The Other Side – Part II

Yesterday’s post got us up to the point of heading for the fishing grounds, where the gross action really starts, so here we go! 

Once we are at the spot to begin setting gear, I slow the boat down to about 2 knots, make sure the gurdy hydraulics are engaged and things are headed in the right direction, and then put on my Grunden rain gear.  This industrial strength rainwear is essential whether it is raining or not.  The bib overalls are vital, and on all but the hottest days I also wear the jacket, buttoned up.  We both wear our PFD’s at all times in case we fall overboard, and these from Cabelas are nice and trim and don’t get in the way since they auto-inflate when you fall in.    My wool hat never leaves my head – you don’t see bill caps on fishermen except on shore, because they either blow off or are knocked off by all the motion that occurs.  You don’t turn around and go back for that special hat, so the stocking cap works well.

Setting gear first thing in the morning is usually the pleasant set – you make that first guess at what color lure will be hot today, what order to arrange them in, how deep to drag, and all that sort of thing.  Equipment is clean from the night before, and the deck starts off looking nice.  Gear in the water, back to the cabin to warm up.  Coffee’s finally hot, and we get to relax for a few minutes while trolling.  I sit on the blue office chair I bought as salvage from Semitool before I left while sipping my coffee.  I’ve sipped a lot of coffee on similar chairs over the past 17 years, but none had ever quite attained this level of maturity.     The arm pads were missing when I got it, so we made new ones with a blue denim cover that matched the boat cushions.  Duct tape worked wonders to protect the edges,  at least for a while, but things are beginning to deteriorate.  What was once a nice royal blue upholstery has now become faded and stained to a blotchy, tattered memory of an office chair.  Fish blood just doesn’t wash out well, and salt water soaks are not in the recommended care instructions. 

Watching the lines for strikes, the day gets under way.  I try not to let the gear soak more than 30 minutes whether we have any strikes or not – there are often fish of some sort hooked that you didn’t see, and a hook with a fish is not catching another one, so it needs to be cleaned off.  I put my raincoat back on and make my way to the pit.  As the first line begins to come in, the shiny shape of a fish darting back and forth becomes apparent.  Oh no, looks like a humpie.  Full of frantic energy, these 15-24 inch fish are an ever-present pain.  They fight like fury, and once on board just don’t know when to stop.  We save them to sell although only 25 cents a pound, but we usually catch 50-100 of them a day, so it pays the fuel bill for the day.   I whack them a couple of times with the gaff handle to quiet them down, but it is usually temporary.  Within a couple of minutes, they resume a vigorous, rhythmic flopping that gets very irritating in a hurry, especially when there are 4 or 5 of them doing it.  There is always some sort of water/blood/slime/poo gunk in the checker area where the fish are tossed, so the slapping of their tails sends this mix flying all over the place.  I am there picking gear and fish off the lines, so I steadily get coated with the brew.  It seems like they have a special knack for waiting till I’m leaning over to reach a hook and all going off at once, coating my face with the preferred skin conditioner of beauty experts everywhere!  That’s why the raingear is buttoned and the stocking hat is always on – although I have to say, it DOES add body to limp hair!

Once the lines have been checked, I use the deck hose to wash the area down, spraying the blood off the fish that await cleaning.  Then, it’s Lovie’s turn back in the pit.  She has become the fish cleaning expert on the boat, zooming through as many as 200 fish in a day, all ready for market.  We clean the humpies if we are selling to one particular buyer, as they only take them “dressed”(cleaned), so the cleaning task is doubled if that location is in our plans.  The other buyers take them “round” (whole, not cleaned), so that makes the day a little easier – we can only hold them 2 days round, as they begin to spoil a lot sooner.  

The cleaning process goes thusly: Take a fish, place it in the V-shaped cleaning rack, nose to the left.  Grab the gill opening and slide your sharp knife all the way through the gill membrane, and cut around and down in a semicircle.  Stick your fingers through the gills, grab, and rip the whole shebang loose from the fish.  Fling overboard, or, if sealions are a problem, toss in the gut bucket (remember the other use for the bucket?? nice).  Then, stick the point of the knife into the anus of the fish(ouch- they sometimes wiggle a lot at that point) and cut toward the head, opening up the gut cavity.  Slice the diaphragm membrane, then stick your hand in as deep as you can, grab the gut package, make sure it tears free, and rip it all out.  Toss in gut bucket or overboard.     Big fish usually require two hands to grab all the internals workings – it’s how I rank them—one or two fisters!  Take the knife again, and slice the membrane holding the dark blood along the backbone, then use the spoon on the other end of the knife to rake the congealed blood out.  A couple of clean-up scrapes, a good rinse with the hose, and toss the fish into a tub of clean water to await storage in the fish hold.  Do it again, again, again – her hands are starting to complain arthritically, but she’s game and keeps on.  Advil is our friend…

Once the fish are cleaned, she cleans up the work area – grabs all the stray parts floating around, takes a rag to the pit walls to get the blood and goo off, then washes the whole thing down with the hose.  She then goes to the hatch at the fish hold, removes it, and tosses the fish down into their respective slush bag, containing a slurry mixture of ice and seawater.    We count the cohoes since they are our real target species, but just toss the humpies in.  Once done, she moves forward, uses a rag to wash her raingear clean with a Clorox/water mixture, then hangs it by the door and comes inside to warm up.  “Your turn!” are usually her next words, and I give up the pilot seat, don my gear, and we do it all over again.  And again. And again…

Sometime during the day, we usually grab a peanut butter sandwich or cup of soup in between shifts, and a lot of almonds/raisins get consumed by the person driving the boat, so our nutritional needs are met, just not in very much style.  Hot tea or coffee is a constant friend, keeping us warmed and hydrated.  Oops, back to the P line or the little red bucket…! (The P line are the 2 safety lines we have about waist level on either side of the deck – you make sure you have hold of one with one hand while the P part gets accomplished at sea, since many a man overboard tragedy occurred after too much coffee. Really.)

We try to plan our anchorages based on where the fish are, and where the buyers are.  Our main purchaser is on an every-other-day schedule at Elfin Cove and Hoktaheen Cove, so we sometimes miss.  We only sell every other day at most, and can keep cleaned fish as long as 5 days in the slush, although 2 is the preferred number.  A trip to the buyer at the end of the day is a whole additional layer of frantic work – tie up to the big boat, hook their crane hook up to the brailer bag, wash the brailer down with their high-volume seawater hose to clean it, hang the brailer on our boom to drain, empty the 2nd and 3rd brailers, pump out and wash out the slush bags (24x36x48 each), shovel fresh ice into the bags, mix up Clorox and water in a tote to soak the brailers to stop bacterial growth, spray the hold area with a dilute bleach to do the same, put the covers back on, get your check, and move out of the way so the next guy can do the same process.

As evening draws near, we usually are pretty tired.  Darkness falls earlier each day now, and by the end of September, we’ll be shutting down pretty early, as well as starting later, but during the summer, it’s often 10 pm before we can finally sit down and eat some supper.  Supper is most often fish.  Surprise! We sometimes catch sea bass or rockfish, and they make a nice meal.  Small cohoes are fair game, or ones that have been damaged badly by the gear – there is usually something to get a meal from, and Lovie is awesome at throwing together a gourmet meal at 10pm, tired, dirty, and just wanting to sleep.  I try to get the dishes cleaned up when we’re done, then it’s brush teeth, wash up with about a teacup of hot water, and crawl back into the bunk.  We have a hose or something on the port side bunk area that exudes raw diesel fumes, and that was where Lovie had been sleeping.  It gives her bad headaches, so we switched, as I don’t seem to be quite as bothered – I just conk out.  I’ve tried to track it down, but so far have not had much luck.  When season’s over, I’ll pull everything off of the big fuel tank that’s under the bunk and see if I can find any vapor leakage source.  Another discomfort, as are the separate bunks.  I miss the nice, big bed at home where snuggling is an option!

Well, I’m sure there’s more to whine about, but that’s a pretty fair rundown on a typical day.  Found mushrooms growing under the eave of the boat today – we have had 2 days of sunshine since being here, yesterday being one, but back to fog again today.     Opener coming up tomorrow morning, so lots of little tasks to finish.  Wow.  I could describe changing the oil, oil filter, and fuel filter to get really dirty, but I probably already have somewhere earlier.  We won’t know how to act if we ever get back to normal society – some of the fishermen we are in port with now are beyond the fringes… a few more years, we may be just the same! Scary thought!  I will do some profiles and pictures of our new friends in future – solid folks for the most part, but definitely NOT mainstream America! 

Stay tuned!