One man's struggle to make a living fishing

​Beau Gillis is an enterprising man. He has planted trees in Alberta, taught English in Korea and physics in South Carolina. He came back home to Freeport, Nova Scotia, on the Bay of Fundy, about ten years ago. Fishing had been the finest time of his life. He wanted to fish again; but fishing isn't what it used to be. 

​Groundfish, haddock, and cod are selling for no more than they did 20 years ago. The price of fishing licenses, has skyrocketed. Fishing communities are dying off. So Beau Gillis and four other fishermen formed a co-op. They offered their services to Off the Hook —  the only Community Supported Fishery in Atlantic Canada. 

It's modelled after Community Supported Agriculture. Buy local, buy fresh. Consumers sign up for the season and a weekly "share" of the catch — a pound or two of fillets or a whole fish. Beau Gillis trucks the fish to Halifax for Off the Hook to distribute at the farmers' market.

He doesn't fish with nets. He is an old-fashioned hook-and-line fisherman. Off the Hook pays him twice what he'd get from the local fish plant, for hand-caught fish; but after five years. Nova Scotia's Community Supported Fishery is struggling. Beau Gillis is discovering things don't always turn out as planned.

Karin Wells' documentary is called  "School of Fish".