We did have too much water this morning for a walking set, but we weren’t quite ready to commit to that and by the time we knew, we were 10 minutes from setting and reconfiguring for a running set would have taken 20 minutes, with those last 10 giving the tide time to rise and speed up enough so a running set would be even more difficult than usual. So my lion-hearted crew stood out there in the water that began to invade their waders, as they waited for time to set.
There are many steps in preparing to set even with a normal low key walking set. First, we have to check the anchor lines to make sure they aren’t wrapped around an anchor or otherwise tangled. Unfortunately, there was so much water this morning, we had to do this with our feet in about hip deep water. The v line on the outside of this net was disconnected from where we expected it to be. I found it with my feet and followed it to find a torn caribiner. That’s a lot of pressure. Pulling it up to the anchor line, we found that it was several feet shorter. That didn’t make any sense. So we went back to the anchor and tried to understand it with our feet.
Finally, I found that the v line was partially buried in the mud, which shortened it up and put all the pressure on that caribiner which it was unequal to. It is surprising to me that the grip of the mud was stronger than the caribiner… maybe there is more to the story than we could see. Luckily, we had a spare caribiner and were able to make that repair. This photo shows the torn caribiner, next to a smaller version of an intact one. It could be that something else caused it to rip in the current and then the v-line was able to become buried in the mud…It is difficult to convey how hard the current is on anything that tries to resist it, and resisting current is just what setnetters do. Maybe this photo of the caribiner and yesterday's photo of the broken buoy light gives some idea. In a way, it's reassuring to know that we don't really have a special place in this world we're working in - the current will chew us up and spit us out just as surely as anything else that passes through. We belong here and are treated like all of the other creatures that are part of this world. I like that.
We always hope for an uneventful preparation to fish, but we have to prepare for something to go wrong. After all, the expression is, “That’s fishing.” Meaning that we should expect something to go wrong. The fishermen who remain intact and are able to continue the tide are the ones that are prepared to deal with it, when “it” can take a variety of forms. Not being mechanically inclined or educated gives me a huge handicap, so I have to be prepared with replacements, ingenuity, a lion hearted crew, good phone support, and as much time as we can find to recover.
After getting set up, we were just waiting to set. I had climbed into the skiff and started the outboard to help hold the skiff in position until it was time to set. When we’re standing deep in the water, it’s hard to have the leverage to control a heavy skiff with a big sail for a bow even in a moderate breeze like we had this morning (and I am deeply grateful that it was only a moderate breeze). David and his crew abandoned setting their net because they couldn’t get the outboard to start and they didn’t have the leverage to push the boat. Roger and Jeff made their way into the Grayling to set the inside site, and David kind of swam his way to help us by getting the inside buoy and holding it in place. (When the tide comes in, of course it pushes any buoy down current, so it is moving away from where it will be when the net is holding it to the outside buoy. Figuring out where we want the boat to be when we come to the end of the net is a geometry problem, unless someone is holding the buoy in place, giving us a target.)
We have to wait to set until not a moment before the opener or else we’re fishing in closed waters, which yields a fine of $1500, surrender of the illegal gear and any fish caught in it illegally. Plus, demerits to the permit which can add up to a season of not being allowed to fish at all. When the moment came, I started motoring slowly with the net popping out the side of the boat as we went along, but it turned out that I was leaving Patrick behind. He tried to pull himself along on the net, but that was just pulling the net out of the boat. We stopped, which was possible because David and Evan were outside the boat holding on to it. The water was too deep for Patrick to get into the boat, so he just held on to the outside as I continued to motor slowly toward the other buoy. We found that Evan also started in a poor position, as the net was being set, ending up sort of under the net with the
corks hitting his head as they were coming out (he moved). David wasn’t able to make it to the buoy in time, so he grabbed hold of the boat as well and rode along. He said he climbed over Evan to find a good place to grip. It sounds scary and wet, but it wasn’t as bad as it sounds because we all knew where each other was, everyone was away from the prop, and the whole procession was moving slowly, toward shallower water. And that part of the process probably didn’t take as much as 10 minutes.
And the sunrise was glorious.One of the reasons I wanted to set that site was because it hadn’t been fished yet so we weren’t sure of the distance between the buoys and whether we’d need taglines. I knew we’d be under stress when we found out… that was today, and it was more stress than I was hoping for. I’m still not sure that under normal conditions, we’ll need a tag line, but under today’s conditions, we did and we had it. It was thinking all that through as I was trying to fall asleep last night that kept me from falling asleep.
The crew was able to get in at the inside buoy and David took over the helm, getting us to Chris and Jake who had decided on a running set, but had forgotten to tie the end of the net to the boat so that when they came to the end of it, it just left the boat and started drifting down current. Chris hopped out of the boat and acted as an anchor. They would have been fine if they had attached the extra line in the boat to the corkline and continued on to the buoy, but it all happened too fast and we don’t often do running sets. As it was, we got there in time to attach one of our extra lines to the buoy and run it to the end of the net before the current took it too far. We ended up with about 35 more feet in the set than the site really needs. I call that a success.
Then we converged on Roger and Jeff who were half way through setting the inside site. There was too much current and it was pulling the net down current as they laid it out, so they weren’t going to reach the target buoy. We got there in time to move the target. So, three nets successfully set, and a wet crew that did not give up even though it was really hard and a little scary. They didn’t even accept the invitation to go in and dry out.
After the nets were all set and before we went in the first time, Patrick got some shots of the crew in our boat. Here are Evan and me. And another good one of Roger. 
The early morning weather was cold and glorious – another Maxfield Parrish painting. It ended up being a fairly quiet tide with a lot of variability in what the drift fleet did. We had less than 1000 lbs. So we kept going in and warming up for 45 minutes at a time. It started out as a clear and beautiful day. When we went in from the initial set, this is what we saw at the top of the stairs.
Turning around and looking over the cliff, we saw the skiffs where we anchored them, sunbathing.
By the time we got back out, a very cold fog had descended. And then it pretty much stayed cold. Here is Patrick in the cold fog.
When the fishing is light, we come in and out of the skiffs, especially when it's so cold. Of course, we're out when it's time to set and we'll go through the nets at least once right after setting it looking for problems with the set, like crossed leadlines or other snags. If the fishing is slow, we'll anchor the boat in and come back out an hour or two before high water. If there are a lot of fish, we'll keep going through the nets until it's time to pull the nets or the water leaves us, whichever comes first. When we're fishing hard - or when we get up at 3:30 for a 5:30 set (like this day), the crew tends to nod off as much as possible during those 45 minutes breaks. Here are a few of them. We go again at 5:30 tomorrow morning. We should have a little less water especially if the winds remains calm, and we should be a little more prepared. With Roy’s phone support, Roger was able to get the New Boat’s outboard running and with a second episode of support, we learned that the Ambi’s battery terminals need cleaning so that it will start reliably. Working the bugs out, learning as we go.
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