My Job (well, it was...)-Part 3

Let's try and stay on topic today.

We're all loaded up with the necessities and we're on our way out (still).

The captain (Dennis or myself...We'll do Dennis for this trip) would usually take the last watch so he could start making the rounds on the VHF (radio) to see where everyone is fishing. If someone or something is where you would like to go, you have to make a decision as to where to go to next. The worst ones would be when you would have to steam an additional 30 or 40 miles out because some boat(s) were working where you would like to be. Actually, the worst was when you had to turn around and go back in towards a spot that you have already steamed past. Those were frustrating because you could have left the dock quite a bit later, which is always a plus, and the extra steam time was boring because you had already gotten all the sleep that you needed so all that you could do was watch a movie or read a book. That's about it..

Usually, we didn't have anyone sitting on our spots very because we normally fished areas that weren't the traditional spots....and we caught more fish because of it. It was funny, when I first started running the boat, all the other guys tried to be friendly with me to see where I was fishing after getting nowhere with Dennis. After I wasn't giving up any info, then they started to try and push me around. That didn't work out so well for them. I'm not as nice as Dennis. But those will be some stories for another time.

Anyways, we usually got up with about an hour to go before we started setting nets. We'd get up, someone would make coffee and we'd have something quick before breakfast.

Breakfast was never a very elaborate meal because no one wanted to cook first thing in the morning. Even more so, no one wanted to wash dishes at 6am when its 12 degrees with 30 knots of wind and the decks are covered with ice.

After getting jacked up on some caffeine (2 cups of joe for each of the other guys and two Diet Mountain Dews for me....mmm, mmm, good!), we'd reluctantly get skinned up (put our raingear on), stumble and grumble onto deck, and get ready to set the first string of gear.

-----------------

Here's the technical part....well, its not very technical but I'll explain some of the equipment and how things work as best that I can.

I worked on a gillnet boat. They are not the drift nets that you hear so much about in thePacific that killes everything high up in the water column. Ours are anchored to the bottom and don't move at all. If they do move at all (say, falling off the edge of some bottom, a dragger gets into them and tows them or if the tide is realy bad) they come up in a giant ball. And that sucks....bad.

BAck to the gillnets. Just picture a chain link fence with poly rope (floating) at the top part of the "fence", with streamlined plastic floats every 5 feet on it. The chain link part of it is essentially fishing line like you would buy woven into diamond shapes of varying sizes, depending on what you were fishing for. I believe the minimum mesh size is 6 1/2" right now. The bottom part of the "fence" is a cotton-nylon-poly weave with a core of lead in it. They take a piece of twine and dunk it in lead (picture a candle wick) and then weave the rope around it. The shit is heavy as hell.

Each net is 50 fathoms long (300') by 1-1 1/2 fathoms tall (6-9 feet). Seeing as how that we were targeting grounfish, anything taller would have you catching more undesirable species. Mostly just the small baitfish that swam a bit off the bottom. They would just be a pain in the ass to get out of the nets and they were of reduced value, so it wasn't worth it.

We would tie the nets into 20-net strings. Each string was approximately one mile long and we would usually fish 5 strings a day. When we would fish out by the Hague Line (the US-Canadian border) we would fish three strings of 33 nets (yeah, yeah...I know... one would be 34 nets, Bface) because the bottom didn't have much structure. You would just be fishing depths. The longer strings made for a shorter day.

EAch string would have a Hi-Fler and a poly ball at the end. The Hi-Flyer had a radar reflector so we could find it at night and in the fog and the poly-ball took the brunt of the tide. It would keep the Hi-Flier from sinking and from us losing our gear. Each string of nets is worth about $6500, so you would like to keep them around.

You can see all the tools of the trade for gillnetting right here. It's all pictures and it's all on one page, so its easy to check out. Incidentally, this is where we bought 90 % of our stuff and its about 2 miles from my house. (why I included that last part about my pad, I'll never know...like anyone cares)

---------------------

After stumbling out on deck, we would get ready to set the first string. Now, there are two ways of setting...the total suckbag way, and the way that civilized men do it.

The first way is when you have to stand at the back of the boat and make sure that it goes out ok. What you do to start setting is to throw out the Hi-Flyer and the poly ball, let all of the end line (your rope) go out and when the time is right, start letting the nets go out. You'll have a "setting bar" on the back of the boat that is designed to keep the leadline and floatline apart so you don't have any twists in the gillnet while it is sitting on the bottom. If you have any twists, its that much less net that is fishing.

The setting bar, or "goalposts" as we like to call them, is basically a semi-circle of stainless steel tubing that sits right at the back of the boat. Actually, if you look back at it, it looks like a exactly like a "w" except that the middle parts of the "w" are curved so there is no peak in it.

All the nets are stacked in a giant pen, so when you start setting out, you have to have an 8" piece of PVC pipe suspended in the air over the net pen so nothing gets tangled up. The nets come out of the pen, over the pipe, under your arm and through the setting bar. It sucks to set like that because whatever shit is still in the net, like slime or mud, flies back into your face the whole time that you're setting. Even worse is when there are some jelly-fish in it. I don't know what kinds that we have up here, but it feels just like someone threw acid onto you. Not fun.Not fun at all.

Anyways, we all take turns setting out and it takes about 20 mins to set a string, if you're good at it and up to 30 mins, if you're not

The other, and really the only, way to set is when you have a net flaker on the boat. What a net flaker basically is is a machine that automatically seperates the leadline and the float line while you are hauling the nets. Thus eliminating the need for the setting bar, and more importantly, someone back there. You just throw the Hi-Fler and poly ball over the side, and steam off into the sunset. Its much faster, and safer this way. The part that I dug the best was that I wasn't going to get douched by mud and slime anymore. Good times.

Well, after setting all 5 strings out, we would clean up and find a nice place close to our gear and anchor up for the night.

After our traditional meal of grilled T-bones, with way more side dishes that I can remember, we would usuualy watch a couple of movies and head off to bed. As long as there was no boats trying to screw with our gear during the night, we would sleep fine.

Ocassionally, you would get a dragger towing his nets through there and trying to tear up our nets.Luckily, we have an alarm on our radar that you can set to any distance and when a target shows up in the rings, you are woken up by a loud beep. When you have several boats around you, it can make for a long night.

Well, that'll be it for now. I don't feel like typing anymore.

- Cod