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OFF NANOOSE BAY — The Denman Isle is in stealth mode, dark except for a spotlight off the bow.

Skipper Barry Curic sits in the dim wheelhouse of the 21-metre steel seine vessel, watching intently as a band of red shows up on his sonar screen. The sonar is scanning the waters 300 metres ahead at a 12-degree tilt in search of silver — dense schools of herring loaded with roe exclusively for the Japanese markets.

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Herring stay deep during the day to avoid predators and come closer to the surface at night to feed on krill. Curic doesn’t want to scare them back into the inky depths. “Stand by,” he tells the other five crewmen.

As the boat approaches its prey, the red colour also appears on his depth sounder, meaning the herring are now directly below us. It’s time to strike. Curic rises from his chair and announces: “OK, guys. Let’s try it.”

It’s 9:30 p.m., and we are positioned in calm, 30-metre-deep waters north of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. The Denman Isle is on a federal fisheries department contract to conduct test fisheries. The crew obtains herring samples to gauge the roe count, and helps to determine when a fishery should be called.