Like most veteran fishing skippers, John Gillett has plenty of good yarns to spin about his many years on the water.
Some are funny, some are about boats loaded to the gunwales, some are about bad years and others are about close calls — all are interesting.
A few years ago, I had the opportunity one evening to sit and chat with John on the veranda of his home in Gillesport/Twillingate on the northeast coast of Newfoundland.
Overlooking Twillingate Harbour while sipping a cup of tea on a calm summer evening was the perfect setting for story telling. John kept me spellbound for hours. One story he told was about a close call he and a friend had 47 years ago while saltwater bird hunting.
John was attending vocational school (also known as trades college) in Grand Falls that year. On Thursday, October 28, 1971, John was making plans to go home to Twillingate for the weekend. It was customary for men in the Twillingate area to hunt saltwater birds, especially turrs (murres), at that time of year and that is precisely what John had in mind.
Turrs have always been a popular food staple in rural Newfoundland and bird hunters fill their freezers with as many as they can in the fall when the black and white birds congregate in large numbers on Newfoundland’s east coast.
Government estimates say that as many as 200,000 turrs were taken each fall in the 1970s. That number is believed to have increased in the 1990s and government agencies are trying to manage the levels of exploitation as a conservation measure.
John called his friend Clarence Oxford in Twillingate to discuss what the weather and conditions might be like that weekend. Clarence was about 25 years older than John and an experienced turr hunter. Clarence said there was bad weather forecast for late Saturday, but things looked good for the morning and afternoon.
During their few minutes chatting, John told Clarence he planned to drive to Twillingate Friday evening and would go out in boat early Saturday morning.
Clarence suggested they could go birding together and even said they could use Clarence’s small speedboat because he already had everything ready for bird hunting and that John should leave his boat where it was — tied up in Back Harbour on the other side of the island.
John and Clarence hoped to bag a couple dozen of the prized saltwater birds to have on their supper table throughout the winter.
The men met at the wharf Saturday morning just as daylight was breaking. It was an ideal morning for turr hunting. The ocean was calm and skies were clear except for a string of bright red clouds hanging low along the eastern horizon.
John thought of the old saying in marine lore that said “red sky at night; a sailor’s delight — red sky at morning; sailors take warning.” He knew that the old saying actually had merit because he’d often heard older fishermen say that a red morning sky was a “breeder of bad weather,” usually rain and high winds.
However, John and Clarence silently comforted themselves with the knowledge that the forecast said the bad conditions was not expected until late in the day and that they would be safe and sound back home by then.
“So, we put our guns and shells aboard the boat and headed out through Burnt Island Tickle — out that way,” he said, pointing to an island visible from his veranda.
Clarence’s boat was equipped with a 15-hp outboard motor and the little 16-foot speedboat traveled at a good clip on calm water. It was a picture-perfect morning. Even the dolphins seemed happy.
“About a half-dozen of them raced alongside our boat, jumping in the air, creating small rainbows on top of their backs as the sun shone through the mist they created when they jumped from the ocean,” John says.
In good spirits and with high expectations for a bumper crop, John and Clarence thought there might even be time to catch a few cod on the way back home in the afternoon.
As the little speedboat steamed along, Clarence and John could see turrs in the distance, but just a few here and there and out of range so Clarence kept going out further to where he figured the birds would be more plentiful and sitting on the water.
There were several other small boats in the vicinity as they headed offshore. All were fishing cod, also for winter food.
“Gus Pelley and his son Edwin were setting trawls on the Gull Island grounds and Harvey Pelley was hand-lining cod on a fishing ground we called Bradley, John recalls.
It was almost impossible to have negative thoughts in such a storybook environment, but John and Clarence noticed something a bit unusual. Large flocks of turrs were flying just above the water, heading toward land. John was young and inexperienced at the time and didn’t think much of it, but he later learned that when saltwater birds flew towards land in those conditions, it was because a hard wind was approaching.
In his forties, Clarence probably knew that but didn’t say anything to John because he figured they would be back home long before the wind struck.
It didn’t take long for the two hunters to get three or four miles offshore where they saw the first few birds of the day within shooting range and the hunting began.
“We would get a few and then we’d move on further and get a few more and that’s the way it was going for the next hour or so, but it seemed like every time we moved on, we were edging further and further offshore until eventually we were about seven miles from land,” John says, adding that there were indications that a small breeze was starting to develop.
“Every now and then there was a little gust from the southeast — enough to ruffle water a little bit, but nothing much,” he recalls.
By 8:30 a.m., Clarence and John had taken approximately 50 turrs, a good day’s hunt. In fact, it was a few more than they thought they would get that quickly and that is why John is still perplexed by what happened next.
The day was young and there was plenty of time to get more birds and perhaps a few fish, but John had a sudden sense of foreboding — a strange but powerful feeling that he still struggles to describe.
“All I can say, is I had never had that feeling before and it wasn’t a good one — it was almost scary.”
John says he never worried about losing sight of land when he was fishing or bird hunting, even in a small boat and that is why he finds the event strange.
“I was the gunner, up in the front of the boat and suddenly it was almost like there was a voice or something telling me that we had gone far enough and it was time to turn around and head back in or else…,” John says, his voice trailing off.
John still thinks about that moment because he points out that being seven miles offshore on a nice day was not unusual and even the few puffs of wind from the southeast was certainly nothing to be concerned about. He knew a southeast wind, if there was any, would be in their face as they headed in, but even with a moderate breeze to punch into, they should only be a half hour or so getting home.
But his uncomfortable sense of impending trouble was strong enough that John told Clarence that he thought it might be time turn around and go home.
John didn’t tell his friend about his strange fear but, despite being still early in the morning, Clarence surprisingly agreed that it was a good idea to turn around. Perhaps the morning red sky and the sight of turrs scurrying toward land was on his mind.
Meanwhile, Clarence added that they would keep a lookout for turrs and that they could probably get several more along the way.
Clarence had no way of knowing when he made the statement, but there would be no more bird hunting that day. The trip to Twillingate Island would be longest the two men ever took to travel a mere seven miles.
Join us next month for Part II of A Red Sky at Morning.
