Make your own mercy

First - we got in from the afternoon tide at about 5 pm, I think, having delivered 9,784 surprise pounds of salmon bringing our season total so far to 181,455 - third place record, just beating out last year.

My crew decided to stay in the boat at high water because we were getting a lot of hits on the inside site and we wanted to be ready for them. Some crew members lobby hard to be able to wait in the cabin. My conservative notion is to default to hanging off the nets so we can keep an eye on them and not be surprised by a lot of salmon on the ebb - it has happened before, more than once. Some of the crew from the other boat went in, confident that there weren't any fish out there.

Josh stayed out with my crew. We hung off the inside site watching it because it was really boiling. It was getting a lot of hits and we wanted it to have a chance to fish, in case it was just a school passing through. When it looked as if it had stopped, we got under the net and started working our way along. The fish were heavy. It was a happy surprise. When the hits started again right behind us, we decided to pull off the net and get it back in the water so it could continue to fish while the fish were there. We decided to go through one of the outside sites, figuring this bonanza was a local phenomenon. It wasn't; the first outside site was very busy too. Josh went to get his crew, and we all raced the retreating tide in an effort to get as many of the fish as possible delivered directly from the skiffs, and to have none of the fish or nets go dry on the mud while allowing the nets to fish for as long as possible. It's brinksmanship.

We ended up roundhauling the inside site - with a few hundred lbs of salmon in it, just before it went dry. The water was too shallow to drive along the net (and we had quite a load of salmon from clearing the nets earlier, bringing the prop even closer to the mud) so Jake pulled it into the boat while Chris pushed the boat and I scouted ahead for floaters, flounders, and possible drop outs, and to cut the ties that held the corkline close to the running line.

We then rushed to the first outside site, picking the fish out of it as we pulled it in. I pulled the Bathtub over and lashed it up to us to serve as tender for the fish we were carrying. As we cleared the roundhaul and transferred salmon from the Ambi to the Bathtub, I tried to explain to my crew about fishing. It's not just getting the fish out of the net; it's also not getting the fish. That's part of the deal. Fishing is the thrill of having a full net, and the disappointment of an empty one. It's the manic activity of racing the tide and the tedium of waiting for the tide to come in or go out, with nothing to do. It is pulling your gloves on anyway when your fingers are all swollen and shiny. And replacing rest and ice with ibuprofen, and healing opportunities with bandages. It is shivering in the aluminum boat wondering what insanity possessed you to think this was a good idea, and it's being warm on a hot day. It's taking on adversity and working with it and through it, undaunted. Or maybe daunted, but not surrendering. Fishing is not quitting. Fishing is persevering and finding a way to do it anyway. It's supporting your crew mate and your neighbor. Myrtle Drew assured my worried mother that, "We all helps each others." And at the end of every season, you get to know yourself a little better and what you know is that there is more to you than you thought there was. You have achieved something that before you would have thought was impossible.

It's being out there, ready. And only occasionally will it be necessary to be ready. It's like insurance - it's irritating to have to pay for it, but if there's an accident or a fire or an injury, you'll be glad you have it. The fish will come when they come, on their schedule. And when they arrive, they will be merciless. Mother nature is like that - mercy is not in her vocabulary. So we have to make our own mercy by being prepared. And being prepared means many times we're dangling off the buoy, watching the net, wondering if this will be the 15,000 lb tide amidst the 1500 lb tides we've been having. It was today - it was almost a 10,000 lb tide, and nearly all of it on the ebb. It was an excellent good thing that I pressed to have that ranger repaired, even though some people are already letting go of the season as if it were over - I think we're only about 2/3 through it. My crew and Josh stayed out, we had the ranger repaired, and we made ourselves a little mercy. Nothing in the mud, all the fish from the flats delivered in one pull.

David is going home tomorrow (waahhh). He had some business in town today and came back like the cavalry. He spotted us from the truck in need of a ranger, hurried the rest of the way to the sites just in time to jump on a ranger and come out to help. I am so very comforted that he understands what needs to be done just by looking at the situation, and knows how to do it. I'm very proud of him.

We go again tonight at midnight. We will have a lot of water - too deep for a push set - and it will probably be dark, though if the clouds clear, we'll have residual light from the sunset. We have a fresh breeze, and not a storm. I ran a line between the inside and outside buoy of one of the outside sites. Jeff and Erik will take a line out to do the same with another of the sites.

I want to try a new approach for a deep water set. Each anchor is marked by a buoy at the end of a 50' anchor line. The inside buoy often has another 50-75' of tag line to close the gap when the buoys are more than 300' apart. When the tide comes in - especially if it comes in fast and with a wind behind it, everything gets blown toward the northeast. So if we're running in the boat dropping the net out behind us, not only will the buoy and its 50 or 75' tag line not be where we need it to be, it'll be stretched in the opposite direction of where we need it to be by the 50' length of the anchor line plus the 50'-75' of the tag line. When the water is shallow enough, someone stands there holding the end so when the boat runs out of net, the end of the tag line is right there. On a deep water set, the water is too deep for someone to stand there. On two of the sites, we'll bring the buoys together using a line between them. On my site, I plan to drop a small anchor where the end of the tag line will meet the net. I'll attach a buoy to the anchor, and the tag lines to the buoy. That way, we'll have a bright red buoy to target, held in place by a small anchor. And the buoy will lead us to the tag line. I'll report in tomorrow about how it worked. Meanwhile, it's time for a nap.

Liz