Without a Boat

August 2008 — I returned from Bristol Bay on July 27, 2008. Although there was no sockeye fishery planned for areas 7 and 7a (San Juan Islands), the Frasier River Panel opened it up for a few days in the first week of August. I had no intention of scrambling out to make those openings, since it seems we are allowed to fish only when there are no fish around, which turned out to be the case once again.

A friend of mine who understands the logic of the Frasier River Panel said that even when there are fish in abundance, if there are just a few fish present from a river that has been designated a "stock of concern" then they shut it down so we won't catch those particular fish.

Even if I wanted to make those openings I would have had a tough time because I stored the Satisfaction in LaConner, with the thought of reconfiguring the deck. My net reel is permanently mounted in the back deck, and there's only a pitiful three-feet to pick fish between my net reel and the stern roller. I want to move it to a slider so it could be secured above the hatch when fishing, and pushed back toward the stern when it was time to deliver. This would give me 10 feet of fish picking space, which would allow me to pick lots of fish very quickly.
 
I didn't actually do those improvements, so they remain on the wish-list, but I did have the guys at the yard install a bow thruster tube (I will install the thruster myself). With a bow thruster I can simply thrust myself out of the tight jams I get into out there fishing by myself in the middle of the night.

With no sockeye fishing and my boat in LaConner, the only fishing boat at my disposal was my 18-foot crab skiff, the Lady Ruth, which I tried unsuccessfully to sell the year before. Since the craft wouldn't disappear from my life, I decided it could be easily transformed into a crude, open-to-elements, hand-hauling gillnetter that would be perfect for the Samish Bay king, and Bellingham Bay silver fisheries that happen in August and September.

I fished Samish Bay the year before on the Satisfaction with a borrowed 150-mesh net, and I swore I would never go back to that shit-hole. It took me three hours to get there, and during that night's fishing I caught what seemed like 500,000 crab and 100 metric tons of eel grass. I was up all night long picking crab from that damned net, enduring an endless pincher-torture as I fought to free those ungrateful bastards. The nice thing about catching all those crab was it made pitching the tons of eelgrass overboard seem like a cakewalk.

The three-hour, sleep deprived, 8-knot put-put back to Friday Harbor the next morning was spent damning the existence of that miserable fishery, and I vowed never to return to Samish Bay in a slow boat with a deep net. But now, with the prospect of the summer lapsing without any fishing, the idea of converting my underutilized crab skiff, the Lady Ruth, into a small, open, fish-in-the-shallows-while-I-haul-it-by-hand gillnetter sounded like a great idea.

A return to Samish in a fast boat with a shallow net that would not catch so much crab and eelgrass would trump all the horrid aspects of my previous experience. The nauseating 3-hour run would become a one-hour thrill ride, and what a "neener" it would be to be able to catch fish in the shallows and avoid all those crab. The drawback about the whole proposal is that there is no shelter on the Lady Ruth, and I would spend all night exposed to whatever elements God decides to lash upon me… all for the sake of strangling a few king salmon.

I was up for the challenge... it sounded like fun to me!

TO BE CONTINUED...

Leaving the Crew Behind

July 14-25, 2008 — It was quiet on the Sunlight III after Dave left for bigger and better things, and Bruce had left us a few days before. Now it was just Edward, Anthony, Madeline and me. It was kind of nice for us each to have our own bunk, but we were definitely overstaffed for the amount of fish we were catching, especially when we ground it out to the bitter end.

I finally threw in the towel when I realized I wasn’t having as much fun as I should, because scratch fishing can be pretty boring, chasing an elusive few sockeye around the tide rips. Our last delivery came on Saturday, July 19, which was the remainder of the fish we high-graded from our go-out-and-catch-our-home-pack day of fishing.

We anchored in the river and gave the Sunlight III it’s final scrubbing while waiting for water to get to the dock. We hauled out on Sunday, July 20, and completed the remainder of the scrubbing, which included every last bit of that boat, inside and out, before it went into the warehouse at the end of the day. After the initial scrub-down I took my time with the other aspects of winterizing the boat, which helps me unwind after living with such intensity for the past two months.

The nets were a major project, as there was a humongous tangle in the net loft, a product of two boats drawing off the same pile of gear. Organizing what needs to be hung next year, and deciphering which ripped-in-half corkline goes with which ripped-in-half leadline always takes a couple of days. This time it seemed to go on longer because as we became more organized we kept discovering more net bags that needed attention.

This slow progression at the end of the season was fine with me because my flight home wasn’t until July 25, so I had time to unwind before I reentered the madness of our “normal” society.

Anthony and Edward both were set to fly out after the 25th, so when it was time for me to leave, they were still there, hanging out in the room. This was a little different for me because I usually go through this sort of meditative ending to the season as I drift around the camp like a ghost, just me and only me, doing whatever it is I do up there at the season’s end.

This year I had Madeline buzzing around, so I always had to keep track of her whereabouts, and also my two crew guys, just hanging out. It distorted my accustomed ceremonial ending to the season, but I could handle it.

I misbooked my flight, so in order to travel with Madeline I had to fly stand-by. We flew out around noon, caught an afternoon flight down to Seattle, and Maureen picked her husband and daughter up at the airport that evening.

My Alaskan fishing merry-go-round had ended for the year, and now I could finally relax with my family. But I knew the relaxation would be short-lived, because right around the corner was the opportunity to catch local San Juan Island salmon and sell it to my loyal island customers.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Dave and the Redman

July 13-25, 2008 — We arrived at Nornak camp to put on our levelwind as the light from the day was fading from the sky on July 13. Our mission was simple and brief — grab the levelwind off the dock, maybe get a few groceries, let the guys take a shower, and then head back out for more fishing.

The most time-consuming part of going to the dock was bullshitting with all the other fishermen who had come, as we had, to regroup after a long and grinding season. When the crew was fully assembled, we all climbed onto the Sunlight III, which everybody agreed really stank, since our bodies and noses were now clean and we could actually smell the living environment to which we had become accustomed.
 
As we pulled away from the dock, Dave came up to the flying bridge and told me Mike, the guy I go longlining with, was thinking about buying one of the boats at Bumble Bee, which concerned him because one of those was the boat he had his eye on, the Redman.

Dave had been talking about that boat more and more as the fishing action had waned through the season. I told him he should buy it now, borrow a permit holder who is on a boat that is calling it quits, and then fish the end of the season with the boat so he knows what it needs for next year.

He thought that was a great idea, and since I had just come up with it I had to agree. The only thing I could do was turn around and drop him off back at camp so he could pursue his notion of running a boat in Bristol Bay.

Dave negotiated a price with Leroy, but needed the money to buy the boat, so I authorized the Peter Pan office to advance him the funds from his earnings, and suddenly Dave was in the fishing business.

He got a lot of help getting the boat ready from Bumper, who was around the dock because he had quit fishing for Giuseppe on bad terms, but didn’t want to go fishing anymore this season.

For crew Dave took Serena, a gal who was fishing with her Uncle Chris on another boat in camp, and for his permit he arranged an emergency transfer from somebody who was done fishing and going home anyway.

I sold him (at a great deal) some old nets I wanted to get rid of, and for a market, since he wasn’t allowed to fish for Peter Pan Seafoods with that awful wood boat, he fished for Bay Watch Fisheries, who was paying $0.35 for chum salmon, so it was a better deal for him anyway.

In just a few days’ time, Dave had amassed everything he needed to go fishing. It actually took him longer to get out there than it should have, partly because he was a bit nervous about going. He showed the classic signs of dilly-dally and procrastination, including a blowout of a part on his boat, which he says was necessary to usher in good karma.

He finally made it out around Monday, July 21, for some heavy-duty scratch fishing. For Dave, the importance of this year’s fishing was all about giving the boat a trial run to get the feel for it and see what it needs for next year, and not so much about putting in the pounds.

No matter how many fish he caught, Dave was happy with his new boat. It was what he had been talking about, and now he had it. Good going, Dave.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Levelwind Fish

July 12-13, 2008 — The peak had passed, and the 2008 Bristol Bay sockeye salmon run was winding down. Catch limits were gone but not forgotten, and we were fishing longer periods for less fish.

I would sit on the flying bridge and watch my crew guys push the net onto the reel as it was hauled in, human levelwinds in action. Then I thought about the levelwind I had sitting up in the locker, which, after of years in mothballs, I got ready to go for when fishing slowed down. And it looked like fishing had slowed down.

I’ve fished without the levelwind since 2000. During heavy fishing it is nothing but a hassle — it has to be moved out of the way at the end of each set before I can shut the hydraulics off, it creates another snag for the net when we set, and it is always breaking down. It causes more stress than anything, so why bother?

I figured my current crew guys are sharp enough to diminish the negative aspects so they could enjoy the benefit of having the machine ease the burden of directing the net onto the reel. The next slow opening I decided to run up to camp and put the levelwind on.

The wind whipped across Johnson Hill on another day of crappy weather on July 12. Very few fish came across the line for most of the evening flood, so I decided this would be a good time to run up and put the levelwind on. With a little bit of the flood remaining, I ran with the wind and tide up to Nornak camp, making 10 knots all the way.

As I ran I kept an eye on other nets in the water, and noticed there were a few fish hitting 5 miles north of the line, closer to the mouth of the river. I slowed down and va-rumped the motor a few times to signal the guys we were going to set. I thought they would be surprised, but they immediately popped out on deck ready to go. They were more surprised I had decided to run in, and expected I would be making a few sets on the way.

Part of my decision to go in was because it was really blowing, and I was getting tired of beating my brains out running up to the line for no fish. To avoid the weather I ran right up close to the bank in the lee of the offshoreish wind, and set out my net. And waddyaknow — there were a few fish around!

I viewed these as bonus fish since I had already decided to run in, so I just put the towline on the bow and hung on it in the wind, which I guess was blowing about 35 knots at this point. Then I went down and relaxed, instead of towing the end around in the nasty weather; I figured just being here was enough — I didn’t have to kill myself!

The wind did a great job of pushing us offshore back into the swell, and when it got too rough to be comfortable, we picked it up, ran back in, and made another. We were one of the few boats fishing, so there was always a set, and we enjoyed pretty good, easy fishing for a few hours.

When the ebb started pushing out real fast the fishing slowed down, and I jogged with the tide back down to the line and delivered. With the levelwind idea on hold until the wind, and the fishing, slowed down, I fished another opening through the remainder of the blow.

By Saturday evening, July 13, the storm had moved through, and so had the fish. Nobody was catching anything to speak of and I knew this was the time for a run to camp. We traveled in flat-calm seas, and didn’t miss a thing when we put the levelwind on.

TO BE CONTINUED…