open to commercial fishermen. The season for whitefish stretches from December 1 to October 25, with the catch peaking in fall and the demand, during Lent. The chub season extends from July 1 to December 1.

The Hickey Brothers own two gill boats, a 45-foot Berger-built boat used primarily for chubs, and a 235-toot Marinette Marine craft generally used for whitefish. While these enclosed boats may look crude compared to pleasure craft, a tour of their interior reveals that they are indeed technologically complex. The pilot need not rely on his vision, as an Automatic Loran-C Receiver serves as a computerized navigation aid which not only pinpoints locations but establishes courses for the automatic pilot. The boat is additionally equipped with radar for navigation and with sonar for sounding water depths.

Inside the vessel are boxes, perhaps two feet by four feet and one foot deep, filled with gill nets. These are similar to tennis nets in appearance, long fence-like affairs of nylon filament measuring 20 feet wide and 1,200 feet long. The length of one side is weighted, and the other side bears floats. Four boxes of nets strung together form a “gang.” Set from the rear of the boat, the nets form incredibly long submerged fences marked by flagged buoys. The day after setting, the nets are retrieved by a hydraulic net lifter through an opening toward the prow of the boat; and the fish which have become entangled in the net are removed.

The chub and whitefish gill net procedures differ in that chubs are found in deeper water, usually 180 feet minimum depth, and farther out, perhaps 10 miles or so. The nets are a denser mesh, with approximately one and one-quarter-inch squares. Whitefish cannot be taken less than 17 inches in length and, as a consequence, demand a bigger mesh, about two-and-one-quarter-inch squares. They are found closer to shore and in shallower water, usually 50- to 120-foot depths.

The Hickey Brothers have fished Lake Michigan as far south as Milwaukee and occasionally around the Peninsula into Green Bay, but generally they set their nets in the Lake Michigan side of Door County.

While the gill nets are continually removed from the water and then reset, the pound nets are semi-permanent affairs. “Pound” is shored for empoundment gear, as this type of net entraps the fish rather than entangles them. Pound nets have a long history. Grandfather Hickey used cotton line versions in the 1860s—but the Hickey brothers are the last to use them for whitefish on Lake Michigan.

The pound net operates on the principle that a fish which encounters an obstacle instinctively heads for deeper water. The first part of the rather complicated device is the “lead,” a 1,200- to 1,800-foot length of net which is secured by anchored lines and which extend from relatively shallow into deeper water. When a whitefish encounters this seven-inch-square mesh net, he swims to the deeper end of the lead and into the second part of the trap, referred to as the “heart” because of its shape. The fish swim into the top of the four-inch-square mesh heart and out the bottom, which serves as a funnel leading into the pot portion of the net. This two-and-a-quarter-inch mesh section is suspected by 68-foot high partially submerged stakes formed by splicing a heavier maple post to a lighter one of white ash. The pot is 36 feet square and 50 feet deep.

Sometime in May, the net is installed. The procedure is a big operation. The net and line for one-pound net alone will fill two boats.

The daily harvest is achieved by maneuvering one of the three 30- to 33-foot open “lift” boats directly over the pot portion of the pound net, which is raised by hand. Marketable whitefish are removed from the net, and others are released back into the lake. A system of pulls submerges the net to await the next catch.

Usually in the middle of November, the pound net is dismantled until the next year. Maintaining the nets is a large-scale operation because of their size. To preserve them against the deteriorating effect of water and sun, they are dipped in tar vats and then spread over fields that the Hickeys maintain just for that purpose. The tar dries and net repairs are made.

Fish that have been taken from the water are immediately placed in boxes and iced. Generally, they are dressed on the boat, but especially large catches are processed in a production line onshore. The Hickey Brothers employ from two to five persons to assist them in the fishing operation.

During the summer, many of the fish are marketed locally. Otherwise, the fish are sold to wholesalers throughout the United States.

Of the 50 or so full-time commercial fishing concerns operating on Lake Michigan, about half work out of Door County. Hickey explains that tourists are partially responsible for this phenomenon. The fishing industry, because of its picturesque nature, attracts and tourist and their cameras. Once in Door County, visitors consume vast quantities of fish in restaurants, thus creating a market for local fish.

Like any serious industry, commercial fisherman make sure of research development to improve their fishing methods. The Hickeys, like other commercial fishermen, work closely with the Fish Co-Op Research unit from UW Stevens Point. Researchers spend a month with the Hickey Brothers in the spring and another in the fall. As an example of the sort of research conducted, Hickey points to a photo of a tagged fish whose migratory pattern was being studied, and another photo of a magnified fish scale that bore rings, like the stump of   tree; each ban represents a year’s growth.

Occasionally, the Hickey Brothers boats are pressed into other kinds of service. There are the happy times when they convey excited groups of scouts who learn about commercial fishing. And there are the tense times when they rescue inexperienced sports fisherman trapped in small boats by unexpected changes in weather.

Dennis Hickey is proud of is occupation and resents the negative image that the commercial fishing industry, the DNR, and other governmental regulatory agencies, sports fishing groups, and a news media hungry for a sensational story, have created.

“We are a tool for the public to get fish,” Hickey maintains. “We are providing a service, not raping the lake as some groups claim.” There is room for both commercial and sport fishermen on the lake, Hickey insists, and he would like to see additional species of fish made available to commercial fisherman and, as a result, to the consumer public.

“Our country operates on free enterprise,” Hickey continues. “Commercial fishermen are willing to put up with bad weather, fighting the elements, taking the gamble. Our families are willing to put up with the long hours when we are away from home, and the insecurity of the catch.”

A commercial fisherman is like a farmer who has to make hay while the sun shines. He has to fish when the weather is good, whether it is a Monday or a holiday. Hickey has no complaints about these latter challenges, for he is obviously a man who loves his work. He just wants “to be left to hell alone to operate.”

—Gary Jones

 

In the early 1980s, Kevin Wade Combes and Fred Johnson conceived the idea for a “…new journal for published authors/poets, as well as yet-to-be-discovered talents.” The result was the Door County Almanak series, published by The Dragonsbreath Press, which was ultimately issued in five editions over the next ten years. With the exception of No. 1, each Almanak had an overall theme, which they each cover “in considerable detail and from many different angles,” as noted by Wisconsin rare book dealer Charlie Calkins. The edition themes are — No. 1: general Door County topics; No. 2: Orchards; No. 3: Commercial Fishing; No. 4: Farms; No. 5: Tourism/Resorts/Transportation. The Almanak series has been out-of-print for almost 20 years, but is still available in limited quantities from both Passtimes Books, downtown Sister Bay, at the corner of Mill Rd. & Hwy 42, 920.854.2127; and from Charlie Calkins, The Badger Bibliophile, Olde Orchard Antique Mall, Egg Harbor, 262.547.6572, wibooks@yahoo.com.