Spectacular, 4 hour sunsets |
So Many Fish, So Little Time
This shot, taken around midnight, is a typical Northern sunset. On average, we enjoyed about 20 hours of daylight. When the sun finally sets that far North, it only dips down below the horizon, barely out of sight, and then climbs back up a few degrees East three or four hours later.
The Johnson Hill line, which makes up this fishing district's Southern boundary, is where all the action takes place and it works something like this: On every incoming tide, hundreds of thousands of salmon are coming from the open ocean up into the rivers where they were born (except in Washington State's Columbia river where more than 17 dams have ensured the salmon's demise). These fish are headed back to their spawning grounds to begin the life cycle all over again with kids of their own.
The Alaska Dept of Fish and Game has set up monitoring stations on the rivers where they can count the number of fish that manage to get by all of the fishermen's nets, up into the river and, eventually, to their spawning grounds. The verb is "escaping," the noun, "escapement."
If the Fish and Game folks are happy with the number of fish that are escaping, they turn all of us crazy fisherman out into the bay to "soak up" some of the fish because having too many fish get up the river, "overescapement," is just as dangerous as not having enough. On the other hand, if they're not getting enough escapement they radio all the boats back into the river where we cannot fish and are forced to anchor up in calm waters for a long, calm sleep.
Brothers in raingear |
Mostly, the weather was decent but we did get our share of big winds which make for big waves. It's funny looking back, how mad I used to get at the waves, the water, the wind. It served as a constant reminder of Nature's indifference. We were thrown side to side, back to front, the howling wind hurling disintegrated bits of jelly fish into our eyes, seasickness, it's all very humbling.
After a few miserable days of being beaten about, struggling to hang on, one learns instead to let go. Standing in the stern (the back of the boat), I used to imagine myself a strand of kelp reaching up from the ocean floor, waving gently back and forth in the underwater storm surge. It becomes a dance between you and the sea. The sea leads, you follow.
The raingear dance is the second dance in most fishermen's repertoire. The image here is more akin to a cowboy astride a one-ton, horned bull as, half asleep and half frozen, he struggles one leg at a time into wet raingear on the fish-slimed deck during a three day blow. There is nothing fun about it.
Fightin' the Line |
Bristol Bay and other fishing grounds pose a very complex biological management question with a myriad of unknowns and contributing factors too numerous to mention here. To their credit, AK Fish and Game has "successfully" managed the Bristol Bay fishery for almost 200 years. Part of their success comes from imposing BIG fines on those who break the rules.
The fishing area at Naknek is rectangular in shape, bounded on one side by land, on another side by the mouth of the Naknek river, and on the remaining two sides by buoys and electronic markers (outside of which fishing is STRICTLY illegal). As I mentioned above, millions of salmon come into the bay as the tide begins to come back in. This is called the "flood" and follows "low water".
We thought, smart guys that we are, that we would put our boat right on the Southern boundary line and just wait for the fish to swim into the legal fishing area and into our nets. Yes, other boats had the exact same idea and being: a) more crazy, b) more rich, or c) more stupid than us, they continued to go just a little bit farther out over the boundary line than we did. Actually, this is the way it's been done for more than a decade or so now. It's called "fighting the line" and fighting it is.
The equation has many factors:
1) Each boat has 150 fathoms (about '900) of net that they want in the water at all times. With almost 1000 boats, the southern line quickly gets crowded. 2) These boats all have at least one propeller, some have two. Here, things get dramatically more interesting. 3) Throw in a few shotgun wielding Fish and Game guys zipping around in their turbo charged skiffs trying to keep the peace and handing out $25,000 tickets. Is the picture coming into view now? No? OK, 4) add the potential for LOTS of money. If you can get your net in at just the right place and at just the right time, you can potentially pull in up to $15,000 of salmon in one hour.
Rest when you're able |
As a result of the incoming tide (and the tides can be quite large in this area), water that is right on the boundary line is soon well in bounds. This leads to a continual rotation of boats: One boat rushes to the front, going slightly out of bounds, and throws out some net. In those few seconds at the front of the pack he might catch a thousand salmon. The tide begins to push the boat in bounds, behind the other boats and their nets. At this point, there are very few remaining fish and it's time to pull in the net, pick out all the fish, and prepare for another charge to the front. It is a complicated, confused system that rewards the bold and tactful and, too often, the reckless and stupid.
You push your luck by going out in front of the other boats, and hence out of bounds, and hope that the Fish and Game guys are concentrating on the worst offenders. A ticket can cost far more than the initial $25,000 (or whatever it might be). There is also down time (that's when you and your crew are sitting in jail). If a crew misses even one 8 hour opening during the peak of the season (around July 4 in Bristol Bay) it could potentially ruin their entire season leaving only enough money to cover expenses and wages.
With close to a million feet of net in the water at any given time it's virtually impossible to make it from the back of the line (where the tide has carried you) up to the front without crossing someone's net. The key (rumored to have been invented several years ago by Paul, who owned our boat, the C-Quest) is to run full steam straight at a net and then cut the engines just before you hit it. Theoretically, the boat's momentum will carry you over. Of course in practice, it's not so cut and dried and getting net in your "wheel" (propeller) is very hard to avoid if you're aggressive (which you have to be to make any money).
Fish in the hold |
When it happens you have to pay some freak (albeit a rich freak) about $1000 an hour for a 30 minute dive into the 45 degree water to cut all the net out of your wheel. During this time it is customary to curse and generally stomp about while watching the other boats haul in net after net full of fish. On the other hand, if someone gets your net in their propeller, you often lose just as much time as well as a good chunk of your net while they try to get it out. Depending on the makeup of the offending party you either a) wait, b) scream, wave your shotgun in the air, and wait or, c) accept defeat and give them the go-ahead to cut you loose (you can at least get back to fishing, minus a few fathoms of gear).
Other dangers include: ramming and being rammed by other boats; getting something (a glove, a hand, a fishpick) caught in the net as it sails out of the net box, over the roller you see there behind Karl, and out the back of the boat; having a line burst and shoot hydraulic fluid all over your boat and into your eyes (yes, this happened--and we thought fish slime was hard to stand up on!); snapping the tow-line (honcho skippers think it's cool to 'troll' with all 900 feet of net in the water) and having one of the caribiners that hold the sections of net together snap back into your boat (yes, it happened), etc., etc.
Finally, the fun. When the period is over and it's time to sell the fish, our little boat ties up to a bigger boat called a "tender." All of our fish are piled in mesh nylon bags (below) that the tender lifts out of the fish hold with a crane. The crane cable has a scale attached to it near the top (up at which everyone is staring). This process can also be very dangerous, especially in big seas. One has to look out for cranes, cables, nets, and 1 ton bags of swinging salmon, all while standing on fish slime in rough water. The real danger is falling down between the two boats and having your head squashed like a bad watermelon.
Tons of salmon |
The tenders all compete with eachother to buy your fish. Big signs advertise their price per pound plus tantalizing incentives such as, "STEAK DINNER WITH DELIVERY," or "6 PACK INCLUDED," or "FRESH PRODUCE." So we would pick one (often you go to the tender with the best crew as time is money and safety counts for a lot), deliver our 5 or 10 or 15 thousand pounds for that period (boats, by law, cannot hold fish unrefrigerated for more than 12 hours) and watch the man pay, in $100 notes. Having a shotgun on board begins to make sense.
That season, most of the periods lasted 25 hours and we would typically deliver after the tide change when the fishing normally tapers off. After delivery, we might put our net out in some open water, turn the engine off, and get some food before getting into position for the next flood (tide coming in). Of course if we were delivering at the end of the period, it was time for some SLEEP! In this case, we would typically find a quiet spot near where we wanted to start in the morning, have some more food, get out of our stinky, slimy, raingear, have yet more food, and sleep like bears in January.
If we were lucky enough to have a full day free (which never happened this season but was common during my first season) we would chug up into the river on a high tide and nose the boat up against the bank. When the tide went out, we were left high and dry and would jump off the boat onto the beach, and head into town (Naknek) for supplies, pizza, and beer.
There are some pretty rough bars in Naknek, all filled with drunk, stinking fisherman. Most have fistfuls of cash, tumblers of whiskey and, too often, axes to grind. My first season in Bristol Bay, Bruce generally told me to stay out of the bars. I took his advice.
Up the river without a tide |
Stinking fisherman isn't just a figure of speech. Everyone literally smells awful. While we did have a shower on our boat it was filled with survival suits, a blow-up raft, old fire extinguishers, and other supplies. Yet, if you've ever gone more than a week without a shower you know that, at some point, it all becomes relevant. We refer to this as the "seven day barrier:" the point at which one has reached maximum stink. Besides, we were constantly covered in fish slime and when everybody smells the same, nobody smells, or so we told ourselves.
None the less, after one particularly lucrative day, we each had a shower. The post-shower smell of perfumed soap and shampoo was strange and more bothersome for most of us. Or maybe it was just a new smell to which we weren't accustomed.