Commercial Fishing

[Skillet]

Dawn broke on the 15th with my gear in the water and three people full of high hopes on the Diamond Lil. 


I remember thinking how glad I was to be out there, almost manic. This just days after feeling the lowest of lows when realizing the halibut fiasco and lack of coho might just be the straw that broke the camel's back.  In chatting with a few close friends at that time, I was seriously having to consider putting a "For Sale" sign in my old girl's window.  Dark times, then.  But the promise of a fresh season and kings to catch changes everything!  The swing of emotions you deal with in this job are huge, and underlying it all is the fact that you are willingly putting yourself out on the ocean on an old boat. Between that heartless ocean and your tired old boat, together they can come up with a hundred ways to kill you if you let your guard down.  I've come to realize the emotional swing is addictive.  An old timer told me that commercial fishing brings "The highest of the highs, and the lowest of the lows."  True words, and I wouldn't want it any other way anymore.  I can't imagine what it feels like to get up in the morning, know how long you'll need to work to make a certain amount of money, and just leave it behind after that certain amount of time. I don't know if I could do that anymore, and definitely couldn't if I had any possible way to keep fishing.

So, catch kings I must.  Gear's in the water, including a large amount of my favorite king killers for the conditions I am in.  Dawn breaking, crew and skipper hopeful.  Sounder looks good, seeing bait.  There's a few boats around, but we all have room.  Feeling pretty good about my chances of saving my season, my career, my lifestyle.

[Skillet]

*Side note - I realize this is becoming more of a cheap therapy session for me than a good commercial fishing read for you guys    It's not impossible for me to keep to the fishing bits, but I think that bringing you guys along for the entire ride can be a good way to paint the picture of not just the fish I catch and how I do it, but the entire lifestyle that my work allows me to live.  It's all intertwined, and it seems to me that you can't truly appreciate the joy of catching the fish as planned without understanding the hurdles that were cleared to get there. If you just want pics of dead fish and how I got them, just scroll on past these posts and check out the pics 

[ctwiggs1]

Dawn broke on the 15th with my gear in the water and three people full of high hopes on the Diamond Lil. 


I remember thinking how glad I was to be out there, almost manic. This just days after feeling the lowest of lows when realizing the halibut fiasco and lack of coho might just be the straw that broke the camel's back.  In chatting with a few close friends at that time, I was seriously having to consider putting a "For Sale" sign in my old girl's window.  Dark times, then.  But the promise of a fresh season and kings to catch changes everything!  The swing of emotions you deal with in this job are huge, and underlying it all is the fact that you are willingly putting yourself out on the ocean on an old boat. Between that heartless ocean and your tired old boat, together they can come up with a hundred ways to kill you if you let your guard down.  I've come to realize the emotional swing is addictive.  An old timer told me that commercial fishing brings "The highest of the highs, and the lowest of the lows."  True words, and I wouldn't want it any other way anymore.  I can't imagine what it feels like to get up in the morning, know how long you'll need to work to make a certain amount of money, and just leave it behind after that certain amount of time. I don't know if I could do that anymore, and definitely couldn't if I had any possible way to keep fishing.

So, catch kings I must.  Gear's in the water, including a large amount of my favorite king killers for the conditions I am in.  Dawn breaking, crew and skipper hopeful.  Sounder looks good, seeing bait.  There's a few boats around, but we all have room.  Feeling pretty good about my chances of saving my season, my career, my lifestyle.

I'll just be the first to make an offer here.  I'll give you $5k for the boat.  Cash offer.  I'm not going to make you wait around for that financing BS everyone else will.  Let me know   

[h20hunter]

I want to hear it all.

[Woodchuck]

 

[10thmountainarcher]

*Side note - I realize this is becoming more of a cheap therapy session for me than a good commercial fishing read for you guys    It's not impossible for me to keep to the fishing bits, but I think that bringing you guys along for the entire ride can be a good way to paint the picture of not just the fish I catch and how I do it, but the entire lifestyle that my work allows me to live.  It's all intertwined, and it seems to me that you can't truly appreciate the joy of catching the fish as planned without understanding the hurdles that were cleared to get there. If you just want pics of dead fish and how I got them, just scroll on past these posts and check out the pics 

Keep going just the way you are, this is a fun story to follow along!!

[Skillet]

Fishing was pretty good that morning.  I was happy, crew was busy.  Scott was in charge of training Hanna, since I only have it in me to train one greenhorn a year, and I was already at quota     He was doing a great job with her, and I would only need to interject here and there.  Hanna was a very quick learner and seriously dedicated to the job at hand. 

These second season fish were bigger, by quite a bit.  That makes sense, since they've had a whole month of feeding to do since I last was able to catch them.  Hanna was pretty petite, however, and muscling these expensive fish over the back of the boat was not something I could let her practice on.  I told her that she could run gear and land fish when Scott left and we got back to coho fishing in a few days.  Hanna thought that was fair, and diligently went about cleaning fish and prepping them for the freezer.  That kept Scott and I freed up for running more gear and taking advantage of the bites when they happened. 

Most of the king bites came in waves this year.  We'd drag gear around through dead water and catch a few here and there, then WHAM! - run through a school and the poles would start bouncing.  It is pretty amazing how much you can feel kings through the boat when they are on the wire.  I mean, my boat is 47' long and weights 90,000#+ when it's loaded for a trip.  If the water is calm and a big king hits the lure, I can actually feel it in my helm chair.  It's just a minute disruption in the steady motion of the boat, but I can sometimes actually feel it.  So when you hit a school of bigs, it's pretty fun to feel them sending all those micovibes through the poles.

By the end of Day 1, we had a fair day of fishing for second season, and the fish were where I thought they'd be.  Not catching at the rate we did during the first season, but we never do.  Fish were nice and big, though.  With 50k kings to catch, I estimated we'd have roughly 5-7 days of fishing.  Plenty of time for me to put in a fair king season and dig myself out of this hole 

[Boss .300 winmag]

[Skillet]

My pard up at Edgecumbe was doing pretty well.  He's a king killer and a grinder.  He's running a much bigger boat, has two dedicated crew, and has an incredible work ethic. So when I can match his numbers or beat them, I know I'm in the right spot.

Day two was rally fun.  Fish were big, biggest average of my career so far.  The bait was was tight to the beach, so we shallowed up a bit and rubbed the rocks.  This takes me out of the pit a lot so I can focus on not losing gear, but it was worth it.  We got into a nice class of kings, and Scott landed landed my boat's biggest king, a 40#+ in the round.  I was actually back in the pit next to him at that particular time when he said "got a big one here, you want to land it?"  I said nah, go ahead. Earlier in the season, I'd jump in on a really poorly hooked fish or a biggie. He'd gotten good enough by now though I didn't worry too much.

Until I caught a glimpse of the king's back and top of its tail clearing the water out of the corner of my eye.  Holy smokes.

I wanted to take over but resisted the urge and let Scott land it. Once I saw how well it was hooked, I relaxed.  He did a great job, dropped a mega-bonk on its head with the gaff and had to two-hand it over the rail.  There was no swinging this guy on board!  Nice job, we all looked at the fish for a second, and went back to running gear.  I thought about it and had Hanna take a quick pic of me with it before I headed it.  Glad I did!

The rest of Day 2 was nice weather, decent fishing.  It tapered off in the evening.  The fish were moving, and I started thinking about where they'd move to.  I felt like I was pretty shallow, and we had weather coming on Day 3.  Barometer dropping, I decided to move offshore a bit the next day. We prepped the wheelhouse and deck for rough weather, ran into Whale Bay and anchored up for a few hours sleep.  It was a good day, and the season was coming together.

[h20hunter]

Long arm! Long arm!


Fish is a HOG.

[ctwiggs1]

I keep trying to figure the value of that fish in my brain... Good grief man

[Ridgeratt]

Retail market is showing around 35.00 a pound.
That makes it like a wicked tuna pay day 😋 😜

[Boss .300 winmag]

Retail market is showing around 35.00 a pound.
That makes it like a wicked tuna pay day 😋 😜

What’s whole sale on them kings? Anyone 🤔

I need to start raising them in my pasture, grass feed kings.🤣

[Skillet]

Haha, I wish!  That $35/# is filet weight...

I'll get an actual weight on the carcass here soon. But let's say it was 32#, a good guess.  FAS kings will retail this year for about $18-20/#, so we're looking at RETAIL value of $600, +/-. 

Or, as I typically see things, about one hot water heater on the boat. 

[cougforester]

This is truly awesome reading and story telling. MORE!