“I was one of the very few girls down in the stage…” said Rhoda, sitting at the table in her home on Pinhorn’s Beach. It overlooks the landwash where her family operated their fishing premises for decades. “I used to love to get the prong to help with the fish. I pronged hundreds of fish from this point [the stage head] to the barrel, to feed the fish to them… But the prong wouldn’t be in my hand very long if one of the boys saw it.”
“When I started fishing first, there was one fish in the water. That was cod,” said Vernon Petten, fisherman and boat builder from Port de Grave, Conception Bay.
“We’ve been at this through thick and thin. My father, my grandfather, great-grandfather down.”
Vern started fishing when he was old enough to get aboard the boat. He was only five years old when he accompanied his grandfather, John William Petten, on his last trip out.
Samuel Andrews was born in Scilly Cove, now known as Winterton, in September of 1877. Known by most as “Uncle Sammy” Andrews, he and his wife Jedidiah had four children: Rachael, Wilson, Sarah, and Nehemiah.
Samuel was a fisherman and like many others in the industry, he would keep busy year-round to provide food and income for his family. In addition to fishing, Uncle Sammy hunted small game, cut timber, went sealing, caught sea birds, and cultivated land according to the seasons.