The Deadliest Catch star visits Pictou to promote technology combatting ghost fishing gear

Any fisherman understands that keeping the waters clean will help ensure a viable future for the industry.

“If you want a future, you have to invest in that future,” said Capt. Sig Hansen from Discovery Channel’s The Deadliest Catch. “So why not try to keep our oceans clean? That’s our responsibility.”

Hansen has partnered with Resqunit (pronounced “rescue unit”), lending his star power to an endeavour they hope will assist in helping to protect the environment in which fishermen and women ply their trade.

A Norwegian/Canadian ocean technology company, Resqunit develops innovative equipment to locate and retrieve lost fishing gear. Travelling around the Maritimes to promote their product, Hansen and other stakeholders visited Vernon D’Eon Fishing Supplies in Pictou on Sept. 13 to meet with fishermen and women, as well as fans of the show who might never have even been on a fishing boat. The Resqunit is a lost gear retrieval unit that can be attached to a line of traps, in case a fisher loses a buoy because of storms, accidents or by other means. It includes a user-controlled timer release that is set by using on an app on your phone. If needed, the unit will deploy after a set length of time, rise to the surface and allow fishers to retrieve their traps.

“I can’t count the number of pots I’ve lost in my lifetime,” Hansen said. “You can imagine how much money is at the bottom of the water right now. Had I had this 30 years ago, it would be a different story,”

Hansen freely admits that as he’s gotten older, he’s become more aware that in order to help foster long-term sustainability, the fishing industry must do more to protect the waters.

“When I was younger, I really didn’t think about it, but you’ve got to fish responsibly if you want a future” for the fishing industry, he said in an interview, prior to meeting and signing autographs for hundreds of fans of the show.

“The Resqunit system offers an affordable solution for fishermen to avoid the loss of essential fishing gear. Acting as a second lifeline, the technology ensures that gear can be retrieved if ever lost,” the company said in a news release.

Erik Nobbe, chief sales officer for Resqunit, said they started working on the product six years ago.

“We began developing it from a sketch on a napkin in 2017 and had our first prototype in 2018,” he said, noting that mass production of the device started in late 2022. Founded in Norway, Resquit has an office in Nova Scotia. The tour of the Maritimes last week, Nobbe said, resulted in sales of around 1,000 units.

The company has launched the device in Australia, New Zealand, Portugal, pockets of the U.S., southern Europe and Scandinavia – Norway in particular, which Nobbe said might be the most environmentally conscience country in the world. Nobbe said data shows there are an estimated 3.5 million traps in Atlantic Canada alone, and roughly 10 per cent of those are lost every year.

Don and Joyce MacLean travelled from their Westville-area home to meet Hansen.

Wearing a The Deadliest Catch baseball cap, Don MacLean said he records episodes of the show and binge watches them.

“I’m a big fan of the show, I watch it all the time,” he said, adding he, for decades, fished lobster and other species as a hobby, and to make a little extra money on the side. “I got my licence when I was 14 and I still have it.”