Business & Tech
Yvette Hudson — Goes to Sea, Brings Back Fish
For this Kensington Farmers' Market vendor, entry into the commercial fishing business started with a wine-inspired idea one restful evening.
Name: Yvette Hudson
Age: “My new technique is I’m going to start saying I’m five years older than I am so that people say ‘Damn, you look good’ – I’m 62.”
Occupation: Co-owner of Hudson Fish; “My husband and I are your local commercial fisher people”
Find out what's happening in El Cerritofor free with the latest updates from Patch.
There’s not very many of you around is there? Not anymore. The fleet is getting smaller and smaller. We were closed for salmon for three years. We’re part of the salmon troll; that’s what we do.
What are some of the struggles for a fisher today? We’ve got closures of salmon season because of what we call in-river problems. And it’s getting harder and harder to find commercial harbors. We got hit kind of hard up north with the tsunami – half of Eureka. It’s a big commercial harbor. And half of Fort Bragg was pretty much taken out. Fort Bragg had really old docks, and they just got picked up and laid on top of each other. They just reopened the fuel dock in time for salmon season – it took that long for the EPA to clear it.
Find out what's happening in El Cerritofor free with the latest updates from Patch.
And this just happened? That was this tsunami we had in March. That’s been one of the biggest challenges this year.
Has this affected your market? With salmon, you follow them up and down the coast. We can fish anywhere in California. We will fish normally between Monterey Bay and Fort Bragg, but if there’s no salmon down below, we’ll go as far as Eureka.
Do you own fishing boats? We own a fishing boat. I wish (laughs), I wish there was a fleet. We own a commercial troller, not to be confused with a trawler. A troller means that you’re catching things by lines, no nets.
Did you grow up locally? Born and bred San Francisco. I always fished a little bit with my dad.
How did you end up owning a fishing business? We’d always fished, and my husband and I had sports boats. And one evening he said to me, “You know, if we buy a commercial boat, it’s a business and we could write it off.” And I thought, “Uh-huh,” knowing we’d have to have a profit to write it off against, but I was a little wine laden and – we’ve been commercial fishing for about 15 or 16 years now.
What do you do for fun? My husband is a blues man. He plays the blues. He’s playing at the Boom Boom Room this Sunday night. His name is Mike Hudson. We go out and do the blues.