For the last 15 years, Sandra Leckie, owner of Gaski Marine Fishing Supplies, has been selling gear all over the world from her location in Upper Lakeville, Nova Scotia. “I was building boats before that,” Leckie says. “Then we had a bit of a downturn, so we started selling the gear. Leckie moves a number of products, but her signature item is the ProFisher gillnet hauler. “We sell the ProFisher P, which is powered by a gas engine, and the Profisher E which has an electric motor. The E runs on 12 volt, and we just got the EN which can run on 12 volt or 24 volt.
Leckie adds that the ProFisher E has a lifting capacity of 150 kilos, while the EN, at 24 volts, can lift 180 kilos. “I just sent four to Australia,” she says. “I had a customer down there and he was so happy with his, he showed it to his friend and his friend ordered one.” Leckie points out that she is mostly serving small boat fishermen. “Young people like it, people with small boats that don’t have hydraulics. I just sold one to a guy who was 60 years old. He was happy not to have to use his back anymore.”
While supplying the ProFisher hauler to commercial fishermen in Atlantic Canada and the rest of the world, Leckie notes that her steadiest market is among Native fishers on Lake Michigan. “They’ve been my best customers,” she says, adding that she has started to sell to freshwater fishers in Canada’s Northwest Territories—where the Canadian government has been trying to double production from the Great Slave Lake commercial fishery since building a new, yet to open, processing plant in Hay River, on the south shore of the lake.
Gaski Marine does not build the equipment. “I get them from Norway,” says Leckie. “They’re built in Lithuania.” The ProFisher haulers are made of “impact-resistant plastic and seawater-resistant [anodized] aluminum,” according to the Norwegian manufacturer, Kraftblokk. According to the online specifications machines draw 4 to 30 amps depending on load and the package weighs around 40 pounds.
“The 12-volt has a 300-watt motor,” says Leckie. “The newer EN has a 350-watt motor.” A 4-hp Honda gas engine powers the Profisher P, although Leckie notes that she sells more electric haulers than gas powered.
