Trial by fire. Kevin and I survived the first big push of fish, 12.5K lbs netted, landed and delivered. Sunday was a textbook beautiful day in SE Alaska, motoring out to the grounds it didn't seem like very fishy weather. After our first 45minute soak I learned it wasn't all about the weather, ninety fish came up over the roller, just enough wind to hold us off the gear while picking. My largest set of the previous week was for 32 fish. This was a whole different story. After that trickled down to forty fish and thirty fish sets, decided to go try a nearby nest of islands out in the middle, and got back into them. Largest set so far 169 fish, I guess 200-400+ can happen during peak chum run. Hope i'm out in the middle with plenty of room to drift and pick if that happens.
Learned a few things about wind and currents this week, floating over the net once while picking, grabbing the net pusher and sinking the corks down under the boat was a little nerve racking but worked well. Also drifted down on someone else's net way to close for comfort once while picking. The net acts as a huge sea anchor while it's all out of the water, when hooked onto it the boat acts as a sail and starts pulling the whole set, when everyone is floating along at the same pace it's not a problem. When I started picking the net it was like slowly removing my sea anchor from the equation. I'm still unsure if there were opposing currents or if I just started drifting quick in the wind, but by the time I drummed the last 10 fathoms of net on we were within 25ft of someone else's cork line, It was intense, no sea anchor = pick fast.
The second night I was able to sleep for two hours while Kevin watched a sleeper set drift out in the middle, the boat is attached to the net and his job is to make sure our flashing light at the other end of the net keeps it's distance and that we're hanging off the net right. Woke up to 140 fish in there, that was a great start to the day.
Third day the large area we were fishing in closed and the 'postage stamp' opened meaning lots of boats in a much smaller space. Got the web in the wheel, called over the Jacob to see if he could give me a tow, turns out his crew just went over board and the motor blew, I wasn't the only one having issues. Back on the Max Power we were able to free the net from the hang up by cutting a good bit out and started drumming on a 130 fish set, still unsure if we were dead in the water or not. Got our tender to tie along side and discovered that the prop was still turning well in forward and reverse. Idled into an anchorage and dropped the hook for the first time. Got in the water and cleared to prop shaft and rudder. Stayed on anchor for the night only to return to the line up at about 4:30 for a 125 fish set that sent us drifting into an area we'd rather not have been...
The Welder guy came down to the boat yesterday to move the level wind out away from the drum to prevent the last couple rows of corks from hitting the heavy hydraulic driven arm, bumping it off and sending it crashing onto the deck (which it broke a hole through in one of its crashes). Repaired the damage on the end of the net from where we had to cut it out from under the boat, and put a glass patch over the hole in the back deck...
I think i'm growing accustomed to the pace of fishing and frequency of projects and demands required to keep the show on the road. Maybe elephants can be eaten after all...
