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July 2nd:
We sat in Valdez for the morning, then left to anchor on our set. Once we rested for a while, it was time to once again work on the net. I swear, it seems like during every closure (the time between openers) I find myself working on that thing.
Anyways, not much to say about the day; it was fairly straightforward.
-Jack
July 3rd:
Today was smooth sailing. We woke up at our usual opener time, around 5 am, and prepared ourselves. Unfortunately we were not the first on our set, so we didn’t get our net in the water until around 6:20. It really didn’t matter though; there was a mass amount of fish. In fact, we ended up with extra fish in our net, because fish were sinking the corks and escaping from the net of the guy in front of us. We probably had around 100000 pounds in the net before we picked up, and then lost some while we brought the net in. I think once the bag was up alongside the boat it still contained about 60000-70000 pounds of fish. It was really too bad that our limit was still at 40000, because we really could have cleaned up.
Anyways, the tender ended up taking over an hour to get to us, but our day still ended up being done by 9. Later on we went back through the net AGAIN, this time to put on our new purse line that the tender delivered to us in the morning. The purpose of the purse line is fairly obvious; you bring it in to purse up the bottom of the net and trap the fish inside.
So I figured up some numbers in terms of my hourly wage if I was being paid on those terms. Every time we get our limit of 40000 in on set, I actually work about 15-20 minutes. Since I get $608 for hitting limit, I am working at an hourly wage of about $1824-$2432 an hour. The only problem is that on days like this I only get to work that 15-20 minutes and then quit. I wish this is what the season would be like until the end, but the reality is that I will probably end up having more 10-12 set days than 1 set days.
However, the really good news of the day is that we are going to start a co-op with the other boats in our cannery’s fleet. Basically what happens with a co-op is that all the boats in our fleet are divided up in 3 or 4 sub fleets, who each take turns fishing different days. Each day the sub fleet that goes out is fishing to hit the limit for the entire fleet, not just the individual boats. So right now our co-op limit might be something like 880000-1000000 pounds of fish a day. The great part about this is that since each sub fleet is fishing for every boat in the cannery’s group, you make money whether it is your day to fish or not. As long as fishing is open you are making money. On days off I might end up making $500 for sleeping in and watching movies.
The next opener is on Thursday, but since that is when the co-p will begin, I have no idea if we will end up fishing at all. Supposedly Friday is going to be open and Saturday is also a possibility.
Jonathan and I had a bonfire on the beach with some of our neighbor boats tonight. I assume there will be another one tomorrow night, and I hope that someone had enough sense to buy some fireworks because we didn’t. The only thing that sucks is that since we are fishing on the 5th, we will be unable to stay up late tomorrow. I suppose it is alright though, because we are getting the whole day off. I think we might spend it hiking and exploring the area surrounding the bay.
Total poundage for the day: 40000
Total poundage for pinks: 111313
-Jack
July 4th:
Well, that was a letdown. We didn’t do anything special for the Independence Day, because eat some heart-stopping American food. The weather didn’t really allow us to. It was nice in the morning but eventually the rain started coming down steadily, and continued for the whole afternoon. The rain, coupled with us having to anchor off on our set by ourselves, made the 4th very uneventful. Not even any fireworks.
July 5th:
Well today was the first day of our co-op. My first impression of it wasn’t very good, because while we did get to keep our extra fish it also allowed the lazier members of the fleet to just wander around all day and do nothing. Plus it greatly increases the time between sets and restricts our freedom of how often we want to set, because we have to wait for our group leader to tell us to set. For example, we were out from 6 am to 3 pm, and we only did 2 sets. The rest of the time we were just drifting around, waiting for our time. The entire fleet of about 2o boats was out, so it was difficult to keep everybody informed and there was a general confusion about the day. While I do enjoy the glory of being able to catch huge amounts of salmon, I hate doing the work for somebody else. It should become more organized once we split the fleet into 2 smaller groups, and hopefully it will get some of the freeloaders to contribute more.
After the workday finished up, Jonathan and I gathered some friends up and went for a short hike. The only reason it was short was because we reached a point on the mountain were we kind of ran out of a path. So we just sat on the ridge and hung out for a little bit, and headed back to the skiff.
That’s when the activities really began, though. Some of us decided to go swimming, so we ran back to our respective boats to change clothes, and headed back to the beach. Man that water was cold. We swam along the beach briefly, and then washed off in a stream that flows down the mountain. We probably didn’t even need to rinse off, because with all of the snow runoff and the nearby glacier the water on the river is pretty close to fresh. The surface of the water might’ve been about 50 degrees, max. As you get farther down it gets even colder, and it doesn’t take too much depth to notice a difference. Anyways that was my new experience for the day.
So we should have an opener tomorrow and the next day. I just hope this frequency of openers keeps up, because if it does then there will be some serious money to be made.
Total poundage for the day for us/co-op: 110000/800000
Total poundage for pinks: 151313
July 6th:
Man, today was weird. The co-op was horribly unorganized. We had about 9 boats fishing on a point one at a time. It took forever and didn’t produce many fish. One reason for this set up was that we only had one tender working the co-op, and it was a slow one at that so it got pretty behind on pumping out boats. We actually didn’t get our net in the water until about 4 pm, although we had been cruising around since 8 in the morning. It turns out that the system we are on has the fleet split up working morning and afternoon shifts. The morning shift didn’t due very well, which is partly due to the tender being slow but also because most of them are hopeless at fishing. Once again we only got in 2 sets, with our first being a total failure due to a tangle and the second being very good at about 68000 pounds. It’s frustrating just sitting around all day while other boats are struggling and then having to swoop in late and try to save the day by making limit. If we hadn’t of had so many boats working one set in the morning and had them instead working 2 or 3 at the same time it would’ve been much better.
We didn’t hit our limit today, but the co-op as a whole was only 8000 pounds under (we had 792000 of our 800000 pound limit) which doesn’t make too big of a difference. We were saved at the end by our big set and another boat’s huge 93000 pound set.
After fishing closed for the day we ran quickly back into Valdez for some fuel and supplies, and will be heading back out in the morning to fish the afternoon and then Sunday. We are getting a lot of openers all of a sudden; Sunday will be the 4th day in a row. You won’t hear me complaining though, because in the last 2 days I have made over $1200. I like how I made 630 bucks today for napping until noon, watching TV shows on my computer, and doing only 2 sets.
Total poundage for the day for us/co-op: 68000/792000
Total poundage for pinks: 195102
-Jack
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And here are some more pictures:
This is how we cool our drinks in Alaska; with glacier ice.
I thought this looked cool. It's a nice backdrop.
This is one of the many waterfalls in the area. They are fed by a big ice field on the mountain.
A side view of the Jonathan S taken by a friend of ours in his skiff.
That's me on the corks and fully encased in rain gear as we're picking up the end of the net.
The boat while we are rolling a bag of fish onboard. It can lean a lot more than that, trust me.
Well that is it for the past few days. Hopefully the next two days will be as profitable as the past 2 have been.
-Jack
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