Catch-Up Time

Well, I’m overwhelmed.   The quick trip back to Montana to see what I could sell to carry us thru to the main King opening brought contact with a lot of good friends and acquaintances.  I was blown away by the number of people who referred to this blog, and who wondered why I didn’t update it a little more frequently.  You don’t really know what that means to me at this critical point of the new venture, but suffice it to say that it may be what keeps me going for the next phase. 

Wille is back in Montana – green grass, and unlimited tennis balls – he doesn’t act like he misses the boat at all!

 

One can live on scenery and adrenaline for only so long, so now it’s time to really catch fish.  Upon my return to Sitka, I am scheduled to have the boat hauled out, new zincs (don’t worry, I’ll explain zincs in another post!) installed, the bottom pressure washed and painted, and things looked at that I never get to see.  I will do an entry on the whole process, complete with pictures as it goes.  The whole thing should make the boat more efficient, more mechanically sound, and maybe a little bit more “fishy”. 

I’ll try to give a more detailed idea about how things work, for those who find interest in such things.

My boat is a power troller.  My license is a salmon power troll permit, fittingly enough.  Hand and power trolling for salmon is only permitted in Southeast Alaska.  The target species is salmon – King, Coho, and Chum.   

The basic principle for trolling involves lowering a lead ball connected to the end of a stainless steel wire.  Along the wire are pairs of brass beads, crimped on every one and a half to two fathoms (9 – 12 feet).  As the cannonball is lowered into the water, the fisherman snaps a friction snap with lure/hook/bait on to the wire at the space he wants to fish.  The ball is lowered to the lowest depth he wishes to cover, and the ball, wire, and fishing lures attached are dragged through the water at speeds between 1 to 2.5 knots per hour.  Different fish respond to faster or slower speeds, and the depth is determined by – well, depth of the ocean floor is important, and how deep the fish are is also, and where the feed is also, and many more mysterious things only guessed at or gleaned from previous experience. 

As you might suspect, things actually get a bit more complicated than that.  Power trollers use lead cannonballs that weigh from 45-60 pounds, and that requires mechanical assistance of some sort—thus, “power” trollers.   People holding a “hand” troll permit must crank the cannonballs up and down by hand, with no power assistance.  They typically uses lighter leads, and by necessity lower their gear to a shallower depth than a power troller can.  Power trollers also are permitted to fish up to 4 troll wires, so now we have to make sure they don’t get tangled up.  This involves pulleys, trolling poles, float bags or “pigs”, and some careful attention to navigation and depth soundings. 

The wire for power trolling, on my boat at least, is a 5/64 diameter stainless steel cable made of a number of smaller strands.   There are two “gurdies”, each containing two spools of wire, one on each side of the center “hayrack” near the rear of the boat.  Each of the four spools contains about 400 feet of troll wire.   Each wire goes up from the gurdy to its own block (think pulley roller), then changes direction, goes thru another block, then out thru a blue nylon donut which is attached to a “tag line”, then down into the sea.  

The gurdy is powered by a small hydraulic motor, with a direction control mounted near the “troll pit”, or the hole I stand in at the back of the boat to work.  Each gurdy is either locked or engaged.  To lower the rear line, I engage the rear gurdy spool, then use the up/down lever to raise the cannonball from its rest, then lower it slowly into the water.  As it lowers, I count the number of fathoms that go by and stop the descent when I want to put a hook snap on.  Once I lower it to the desired depth, I tie a smaller donut to the troll wire in a manner that it can’t move, and continue to lower.  The little donut jams into the big donut on the tag line, and the whole shebang swings away from the boat as the weight is taken up by the tag line, mounted out on the trolling pole.  The closest line to the boat is called the “heavy”, and the one furthest out and behind is called the “wing”.  The wings also get a little extra attention – prior to placing the small donut on the wire, I attach the overpriced piece of styrofoam and plastic  called a “float bag” ($250 bucks each!!) to the line, then let it out till the little donut moves the line away from the boat.  The float bag pulls the line away from the boat, and lets it move about 90 feet behind the heavy, so the two don’t get tangled.   This is repeated on the other side.  The tag lines (4)  are anchored to the bow area of the boat via rubber bungees.  When a fish hits the bait, the shock is transmitted up the tag line, and I see it jerking around.  Then, I go reverse the process and remove hooks, coiling them at the rear of the boat as they come in, until the fish comes to surface.  A short retrieval of the leader, a conk on the head then the gaff thru the head, and we pull a fish aboard.

 

The eagle has landed – I heard something out on deck when Lovie was with me in the harbor – looking up, we found we had an eagle directly above on the poles!  Put on the rain hat…!

I hope to take some videos and youtube them for posterity – there are several out there, some by some real yahoos!

Hope this helps, even though it might be a bit boring. 

Onward this week to paint the bottom and take a “Watertight and Stability for Fishing Vessels” course, offered by the same guys that taught the survival one.  I know it won’t be wasted time, judging from past presentations.   Then, Fish Like Fury!