Commercial Fishing

[Sitka_Blacktail]

I cover each layer with 1/4-1/2 inch of salt. The top layer with about an inch of salt. I use either course or medium rock salt which I buy from the cannery I fish for in 50# bags. If I remember, that's about $12 a bag and it will salt up about three buckets of fish. You don't have to refrigerate it when it's salted, but I keep it someplace cool, like a dark corner in my basement.  In a hot location, you'd maybe want to refrigerate it though as you don't want it getting cooked. The salt is going to suck the moisture out of the fish and will make a brine the fish sits in. The worst thing I've found for salted fish is for it to be exposed to air.  It will turn yellow and get rancid. So be careful when you remove some to prepare, that you don't expose any of the remaining fish to air.

[tmike]

That sounds great. As another option for a little sweeter brine I do a quart of vinegar, 2 1/2 cups of water and 1 1/2 cups white sugar. Heat it up until the sugar dissolves and put that in the fridge over night. The fish I skin and cut in 1 inch pieces. The fish brine is one cup water and 1 cup pickling salt also over night. The next day I rinse the fish really well then add fish and ingredients to jars and add the solution. In 3 days it's ready To go. Red salmon I like the best but use anything you have.

[Fl0und3rz]

Nice. 

[Ripper]

Skillit my friend, glad to see that things are going well for you up North. I didn't realize you were based out of Sitka. I have been on planning a trip to Sitka/Barranoff for about a year now. I'd like to get some Kings and lings plus my 4 deer limit.  I will keep in touch and hopefully be able to meet up although I would probably be there during your busy time. Anyway, good stuff, keep it up I am enjoying the read.  Do you miss walleye fishing on Banks and Rufus? I would imagine it seems boring compared to what you are doing now. Much more relaxing though. I wish you the best.

[Skillet]

Howdy Ripper -
By all means, when you get thinking seriously about heading up that way let me know.  If at all possible, I'll meet up with you.  July through the end of Sept works be tough, but before or after is doable.
I sure do miss walleye fishing, but the good news is the best fishing of the year for the big girls is starting right now.  Early spring on the Big C is awesome, and my buddy that I've fished walleye with for 12 or so years just had two personal best fish this weekend.  It's happening right now, get out there!

[Ripper]

I've down on the C but I'd like too. I'll need some pointers.

[Skillet]

Thought it was finally time to start telling the story that Boss300winmag asked for – my scariest moment up there so far. I still get a bit of an adrenaline surge whenever I share this story, and not in a “woo-hoo!!” way.  This story is still relatively fresh (raw?) in my mind - and the chain of events I am about to describe are in my subconscious thoughts every time I slip the mooring lines safely tying me to land and point the bow towards the self-reliance and opportunity that the ocean represents to me.  I can only do this story justice by telling it as unvarnished as possible.  It is entirely possible that after reading this recounting of my experience, folks may just think “meh.”  Or feel compelled to tell me how I did it wrong, and how poor of a decision maker I was, or just plain stupid.  Fire away if you must, nothing that could be said here hasn't been thought by myself first.

This story is about dinglebar fishing for lingcod on the Fairweather Grounds.  It is a directed fishery, and a bit of background on the techniques may not be necessary, but I think it is interesting.  A separate commercial fishing permit is required to catch lingcod via dinglebar, and it is not a limited entry permit.  Anybody can do it if you have a vessel registered as an Alaska Commercial Vessel.  After that, you plunk your $30 down, or whatever the license costs, and you’re a commercial fisherman. The stocks are managed by area and quota, and in some areas the commercial quota gets caught up very quickly.    Gearing up is a bit different than salmon trolling though.  Think of it as a HUGE bottom bouncer (walleye guys) or a three-way rig.  What I like to use as the weight is a 70-80# bar of 3”-4” round stock*.  That attaches to the bottom of my 5/64” stainless troll wire with a breakaway strap (I use a single wrap of hard-lay halibut ganglion, about 500# breaking strength vs the 900# strength of my 5/64 wire), and the wire is spooled onto hydraulically powered gurdies.  The gurdies are industrial strength downriggers, effectively.  In dinglebar fishing, you are allowed to use only one line at a time.  The fisherman stands in the pit with one hand on the wire and other on the gurdy valve while idling the boat forward, trying to keep the dinglebar just barely touching the bottom but not dragging on it.  We are fishing for lingcod here, so if you’re not occasionally ticking the bottom you’re not really fishing.  If you are dragging dinglebars, you’re losing dinglebars.  Guaranteed.  I but a lot of steel on the bottom this year before I got the technique down.  Dealing with the bottom contours in addition to the ocean swell can get tricky, but it’s expensive not to learn it quick. 

Above the breakaway strap there is a becket that is hold the “train” to the wire.  The train is the string of jigs you have trailing behind the weight, usually setup so the jigs are trailing along behind about a fathom (6 ft) above the breakaway strap.  Guys rig them differently, but I like to use 300# break strength tuna cord with 6 jigs per “shot” and spread out a fathom apart, making each shot 6 fa long.  I hook two shots together to make the train, for a total of 12 jigs and 12 fa of gear behind the dinglebar.  Each jig is attached to the train via a ½ fa leader of 100# monofilament.  The jigs are fisherman’s preference, but the smallest I use are 8oz heads on 10/0 O’Shaughnessy hooks.  Hang a 8-12” plastic bait (twister tail, scampi, B2-squid, etc.) on the jig, snap a big metal spoon on the very end of the train and you’re fishing.  That’s a lot of weight to drag that far behind your dinglebar at 2.5 kts without the jigs plowing the bottom, so we have to add floats to help it achieve neutral buoyancy.  I like to use 4” round hard long line floats that I can snap on as I deploy the train, which allows me to change the floatation instantly depending on the jig style I’m using.  Some guys like to rig smaller floats inline on the shot above each jig.  It’s a cleaner way to go, and I may do that next year. 

Here’s an image that generally shows what I’m describing:



The Fairweather Grounds dinglebar fishery is called “East Yakutat”, and the quota is usually caught up in 3-5 days.  It is a true derby-style fishery, where we are all competing to get the biggest share of the commercial quota as is possible.  Really a grind, but it is a lot of fun to fish like that if you can do it safely and sanely.  The incentive to “beat” the other guys to a very limited commercial quota will lead many to make decisions they wouldn’t otherwise.  Like going to the Fairweather Grounds in May when the weather forecast wasn’t perfect for it.  It is a bit crazy, since these fish are not worth a huge amount of money – but the thrill of the chase and the catching large numbers of big fish is a temptation that is hard to resist.  It was for me…


Here’s a pic of the chart of the Fairweather Grounds relative to Sitka.


The green icon in the bottom right side of the screen is my boat in the harbor, the Fairweather Grounds are an offshore plateau that comes up to about 13-ish fa from very deep gulf waters.  The FW grounds start about 150 nautical miles (or "nm" - a nautical mile is 6000 feet in length for you lubbers, vs. the 5280 they measure statute miles with) northwest of Sitka, and range roughly 30 miles in width and 12-15 miles north to south.  It is a huge bottom feature that is extremely rich in feed and holds a lot of fish.   Interestingly, the Canadian trollers are ones that pioneered fishing the grounds before our Exclusive Economic Zone waters were pushed out to 200 nm from shore, which then encompassed the grounds.  The reason why it is so rich, and the reason why it is so respected, is because of the plateau's proximity to extremely deep water.  You cannot see it in this chart, but on the southern edge the rise is extremely dramatic.  There are several places where it comes up from 1000 fa (1 nm deep) to 500 fa to 30 fa in just a few short miles.  That creates an upwelling of nutrient-rich cold water onto the FW grounds, and the feed flourishes. It is also why when the wind starts blowing you need to pay attention, and if it blows a bit too enthusiastically from the south you need to think about getting off of the grounds. in any sort of Southerly wind (SW, S, SE) the swell builds over deep water and is a typically moderate ocean swell.  Say you're looking at a 30 kt SE wind over 24 hours, that's going to build about a 15 ft sea on usually 15-20 second periods with a 5' wind wave on top (just an estimation for illustration purposes).  That is uncomfortable, but doable in my boat.  I did it all summer.  However, when you take that huge wave pulse and squeeze it from 1000 fa deep to 500 fa deep to 30 fa deep, the period gets shorter and waves get taller.  That easy 15ft with 5 ft wind chop, by the time it gets to the top of the FW Grounds plateau, is 22-25 ft and a 12 second period.  That is dangerous in a boat my size, and uncomfortable in all but the biggest of ships.  I would never willingly put my and the Diamond Lil in that situation.  The thing about the FW Grounds, is the change from fishable to "this is bad" happens so fast.  The general strategy is to either not be there in questionable weather to begin with, or position yourself so that when it gets bad you can get off of the grounds and either back over deep water or to a sheltered anchorage in a hurry.

It happens so fast.  Schizophrenically fast, in terms of changes of sea state.  We call it "blowing up," a very accurate term from my point of view.  The Fairweather Grounds is noted for eating boats and men, and the next installment is my personal experience with a dramatic sea state change out on the Fairweather Grounds.

*always on the lookout for 3-4" round bar stock, if anybody has any semi axles they need to scrap...

[Skillet]

The dinglebar season for EYKT (east Yakutat, ie., the Fairweather Grounds) when they announce the abundance index and corresponding commercial catch available.   This usually happens in late April, after they do the test fisheries as weather allows.  I don’t recall the day the abundance was announced, but the dock talk was that it was roughly the same as last year’s, and that quota lasted 3 days out there. 
My summer deckhand was not scheduled to arrive until late May, and the fishery was scheduled to kick off on May 16th.  I viewed this as a “tryout” fishery for me, and didn’t want another guy to depend on my ability to land fish for his paycheck out there.  So after much deliberation and eyeing the weather, I decided to run out there solo and fish the community holes to figure it out.  Talk on the dock about the where and how is pretty thin – the last year there was only 16 vessels registered to fish out there, this year was looking to be 18.  I gleaned as much info as I could by lubricating the more friendly and talkative guys with Rainier, and to the gear store I went to pick up the little incidentals I didn’t bring up with me.  I was well equipped as the season approached, and you could feel the buzz on the docks as boats start their frantic last minute preparations for the fishery.  By then most guys knew who was going out, but not where.  I figured if I saw a few of the highliner boats in the area that I decided to fish, I had as good a chance as any to have a decent trip.  We start really looking at the wx closely about 5 days out.

She’s gonna blow a bit on day one.

As the days wore it was obvious there was going to be a very short, but somewhat intense, blow out of the south on the evening of the 16th, the opener.  The last wx report I got before I left was 15 kts S all day on the 16th, then increasing to gale force winds (35kts) for four hours from 1800 to 2200, then laying down to 20 kts SW at about midnight.  Then it was going to be a pond out there for the rest of the opener. 

A gale force blow needs to be given the proper respect on the Fairweather Ground (FWG) for the reasons I listed above.  But a short gale, and a quick laydown after, is totally doable if I get off of FWG and out over deep water in time to jog into it.  The weather was actually a steady 25 kts SE for two days the year before, and while it was tough to fish in people did really well.  I figured if I left the fishing grounds at 1400, gave myself 4 hours to go 10 miles (should be no problem in even the bigger water I’d been in already), I could ride it out and get back to fishing as dawn broke at 0300 the next morning.  Discussed this with a few guys that I knew were going out, that was their plan too.  So I picked out a spot on the chart towards the southern side of the grounds which would allow an easy run out to deep water, and started my final prep.  I felt confident I had a good plan, with other skippers saying as much. 

That confidence was misplaced in the forecast.

I left Sitka on the afternoon of the 14th, arriving at Leo’s Anchorage on the north edge of Salisbury Sound on the 14th, 23:15.  Decided to drop the hook and get a few hours of sleep before heading for the FWG early the next morning.
Pic of my arrival at Leo’s Anchorage on the evening of the 14th.  Red skies at night, sailor’s delight?  Turns out that really only works in the Atlantic…


I got a solid 6 hours of sleep in Leo’s, and at 0600 on the 15th Istarted the 90-ish mile run to the FWG.  Arriving at my chosen location on the Southwest corner of the grounds that afternoon, I was very encouraged to see 5 other boats – among them a few known highliners – running over the area as well looking for bait.  We all use this as a exploratory trip for kings as well, so we’re looking for bait and big salmon marks on the sounder.  I spent a few hours mapping out a completely unknown-to-me bottom, and felt pretty good about my situation.  The weather had laid down to nothing, there was just a short oily swell of 5-6ft on the grounds.  The only issue was the wx forecast was updated that afternoon to say that the 35 kts was going to hit a tad earlier, but still last until 2200.  That means more time under the gale for the waves to build – but my plan to get off was still valid.  I thought.  I lined up my overnight drift, and tried to sleep.  I couldn’t as I was unused to sleeping while drifting, and kept getting up to check the radar, check on my drift, etc. 
The day dawned grey and overcast, with a slight ripple on the water. I eagerly sent my train down and within an hour (and losing a dinglebar) had the concept figured out.  I was landing some lings and a few yelloweye, but not smashing it.  I was intentionally staying away from  the group of boats at the very southern tip of the plateau, but as my confidence with running the boat and gear solo increased I edged closer.  As I did, I started catching fish.  A lot of fish.  I had 12 jigs going at that time, and several times I had a fish on every one.  I was catching too many yelloweye however (we’re only allowed a 10% bycatch of yelloweye in this fishery), so I had to  keep moving south towards the other boats.  I basically got in the groove with the rest of them, and was doing pretty well.  The wind was definitely increasing, quickly, at about noon.  By noon I estimated it at 25 knots and gone to SE.  That shift to SE from S was a signal I missed, since the storm had curled farther south before heading north and unbeknownst to me we weren’t going to get a glancing blow at that point.  We were in the line of fire.  The waves were building fast now and as I was cleaning fish on my southbound drag, I noticed something that gave me my first shot of adrenaline – I was totally alone out there.  I checked the radar, and marked a couple of boats steaming east towards Lituya Bay.  There I was, alone just north of the SW corner of the Fairweather Grounds with 15 miles between me and my desired location to ride this storm out.  But nobody else was heading south to ride it out?  I checked up on the weather report, and that’s when I found that they were blasting storm warnings out every 15 minutes.  The weather report had gone to 45 kts SE for 8 hours starting at 1600.  I totally understood what I was into here – I needed to get off of the FWG asap and my easy out to the south was not going to work.  I was not in what I thought of as a safe situation, and needed to make some quick decisions.

The long slog begins.

The sea state where I was “blew up”.   It went from 12-15 footers to 20+’s in 30 minutes, tops.  I couldn’t run parallel to it any longer, the roll was too severe and I was dipping the both rails.  Really uncomfortable, and this is when I started to get really seasick.  That just saps the strength from me, and makes endurance runs like the one I was facing a real challenge.  I could not run east with the rest of the guys, as they had a 15 mile head start on me and had probably cleared the grounds and made for Lituya.  That’s what I thought, anyway.  Radar is pretty useless when the boat is rolling so hard in big waves, it just has a hard time with orientation.  So I was not really sure where everybody was at this point.  I had two choices as I saw it – run north into Yakutat.  That, in retrospect, is the decision I should have made.  I didn’t want to as I had never been before, and it can be hard to make your way back down the coast to Sitka if the storm parks itself just off the coast.  Should have done it tho.  Instead, I decided that although the weather was going to be bad, I was going to execute my original plan.  I felt as though I could work the throttle and jog into it if I could just get off this damn plateau over deep water.  So, at 1420, I turned the boat south and settled in for a long, long night on the throttle.

Mayday call

At 1630, a mayday came in over the radio.  The F/V Roslyn, a 46’ wooden troller,  gave their position putting them on the north edge of the Fairweather Grounds and advised the coast guard that they were taking on water and unable to slow it down.  The Coast Guard sent a chopper out and lowered dewatering pumps but they were unsuccessful in slowing the water inflow.  The skipper and CG agreed that the best course of action is to lift them off and abandon the boat.  The thing with trollers, however, is that there is a lot of rigging up above deck and a chopper can’t safely get a basket on deck in most cases.  So, they were instructed to inflate the life raft and jump in the water.  The Coast Guard was able to pick up both men without injury and the F/V Roslyn was never seen again.  That is a pretty sobering thing to listen to as you are out there battling the elements, but certainly makes a guy feel as though there is a guardian angel looking out for you if the poop really hits the fan. 
At midnight, I had made a total of 15 miles south.  Just off the edge of the grounds, and not in a safe place yet.  I normally run at 7.5 knots, so 8 hours of running gets me 60 nm of wake.  But I was averaging under 2 knots bashing into this stuff, and it was still building.  It was dark and predicting the waves based on sight wasn’t working.  So I made the call to end the trip and head for shore.  This gave me the option of angling towards Chichagof Island again, and towards the sweet relief of an anchorage.  I couldn’t see the size of the waves, but I had never been in anything like that.  My bow would push through a wave, and then fall… and fall and fall.  The anchor would come off of the bow roller and only be held in by the welded loop above it.  When the boat’s bow would land, it was in the trough and instantly start pushing into the next wave.  I was scooping large amounts of green water and making just over a knot SOG.  I needed to find an angle of attack that would allow for some ground to be covered and not destroy my boat.  I was able to find a bit of a sweet spot and rode that for a while.

0200 May 17th

I was getting pretty tired and was certain I had tried to puke my toenails out at that point.  I still maintained a vigilant help presence, and was encouraged by the 2.5 knots I was averaging.  The waves were coming on at about 30 degress off my starboard bow, and with the help of the stabalizers in the water it seemed to be a point of sail the Diamond Lil handled fairly well.  Everything was straining, creaking, groaning.  But holding – until it didn’t.  My port stabilizer line parted at the shackle, and as soon as that happened my world turned into a carnival ride.  With no roll attenuation on the port side, the boat would heel over more to starboard and hang there longer, in the direction the waves were coming at me.  My starboard rail was spending way too much time under water and I had to make a course correction to the south to reduce the risk.  It was disheartening to see that my speed dropped down to 1.something knots again and my layline had me pointed towards Vancouver island.  I couldn’t turn towards shore, I couldn’t make any real headway, and turning around at this point with one stabilizer in the water would have been suicide.  There I was, still 70+ miles out from safety unable to go anywhere.  I thought that as soon as dawn broke I could get that other stabilizer in, be more strategic in my attack angle and work my way towards shore.  I just needed to survive the next hour and a half of big waves, inky blackness and vicious winds.

I didn’t make it to dawn.

My log records the event at about 0230.  I was tired, sick and just jogging the throttle, trying to avoid big green water from coming over the rail.  One wave I didn’t avoid, however.   All I remember from that instant was the lingering of the boat over to starboard, then the sound of exploding glass and the feeling of total confusion.  I never saw the wave that got me.  A wave that didn’t match the wave pattern (rouge wave?) come over my starboard bow and blew out two of my starboard wheel house windows.  There was a solid jet of saltwater that come through the front of my wheelhouse and doused the entire starboard side of my cabin.  I was in my sweats and socks, trying to stay as comfy as I could while fighting the battle.  In my inverter went out instantly, and with it went my computer that contained my navigation software.  My Furuno depth finder took a direct hit and was instantly out of commission as well.  I was officially in a tough spot at that point, and I ran on adrenaline for a few hours after that. 

Assessing the damage

I knew priority one was to get boards on those windows.  I was constantly taking more water on through them via spray and splash, so I threw one boot on (couldn’t find the other) and went on top of the wheelhouse where I kept the covering boards.  I wrestled two of them down and around to the front of the cabin where I could install them.  Carrying two 24”x16” pieces of plywood in that kind of wind and wave on a severly rocking boat is a quite an ordeal, but I managed to get one installed from the outside up front and then the second from the inside.  That took 10-ish minutes, and I took on a lot more water in the meantime.  Once I got the boards on, I got back to assessing the damage.  Foc’s’le was flooded to 10” of water, half of the cabin soaked, anything that was on a shelf wasn’t anymore, glass everywhere.  Lucky I didn’t slice up my foot too.  Autopilot still taking orders from the compass, thankfully, so I could somewhat pay attention to restoring power.  I fired up the genset and flipped the switches over to genset power - thankfully it worked.  Amazingly, although my computer was soaked with saltwater, it still fired – but the keyboard didn’t work. I eventually got my mouse to respond and got my navigation software running again.  Dawn started to break and I became much more aware of the enormity of the waves I was dealing with.  I also saw that if I could only make a few more miles of southing that I could get into what I was sure was much easier water to deal with.

Storm Day #2 of the 4 hour gale

The 17th was more of the same in terms of wind and wave.  But I could see them, which helped a ton.  I got the port stabilizer in and that balanced out the boat’s action significantly.  By 0500 I had been up for 48 hours straight, with only 6 hours of sleep in the last 72.  I was still sick as a dog, and had nothing left to give in that department.  The saving grace here was I could see that there was a noticeable change in the wave patterns – I could turn a few more degrees towards shore and head for Salisbury Sound.  The rest of the day was just a long, long day of improving sea state and motoring towards the safety of a harbor.  I piled on as much easterly heading as I dared, and jockeyed the throttle navigating waves for the rest of the day until darkness came.  At that point I was making maybe 4 knots through steadily improving sea conditions.  The wind was starting to lay down, and though the sea was still very uncomfortable and tall, the waves spread out a bit relative to what they were before and allowed for me to come off of the adrenaline focus on ending this trip.  I made it to shore at Leo’s Anchorage, the same place I launched this misadventure from, at 2310 on May 17th.  I have never been so relieved in my life as when I was able to drop the hook in Leo’s and allow myself the sweet relief of sleep. 

I woke at 1100 the next morning and took this picture of my wheelhouse windows.  I also took a video of the carnage, but I have been unable to watch it all the way through yet.  Then I started in through Neva Strait towards Sitka.


View from inside on the morning of the 18th




A friend of mine that was on the dock at the processor in Sitka took this pic of me heading over to unload.  You can see the covering boards from the outside, and maybe see the loose rigging where I lost my stabilizer.

Limping into town



Dockside pic of the front of my wheelhouse.  I worked really hard and fast to make sure I got these windows fixed asap.  Not a good look for me or my boat…


People in town had heard about all of the carnage out there, and were checking in on us.  One of the guys I knew was Guthrie on the Velvet and was fishing with out on the West Bank hadn’t been heard from yet, however.  When he limped into town on the 18th I was unbelievably glad to see him.  His boat was in a bad way, however.  She was leaking pretty severly through her bottom planking and had folded a trolling pole, taking out all of her antennae.  That left him without comm’s for two full days.  I was so glad to see him on the dock I shook his hand, and he pulled me into a big bear hug.  And I hugged him back.  And it was one of the most sincere “am I  glad to see you!” hugs I’ve ever experienced.  I barely new the guy, but was nearly reduced to tears when he finally got back and I shook his hand.  We swapped a few quick stories, then he had to get back to work keeping his boat floating.  Unfortunately, after he got all of his rigging and antennae fixed, the Velvet sunk less than three weeks later with no loss of life or injury.   I believe the beating she took out on the Fairweather Grounds during that storm was too much for that 58’ wooden boat to handle, and she sprung a plank.  That’s my assessment, anyway.



Here’s what we do it for.  A fish.  This is a pic of one of my lings at the sampling station at SPC.  That fish got sold to the plant for less than $2/#, and likely ended up in a market somewhere as a pair of $9.99/# filets.  Nobody who ate that fish knows what it took to get it to shore and on their plate. 


I hope that my telling this story causes some people pause for a moment to think about that when they enjoy the bounty of the ocean.  Not to be overly grateful, or fawn over fishermen.  But to just realize that these fish are out there, sometimes way out there, and it takes some effort to get them to a plate for enjoyment.  Knowing that just might make it taste a little better, too.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, it was pretty cathartic to finally put this story down to be read.

Everybody be safe out there-

[bearpaw]

Heck of a story skillet, glad you are still around to tell it! 

[Mark Brenckle]

Heck of a story skillet, glad you are still around to tell it! 

  as well as all the other great stories and information in these posts!

[bowhunterforever]

Heck of a story skillet, glad you are still around to tell it! 

[yum tag soup]

Wow! That's all I got. Glad your good to 

[Boss .300 winmag]

Heck of a story skillet, glad you are still around to tell it! 

That's crazy in a boat that size. 

I remember waves breaking over the bow of the USS Forrestal in the North Atlantic above the artic circle, but it wasn't really scary, kinda hard to sink a carrier. 

[Angry Perch]

I didn't need to read that, Skillet. I don't like your little adventure so much anymore!

[Special T]

It's not an epic adventure unless there is a near death experience!