The days are long. If fishery managers give the fleet a four-day opening, this means the fishery will be open for ninety-six hours straight. Your captain, unless he is very unusual, will always seek to maximize catch during openings. That means fishing from first light until dark.
Making Sets
On purse seiners the greatest part of the workday is given to the repetitive process of making sets. ("Set" is the term given to the process of laying out and retrieving the net, a process that is repeated many times each day.)
Most seining is done very close to shore, where schools of migrating fish appear in the greatest concentrations. While the crew checks the deck and equipment for readiness, the captain studies conditions of tide and current, light, wind and observable fish behavior to determine where he will make his set. At this point in the operation the skiff is attached to the seiner's stern, and the skiffman is at his steering station in the skiff, with the engine running in neutral.
Arriving at his chosen spot, the captain signals the crew to release the skiff. Now released, and pulling one end of the net, the skiff turns and motors into position, usually facing and quite close to the rocky shoreline. The captain drives the seiner away from the skiff, and the quarter mile-long net pays out over the stern.
The Tow
As the last of the net slides off the seiner's stern, the captain slows the boat and begins to tow slowly against the current on his end, holding the net in a generally semi-circular shape.
Purse seine nets are constructed in three main parts: a corkline along the top strung with buoyant floats called “corks”; the webbing (also called the “mesh”) of the net itself below the corkline, and a heavy leadline (a thick, nylon line with chunks of lead woven into it) at the bottom. The corkline floats on the surface of the water, the web hangs down in the water like a fence and the weighted leadline keeps the "fence" hanging more or less straight down in the water.
The tow lasts about twenty minutes, during which time the crew throws any fish remaining on deck into the hold and hoses down the work area to clear it of seaweed and jellyfish. There are usually a few minutes to relax and grab a sandwich or cup of coffee during tows. During the tow, the captain and skiffman are holding the net open so fish can swim into it. At the end of the tow, the captain tells the skiffman, by radio, to "close up." Hearing this, the deckhands and the cook scramble back into their rain gear and gloves so they can "haul gear."
Closing the Net
The skiffman closes the circle of the net by driving alongside the seiner and handing off his end of the net to the deck crew. He then drives out under the towline attached to the seiner. Circling to the other side of the seiner, he attaches another towline to the "big boat," which he will pull on with the skiff to hold the seiner in proper relation to the net as it comes back aboard.
When the net is "closed up," it is hanging like a big circular corral in the water. The fish that swam into the net during the tow are now caught, but they can still escape by diving, since the bottom of the net is floating too, not resting on the bottom.
To prevent their escape, the crew "purses" it closed, using a large winch mounted on the seiner's deck. Visualize a long drawstring closing the bottom of a giant, mesh bag. That's what pursing is. Once underway, it is time for the net to come aboard.
The power block does the heavy lifting in a seine operation, pulling the net out of the water and over the deck. As the net passes through the power block it is then lowered toward the work deck, where two or three crewmembers stack it in a pile.
The Fish
The fish come aboard in the last part of the net, and are emptied either onto the deck or directly into the hold. Hauling gear takes about 15 minutes for most seiners today. An efficient crew on a well-equipped purse seiner can complete 15 to 18 sets per day.
So, that gives you a glimpse of what it’s like to live and work on a fishing boat in Alaska. It’s not for everyone, and I am biased, but I think it’s the greatest summer job in the world.
Making Luck in Alaska
It's been about thirty years since I first went north, and I'm glad I did. After that rocky start, my dreams of beautiful country and good money came true every season I spent there, from Ketchikan to Nikolski, from Naknek to Dutch Harbor. It’s a profoundly beautiful place, Alaska, and it’s still the purest, closest thing we have in this country to a “land of opportunity”. Most importantly, it’s still big enough for a lot of dreams. Maybe yours.
Someone once said that “luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity”. So, find yourself an online resource that can provide both of those things, and you’ll have a good shot at making your own kind of luck in Alaska.
And always – as I used to tell my crew at the start of every season – be smart, be safe, and good luck!
