8/8/12
Alaska has a lot to offer. Oil, lumber, fish, this frontier is the land of the plenty. Fortunately these resources can be sold for the right price, unfortunately it doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. I can’t exactly speak to the frenzy that surrounds the acqusition of oil or lumber but I can shed light on fishing. When there are enough fish for everybody, all is well and all are happy. Having said that, there are never enough fish for everybody. This simple fact can result in lineups for sets (much like surfers line up for waves), or turn into a full-blown shootout.
These aren’t exactly the Squint Eastwood wild west shootouts, these happen when the allotted fishing area is relatively small but has some serious salmon jumping around—a setting that attracts lots of boats. You can find 35 boats in a mile-wide bay all hoping to get the big first set in there quarter mile of net. If ADFG (Alaska Department of Fish and Game) says you can start fishing at noon, boats will be lurking around the grounds as early as 8am. Come 10 o’clock there’s a tension in the air so thick you could fillet it. Most crews wave to each other when passing but before shootouts there is no waiving. Captains glower from their wheelhouses and flybridges as the hour nears. When the hour strikes 12 everybody drops their net, the air is filled with smokestacks and the sounds of corks and rings banging sterns. Round hauls, cut offs, fenders, pike poles, plunge poles, towing, revving, and above all shouting. Amazing arrays of swear words are created to express each captain’s express frustration. If you weren’t awake before a shootout you will be afterwards. At the end of the day crews can laugh about the wild first sets unless they were the unlucky boat whose bow is dented or net got ran through. Just like the wild west, not everybody wins in a shootout.
Rough dudes love to fight over land, trees, fish, and oil, but the most sought after thing in Alaska is the one thing other than cell reception that is scarce: women. There’s a saying around the bars, “Up here you don’t lose your girl, you lose your turn.” As gross as that sounds, it is a sad truth that turns every night at a bar into a shootout (just replace the boats for inebriated men and the fish for women, callous as it may be). Usually it’s a more delicately played shootout but sometimes there is contact between competition and you can bet your sweet cheeks people get cut off. I could go for a while expounding on The Last Frontier’s lack of feminine charm but I’ll spare you. While complaining about this problem, Connor Johnson put me in my place, “that’s why you get paid the big bucks, man.” The guy has a point, in the words of uncle Chris, “there’s money in the water” and I’ll be damned if we waste our time chasing the wrong kind of fish.
Phrases like that are what keep our boat on the fishing grounds until the final eligible fishing hour has struck. Most openers end at 8pm so that means our last set is sometime after 7:30. As we start to tow our last set, I always scan the horizon looking for partners in crime. It’s nice to know you’re not the only boat grinding out until the final bell. Unfortunately when I search across the water I find a simultaneously invigorating and depressing flat line in all directions, void of any aberrations resembling a fellow fishing vessel. More fish for us, but damn it must be nice to be done. But that is yet another one of fishing’s many intricacies.
Law number one of seining: thou shalt not compare thyself to another boat. It’s hard not to talk numbers when you get into port. So-and-so had a huge set just a mile down the shore from you, people are deckloading up north, everyone’s scratching for fish down south, our set was pure sockeye—the list never ends. There’s also literal comparisons between boats and their gear. I often wonder what it would be like to have a galley that’s level with the deck and not next to a paper-thin wall with the engine room. Our boat is the oldest wooden seiner in the whole of Southeast Alaska so there’s much comparing to be done. Last night we got into town after an 11-day stint on the water so please excuse the state of my ramblings, it’s just so damn great to feel cement under my boots.
Hoping this finds you all well,
Mac
