4th July in Kodiak
04 July 2019 | Kodiak Island
We caught up with John and Ivy on Ruby Slippers, a Stevens 46 which is the precursor to our Hylas 49 ,and Adam who is crew on one of the Fishing boats. Life as a crew can be rewarding but can also be hard and difficult depending on the boat. Crew get paid only a percentage of the catch and it varies depending on their skill set. An unskilled deckhand may earn 5% of the catch while those more experienced more like 10-15%. On a good boat an experienced crew can earn $90,000 or more in a season. Adam has done well for himself over the years working on the per seiners.
There are essentially four types of fishing methods and each requires the boat to be set up in a certain way. Larger boats ie around 58ft are per seiners. They are accompanied by a tender (usually jet propelled but with an engine almost as powerful as the fishing boat itself). The fishing boat feeds out net in a long line which is then gradually pulled to encircle the fish, trap them, and then haul them. Line fishing is used to catch halibut and requires a long line set with hooks that is fed out along the seabed with an anchor at one end. Smaller trawlers generally do gill net fishing where a wall of netting of regulated weave (to ensure the fish are mature enough) catches the fish as they try to swim through. Gill netters generally set their nets at one location for a period of time rather than move around and are referred to as Set Netters.
Fishing is not all work. In Sand Point we met a skipper who was planning to head through False pass to Bristol Bay (in the Bering sea). Sockeye salmon are running hard there, unlike around Chignik. He hopes to get enough time to do some surfing as well. Its very odd to see surfboards on a per seine.