There is a rhythm to seine fishing, with three steps repeated over and over, in a near endless cycle meant to catch the maximum number of fish. It is a cycle that goes from dawn to dusk, without breaks. I started my day as a food juggler. And then I became a fish juggler.
In the first step of fish juggling, a power skiff takes one end of the net — the other end still attached to the seiner — and extends it toward the shore where the salmon are schooling. The typical seine net is 1/4 mile long and acts like a barrier through which the fish cannot pass. The skiff uses its powerful engine to keep the net taut.
Next, the power skiff returns to the mother ship, where the two ends of the net are brought together and the bottom is “pursed” or closed. It is at this stage that the crew can gauge how many fish they’ve caught; as the net closes, the salmon start to jump near the surface.
Finally, the net is raised from the water using the power block, with the bottom of the net gradually opened to gently drop the fish into the waiting brine hold, where they will be stored until offloaded to a fish tender. If there is a particularly large haul, the fish are “brailed” along the gunnels, using a smaller net to pluck out the fish in smaller increments.
Hauling in the salmon
The goal was three sets an hour, with each of the three stages ideally taking 20 minutes apiece. Since the stacking of the net takes place during the final phase, that meant I had 40 minutes to cook. I was busy prepping our midday meal of moose tacos. Slicing onions. Chopping garlic. Frying the meat with a blend of Mexican spices. Cutting up tomatoes that were semi-plastic imposters. As expected, the burner kept going out. I developed a ritual of priming the pump, lighting the pilot light and hoping for the best.
And then it was time to stack the net.
Purse Seiner, stacking the net on the stern
K. and I were perched at the extreme stern of the vessel, the net swinging overhead. One false move — or an accidental trip over the incoming line — and we would be in the water. We grabbed one end of the net, laid it down on the starboard side, then snagged a segment and pulled over to the port side, stacking it neatly across the stern. Once that strip of net was stacked, we repeated the process with the next portion, ever on the alert for the skipper’s shouted warning:
“Jellyfish!”
In these waters, the net inevitably trapped a bushel of jellyfish, which tumbled out like slimy projectiles. They were not harmless. If they caught your face, you risked a sting that could swell your eyes shut. We wore baseball caps as protection and, once the warning rang out, we ducked our heads and hoped the jellyfish slid harmlessly off the brim. Now I was a jellyfish juggler. None of us escaped untouched.
And after that insult, I headed back to the galley and hoped to make sense of the meal I had started.
Copyright Leland E. Hale (2018). All rights reserved.
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