What Happened in Craig: State of the Industry, 1982

We’ve alluded to the realities of the commercial fishing industry in the early ’80s. The Boldt decision that roiled non-Native salmon fishers in Washington state. The botulism scare of 1982. The changing of the guard from canned to fresh caught fish. The June 1982 edition of Pacific Fishing magazine took an even broader look at the “state of the industry.”

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Boats in Port, nets stacked on the stern

It was, in a word, challenging. Here’s a quote from Editor Duane Kelly’s Letter to Our Readers:

This month we explore fishing from the Gulf of Alaska, along the West Coast, to the far western Pacific. A common denominator unites these widely varied fishing operations: the search for profits.

Take Mark Coulthurst’s sophisticated long-range business planning. You’ll see how his business-oriented approach has resulted in profits and expansion while many other fishermen are floundering in a sea of red ink.

Other boats are trying joint ventures as a way to keep the cash flowing. We sent John Sabella up to the grounds to experience firsthand what it takes to be successful in this enterprise. His words and photographs convey the beauty and hardship fishermen experience as they try to ride out the worst that the Alaskan winter can throw at them.

Profits are directly dependent on the ability to stay on the fishing grounds catching fish. All sorts of problems can frustrate the fisherman’s efforts to do this, however. Share the drama of the tuna seiner Danica when it was seized and taken from the fishing grounds. Our reconstruction of the inside story of that incident gives vivid testimony to the shoreside efforts needed to keep a boat fishing. Apparently there is no corner of the world where a fisherman can do his job in peace.


One theme was already starting to emerge from this chaos.

Seafirst banker Barry Bevis put it best: “We’re looking for the professional fisherman rather than the investor,” noted Bevis. “When it was fashionable for professionals like dentists and doctors to invest in crab boats rather than apartment buildings, the industry was flooded with two things it doesn’t need anymore: speculators and single-purpose fishing vessels.”

“But when Mark Coulthurst came to us to finance the Investor,” Bevis continued, “there was never any real doubt on our part. He’s done an exceptional job of planning his fishing career and his loan proposal reflected it. He’s a good example of what it takes to succeed at the business of fishing.”

Got that? The business of fishing. Of course Bevis would say that. He was a banker.

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Sample Loan Proposal, Pacific Fishing magazine, June 1982

Copyright Leland E. Hale (2018). All rights reserved.


Craig

Order “What Happened In Craig,” HERE and HERE, true crime from Epicenter Press about Alaska’s Worst Unsolved Mass Murder.

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