NORTH TO ALASKA / PART 3

COLLIER BROTHERS

Kodiak, Alaska

You haven’t lived until you roll out of a warm bunk, put on two pairs of woolen socks, long underwear, pants, tee shirt, hooded sweat shirt, wool gloves under rubber gloves, knee high rubber boots, wool ski cap and day-glo orange slickers, then step out of a heated cabin, pre-dawn, onto the rolling deck, in sub-freezing temperatures with the wind howling and salt spray going sideways. So much for the romantic notion of fishing in the Gulf of Alaska.

Jimmy and Ray were already on deck preparing for our first drag. Shouting, so as to be heard above the wind, they told me what I could do to be useful. Basically, just stay the hell out of the way. The greenhorn orientation was beginning. With his eyes on the fathometer Jim maneuvered the Collier Brothers into position over the cod. His voice came over the on-deck speakers telling us to put the net in the water.

As the boat slows to about 4 knots there are two large metal doors, one on each side of the boat and attached to the leading edge of the net, that are lowered into the water. These doors weigh close to 2,000 pounds each. Their function is to drive the net deeper and to fan open the mouth of the net, so it acts as a funnel shaped scoop moving through the water. The net itself, attached to steel cables, peels off a steel drum near the back of the boat, down a ramp and disappears into the slate gray, 33 degree water. There are old rubber tires attached to the leading edge of the net, allowing it to bounce when it becomes necessary to drag the net close to the bottom of the ocean. Jim tells us to set the nets at 53 fathoms. Jimmy, monitoring the descent of the net with a set of hydraulic controls, stops the drum when he determines, by markings on the cable, that the net is down to 53 fathoms. Then you wait.

It is during this first drag in the morning that the crew takes advantage of the brief and only break they will have. They use this time to check the engine room, take a brief nap, read or eat. Eating is on your own. I fixed myself a bowl of cereal and had a cup of hot, strong coffee.
Jim does not rest during this time. In some ways, for him, it is the most intense time of all. Knowing the net is trailing along behind the boat he must use all his skills to put the boat on top of a mercurial school of fish some 300 plus feet below. Schools of cod might change depths or direction in an instant, making for an empty net.

Drawing on years of experience and some guess work Jim must judge when and if the net has enough fish in it to warrant bringing it to the surface. He does not want to go through the arduous haul-back process only to gaze at an empty net. In business, time is money and commercial cod fishing is no exception. The sluggishness with which the boat handles indicates that the net is filling with fish.

Jim sticks his head out the cabin door and tells us we are going to haul-back. He slows the boat as slow as it will go and still maintain headway. Jimmy sets the cables and pulleys in motion and the 1,000 horse power diesel engine turns the big drum as we begin to retrieve the net. If Jim has guessed right the net will soon pop to the surface behind us. All eyes are anxiously focused on the wake of the boat.

All of a sudden the net pops up some 150 feet behind the boat and it is jammed with fish. Jimmy and Ray high-five each other and cheer loudly at the sight of a fully packed net that insures a great start to our trip. The drum continues to turn and the net gets closer and closer until the lead edge of the net comes up the ramp and then stops at the end of a boom, high above the deck. Ray climbs up the rigging and releases a zipper in the side of the net. As he does, thousands and thousands of fish spill onto the deck. All of a sudden I am standing in fish up to my waist. The glamour of all this is starting to fade rapidly.

I am then informed that rather than funneling the fish through hatches into the fish holds to be iced down, we must first bleed the fish. This ghastly process is done because the fish processing plant will pay 3 cents a pound more for fish that are bled. The theory is it makes for a better quality fish in the marketplace. The Collier Brothers can hold 200,000 pounds of fish so we are talking about a few bucks. I was to learn quickly that for 3 cents a pound the fish plant was getting the biggest bargain since the United States bought Alaska from the Russians for peanuts.

After the net was emptied, it was again lowered into the water as we began another drag. There are two tasks that the crew must perform at this time. One is to go through the fish spread all over the deck and cull those fish that are called by-catch. These are fish that are not the targeted species and, by law, must be returned to the ocean, dead or alive. Jimmy and Ray, being very experienced at this, wade through the fish with a pole that has a metal point on the end of it and, with a flick of the wrist, fling the by-catch overboard. These are mostly bottom dwelling fish including skates and rays up to 75 pounds, sculpin, flounders of varying types and a few sharks.

Meanwhile, as the greenhorn on the boat, I was to begin the other task, which is to bleed the fish. Basically, that means slit their throats. This process is performed by picking up each fish by the gills and using a long, curved, extremely sharp, black-handled knife. Even though there are cod up to 40 pounds the average is 8 to 10 pounds. I did not want to even think about how many 8-10 pound fish there would be in the 200,000 pounds it would take to fill our holds.
I began by working my way through the fish bent over like a strawberry picker working his way through the fields. As I became more fatigued, I went to my knees and finally, near total exhaustion, I just sat down among fish, blood and slime, oblivious to waves sloshing over the deck. A pace of several fish per minute had slowed to a fish every minute. I glanced up to see Jimmy and Ray laughing at my pathetic plight.

Like most things, when you have been doing it a while it becomes easier. This was evident as Jimmy and Ray, having disposed of the by-catch, grabbed knives and with negligible help from me, finished off the rest of the fish. We removed manhole sized hatch covers from the top of the fish holds and, with large snow shovels, shoveled the fish through the hatches and into bins below deck. We then hosed down the deck with high pressure sea water to clean up the residue of our first drag. Attracted by the steady stream of fish related run-off, hundreds of sea gulls and shearwaters trailed along behind us, searching our wake for a snack. Often several birds would descend on the same scrap, trying to out maneuver each other for the spoils.

I hosed off my slickers, hung them up then headed for the galley. I consumed gallons of whatever liquid I could find, in this case lemon-lime soda, then inhaled a peanut butter and jelly sandwich just in time to hear Jim’s voice over the speakers telling us we were going to haul back again. I returned to the deck just in time to see another plumb full net pop to the surface behind the boat. Despite the shouts of glee, I witnessed the incident with much less wide eyed curiosity and enthusiasm than I had earlier that morning.