Storm Days: When the Fleet Stays Tied Up
When a marine forecast turns bad, the boat doesn’t go out — crews check the forecast the night before and again first thing in the morning. In a fishery where the whole season might run only a few weeks or months, a string of storm days is lost fishing time that generally doesn’t come back.
Why boats stay tied up
The decision to fish or not comes down to the captain reading wind speed, wave height, and the specific risks of the gear and grounds that boat works — and it’s the captain’s call, not a fixed rule tied to a single wind number, because the same forecast can be manageable on one boat and dangerous on another depending on size, stability, and where the boat is fishing. Small fishing vessels are especially exposed: Transport Canada’s own safety guidance notes that four out of five deaths on fishing vessels are related to vessel stability — capsizing, foundering, or sinking — or to crew falling overboard, which is exactly the kind of risk that spikes in heavy weather and swell (Transport Canada, “Small fishing vessel safety,” accessed 2026-09-07). A captain who ties up on a marginal day isn’t being overly cautious; they’re managing the exact risk category that kills the most fishers.
Beyond wind and waves, ice conditions, fog thick enough to make navigation and gear-spotting unsafe, and DFO grid closures to protect species like the North Atlantic right whale can also keep boats in on a given day, separate from weather entirely.
What a storm day actually costs a crew
Because deckhand pay on most boats is a share of that day’s or that season’s landings rather than a fixed wage, a day tied up at the wharf is usually a day with no pay for that day specifically — most crew arrangements have no paid-snow-day equivalent. Over a short, intense season like snow crab’s typical two-to-three-month window, a stretch of bad weather can meaningfully cut into the season’s total catch and, with it, everyone’s share. Lobster’s longer season gives a bit more room to make up lost days later in the run, but a bad early stretch in a short season is much harder to recover from.
This is part of why fishing income is described as highly variable rather than a stable number: a season’s total earnings depend on catch, shore price, and weather all landing reasonably well together, and a captain or crew member can do everything right and still have a lean year because of factors entirely outside their control. Anyone budgeting around a fishing season should plan for that variability rather than assuming the best-case numbers from a good year will repeat.
What crews do on a tied-up day
Storm days aren’t wasted time on a well-run boat — they’re when gear gets repaired, traps get mended, engine maintenance gets done, and paperwork catches up. For newer crew, it’s also a chance to learn boat systems and gear from more experienced hands without the pressure of an active fishing day. See our safety hub for more on the specific hazards crews are managing on the water, and our pay hub for how share-based pay works with a variable number of fishing days in a season.
FAQ
Do fishing crews get paid on storm days when the boat doesn’t go out? Generally no — most deckhand pay is a share of landings, so a day the boat doesn’t fish is usually a day with no catch and no pay for that day, not a paid day off.
Who decides whether a boat goes out in bad weather? The captain, based on wind, wave height, ice, and the specific stability and gear risks of that boat — it’s a judgment call, not a fixed rule, and a cautious captain tying up on a marginal day is managing real risk rather than being overly careful.
How much can weather affect a season’s total earnings? It can matter a lot, especially in short seasons like snow crab’s typical two-to-three-month window, where a stretch of storm days can’t easily be made up later. Longer seasons like lobster’s give more room to recover lost days, but weather is one of the biggest reasons fishing income varies so much year to year.