Hooked on National Fisherman

Posted by Tele on December 6, 2012 in Alaska, Commercial Fishing, F/V Nerka, Reading & Writing, Salmon Trolling, Women in Fishing | 14 comments

I’ve been mostly on an inter­net hia­tus this week, friends, work­ing on a dead­line, but want to quickly share a bit of news. Some of you have asked about the piece that I read at Sitka’s maritime-themed Monthly Grind. I didn’t post it here because I sub­mit­ted it to a mag­a­zine. Happy news: National Fish­er­man bought that essay, “After the Man in the Tote.” Thanks, NF!

Many Hooked read­ers are famil­iar with Sep­tem­ber 11’s post, “Lost at Sea: The Man in the Tote.” Min­utes after watch­ing the Coast Guard’s amaz­ing res­cue, I scrib­bled madly, con­vinced that this mirac­u­lous sur­vival story needed to be shared. But at the same time, a sec­ond story tapped my shoul­der. “There’s a dif­fer­ent way to look at this,” it urged. “Even with the unex­pected happy end­ing, what did this scare bring up for other fishermen?”

It cer­tainly trig­gered some long-buried trauma for Joel and me.

You can read an excerpt of “After the Man in the Tote” in National Fisherman’s Jan­u­ary print issue, avail­able now, or read the whole thing on their web­site, where it’ll be posted for the rest of Decem­ber. I’m grate­ful for their support.

Grat­i­tude is a fast-growing crea­ture. Since Hooked launched in March 2011, I’ve been for­tu­nate to receive so much sup­port from com­mer­cial fish­er­men and our indus­try advo­cates. Pacific Fish­ing linked to Hooked almost from the begin­ning, pub­lish­ing a gen­er­ous intro­duc­tion arti­cle in their June 2011 issue. Alaska Way­points offered a col­umn upon their own web-launch, and has been a vocal pro­moter and good friend since. So I’m fur­ther hon­ored that National Fish­er­man has added Hooked to their blogroll, a sweet spot between iconic photographer/fisherman Corey Arnold and gillnetter/direct mar­keter Matt’s Fresh Fish.

Over the 28 years that I’ve been fish­ing, there have def­i­nitely been times I didn’t feel like I “fit.” Times when my gen­der or left-listing val­ues seemed to set me firmly apart from my ship­mates. As I’ve observed more young peo­ple and more women enter our fleet, more fish­er­men iden­ti­fy­ing envi­ron­men­tal advo­cacy as a nec­es­sary exten­sion of our pro­fes­sion, and heard from folks who’ve found their own life expe­ri­ences reflected on Hooked, that sense of other-ness has less­ened. The pub­li­ca­tions listed above have helped me see our vast oceans as small, inter­de­pen­dent com­mu­ni­ties. They pro­vide valu­able infor­ma­tion and advo­cacy, remind­ing us that we’re in this together – depen­dent on each other, regard­less of our var­i­ous regions or fish­eries – and that there’s room at this table for all.

I’m thank­ful to be offered a chair.

(Jan­u­ary is also National Fisherman’s pop­u­lar “Crew Shots” issue, and you can look for­ward to see­ing some famil­iar faces. Fel­low fish­ing blog­ger Jen Karuza Schile’s hus­band is pic­tured with his long­time crew, proudly rep­re­sent­ing the F/V Vis. The Tammy Lin and Lady Linda honor mul­ti­ple gen­er­a­tions of Sitka trollers. You’ll see Cap’n J and me soak­ing up the rays as we cut hal­ibut cheeks on a sunny June day. I’m delighted that we’re shar­ing the back page with Jen Pick­ett, Cor­dova gill­net­ter, blog­ger, Fisher Poet and friend.)