A Deeply Ironic Fishing Trip

Sergio and I gathered worms while Mario patched the bottom of his leaky boat with fresh tar. We shoved off just as it started to drizzle, and while Mario started rowing us out into the middle of Lago Huillinco, I struggled silently in the bow, trying to remember if I had seen lightning yet during any of Chiloé´s frequent rainstorms. By the time we got a few hundred yards from shore, however, the clouds had dispersed and the sun was out and I realized I should just trust these guys, who've lived and worked and fished here their whole lives, and probably know better than to dock at a huge metal raft in the middle of a lake in a lightning storm.

When we left shore I had only a hazy idea of where, or for what, we would fish. On our way out I managed to figure out that Mario works for Fjord Seafood, and although we're technically not allowed to so much as touch the Norwegian company's equipment, he's going to bend the rules just a bit and tie his rowboat to one of the metal pontoons so we can fish in the middle of the lake, where the little white deepwater fish (whose name I can't remember and forgot to traslate) grow the biggest.

So here were are, fishing for dinner in a beautiful lake just 2 meters away from a giant creaking metal contraption draping dozens of huge nets into the water, each of which is stuffed full of thousands of enormous salmon being grown for processing and export to god-knows-where. Some questions:

Why are we way out here and not closer to shore? Because lots of salmon escape through holes in the nets and have eaten practically all the native fish in this lake, leaving only the small and relatively unappetizing bottom-dweller we're after today.

Are those floodlights? What are they for, security? No, Mario explains, they go on every night at dusk, pointed down into the water, to keep the salmon from sleeping. If they swim all night, their muscles get bigger, they eat more, and thus grow faster, decreasing the time between harvests and thus increasing profits.

Does Mario know where I can find some salmon? No, he says, there is practically no salmon for sale on the island, and even though he works at the salmon farm, he never eats it. It's hard to find, and much too expensive. He thinks it mostly goes to Japan and the U.S. markets, but he's not sure.

Is the guy in that motorboat speeding towards us a security guard? No, he's just a friend who's working the Saturday shift, luckily getting some extra pay to deliver supplies to the raft.

What's in those white plastic bags he's unloading? That's the salmon food, Mario explains. Little grey pellets, containing who-knows what combination of ingredients and chemicals and hormones. He has no idea.

After catching over a dozen 6-inchers (the small ones we threw back), Mario decides we have enough for dinner. We row towards the metal dock and he asks me to untie the rope. Be careful not to touch the nets, though, he says. They're coated with some sort of toxic chemical to prevent algae buildup.

And we're going to eat the fish that have been swimming around here for dinner?!

Salmon farms are gross.