Commercial Fishing

[Skillet]

Weather day here in Sitka, thought I'd share a couple of pics of a small black cod (sablefish) trip that was landed yesterday.  The closest rack has the highest value 7#+ carcasses on it.  These are some pretty valuable fish, closely managed by a individual harvest share quota system.

[Sitka_Blacktail]

Nice! I fished blackcod out of Kodiak one year. We made 10 day trips about 50 miles out. Had about  70 tubs of gear and used an auto-baiter which I came to hate. Was a slave driving machine. One of the coolest things I've ever seen out fishing happened while I was on that boat. We rode out a 50 kt storm one night, jogging in circles to stay close to our gear. Daylight the storm came down just before daylight and we were just drifting. At daylight, we noticed that we were surrounded by whales. Must have been close to 50 of them including one that was laying right under our bow. I wish I had pictures, but didn't have a camera that trip. They must have been tired riding that storm out too.

[Skillet]

I've heard that about autobaiters 

Whales are a big problem for the black cod fleet now.  Sperm whales in particular have learned to key in on the hydraulics turning on when they're hauling gear.  There's a pretty amazing video of one basically flossing his teeth with the groundline as it comes up, popping the cod off in his mouth.

It's gotten so bad in the last few years there's a sperm whale sighting network so fisherman can try to avoid the darn things.

[RB]

That's amazing a whale would do that!

[Scvette]

I've heard that about autobaiters 

Whales are a big problem for the black cod fleet now.  Sperm whales in particular have learned to key in on the hydraulics turning on when they're hauling gear.  There's a pretty amazing video of one basically flossing his teeth with the groundline as it comes up, popping the cod off in his mouth.

It's gotten so bad in the last few years there's a sperm whale sighting network so fisherman can try to avoid the darn things.

Skillet,good to see fishing is working out for you. You mentioned auto baiter  being slave drivers,I have a different opinion of them,they're great. We used to hand bait on this boat,got up to 305 tubs @ 225 hook a tub 68,000 hooks using 30 crew,that was hard work. We switched to an auto baiter cut the crew down to 22-23 guys and now we are setting 74,000 hooks everyday,it's a lot easier on the crew.we use less bait,we used to take 225,000-250,000lbs of squid a trip,now we take 90,000-120,000. Thank god the whales don't like cod.

[Skillet]

Thanks man, it's been a great ride so far.  I just wrote some insurance pool checks today, so that takes some of the shine off of it tho 

 We're not getting many fishing days - I went and tried it in 25 SW and 18' today, but just too big of water for effectively trolling kings in my boat. Coming down to 15kts and 11' tomorrow - easy!

Still, 90k# of bait... I thought I was staring down a big winter season bait bill at 6-8 doz herring a day 

[Sitka_Blacktail]

I've heard that about autobaiters 

Whales are a big problem for the black cod fleet now.  Sperm whales in particular have learned to key in on the hydraulics turning on when they're hauling gear.  There's a pretty amazing video of one basically flossing his teeth with the groundline as it comes up, popping the cod off in his mouth.

It's gotten so bad in the last few years there's a sperm whale sighting network so fisherman can try to avoid the darn things.

Skillet,good to see fishing is working out for you. You mentioned auto baiter  being slave drivers,I have a different opinion of them,they're great. We used to hand bait on this boat,got up to 305 tubs @ 225 hook a tub 68,000 hooks using 30 crew,that was hard work. We switched to an auto baiter cut the crew down to 22-23 guys and now we are setting 74,000 hooks everyday,it's a lot easier on the crew.we use less bait,we used to take 225,000-250,000lbs of squid a trip,now we take 90,000-120,000. Thank god the whales don't like cod.

It's not the baiting that is a problem with them. If they aren't "tuned" perfectly they tear up gear. So you spend your extra time rehabbing gear. Ours was way out of "tune",

[Scvette]

I've heard that about autobaiters 

Whales are a big problem for the black cod fleet now.  Sperm whales in particular have learned to key in on the hydraulics turning on when they're hauling gear.  There's a pretty amazing video of one basically flossing his teeth with the groundline as it comes up, popping the cod off in his mouth.

It's gotten so bad in the last few years there's a sperm whale sighting network so fisherman can try to avoid the darn things.

Skillet,good to see fishing is working out for you. You mentioned auto baiter  being slave drivers,I have a different opinion of them,they're great. We used to hand bait on this boat,got up to 305 tubs @ 225 hook a tub 68,000 hooks using 30 crew,that was hard work. We switched to an auto baiter cut the crew down to 22-23 guys and now we are setting 74,000 hooks everyday,it's a lot easier on the crew.we use less bait,we used to take 225,000-250,000lbs of squid a trip,now we take 90,000-120,000. Thank god the whales don't like cod.

It's not the baiting that is a problem with them. If they aren't "tuned" perfectly they tear up gear. So you spend your extra time rehabbing gear. Ours was way out of "tune",

You probably were using a Marco system. These newer Mustad super baiters are pretty nice,I can set at 8.2-8.5kts baiting about 3-4 hooks a sec and still get a 98% bait up. We've done black cod using the auto baiter but it just doesn't fish as well as tub gear,plus we're just too big for that small quota.

[Sitka_Blacktail]

Yes, it was a Marco.

[Mark Brenckle]

Any video of the auto baiter? New to me, never knew they existed.

[Sitka_Blacktail]

[goldenhtr]

Really cool video. I never knew..............

[Mark Brenckle]

Thanks Sitka BT, I had no idea that was even possible. It's a long way from my little earth worms!

[Skillet]

Cool video of the auto baiter! 

Coming in tonight with a two-day trip of winter kings and some nice bonus yelloweye rockfish.   Thought I'd share a pic of the goods-

[Sitka_Blacktail]

You sell your yelloweye to Sitka Sound Seafoods Skillet? I get a 25 lb box of fillets from them every year. A buddy of mine is a herring spotter pilot and when he goes to Sitka he gets me a box and I trade him a Copper River King for them.