We’re some­where in the South­east Gulf of Alas­ka right now, in the midst of our king salmon open­ing, so here’s a sto­ry from my May hal­ibut fish­ing, brought to you by Word­Press’s great sched­uled-pub­lish­ing option. “Going Green” was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished May 19^th on www.alaskawaypoints.com, in my col­umn, “South­east, Vari­able.”  This post has been slight­ly changed from the original.

Sun­shine embraces a deep swell as we drift on our des­ig­nat­ed spot. We couldn’t ask for a bet­ter day to start this season’s first hal­ibut trip, but the antic­i­pa­tion Mar­tin and I feel is tem­pered with the anx­i­ety of train­ing Ross, a first-time long­line deckhand.

We hud­dle up in the Charity’s cab­in to dis­cuss our game plan. We both have the his­tor­i­cal per­spec­tive to appre­ci­ate how much eas­i­er our longlin­ing expe­ri­ence is com­pared to the der­by days, when hal­ibut fish­ing was a free-for-all fren­zy, 48- to 96-hour open­ings where you didn’t sleep, eat, or stop until it closed.  Com­pared to those days of lost boats and bro­ken bod­ies, we’ve got it easy under today’s Indi­vid­ual Fish­ing Quo­ta (IFQ) pro­gram. But we don’t talk about that. Delib­er­ate­ly severe, our tone is designed to con­vey this fishery’s grav­i­ty and risk to some­one whose expe­ri­ence is lim­it­ed to a cou­ple troll sea­sons.  Par­rot-like, we repeat, “Longlin­ing is a dif­fer­ent animal.”

Mar­tin and I will snap on all of the gear, but I hand out sheathed red Vicky knives for every­one to wear at their waist. “If you ever get hooked, cut the gan­gion, not the ground­line. If you cut the ground­line and it’s the side that’s con­nect­ing you to the boat, that’s it – we can’t get you back until it’s too late.”

Deck full of gear, box­es full of bait.

With­out a drum on board, we set from 55-gal­lon Rub­ber­maid tubs. Each tub con­tains one skate, 300 fath­oms – 1800 feet – of coiled line. We have 16 skates on board, and will put out 2 sets, 8 skates each.  No old salt knot-tying skills required; Mar­tin has spliced stain­less quick links into the ends of all our skates. Ross will con­nect and mon­i­tor the line going out, so we put on our seri­ous voic­es to dis­cuss this job.

“Always, ALWAYS clip the bot­tom of the first skate to the top of the sec­ond, and so on. Dou­ble and triple check your work. This is beyond critical.”

Sev­er­al moments lat­er, Ross revis­its this, a con­cerned fur­row forg­ing his brow. “What hap­pens if, despite my best efforts, I hook them up the wrong way?”

The detailed answer involves explain­ing that we’ll sud­den­ly have 1800 feet of line fly­ing over­board in one mas­sive, dis­as­trous snarl, but our cap­tain has a more suc­cinct response, punc­tu­at­ed with a long, flat stare: “We’re fucked.”

****

Over the years, I’ve played deck­boss on sev­er­al friends’ boats. You’d think 7 years as a social work­er might influ­ence my train­ing tac­tics, that I’d approach green crew with patient expla­na­tions, non­judg­men­tal cor­rec­tion, and empa­thy for the over­whelm­ing­ly for­eign world they sud­den­ly find them­selves in. You’d be wrong. I’m a very good deck­hand, but a ter­ri­ble teacher.  Though the guys I’ve trained all became strong, com­pe­tent crew­men, they had an unnec­es­sar­i­ly hard, demand­ing class­room under my tute­lage. Full of unfair expec­ta­tions, I want to see things done Just So, and I want them done yes­ter­day. I want alert eyes and quick hands, a clear mind that is obvi­ous­ly track­ing what’s going on, a cowork­er who will observe how something’s done and then do it that way himself.

I might as well be com­pil­ing a wish list for an ocean-going Mary Pop­pins, with such impos­si­bly unrea­son­able cri­te­ria for what makes a good crew­mate, and have peri­od­i­cal­ly shak­en my head in self-dis­gust. Seri­ous­ly, Tele? Does it real­ly mat­ter if he does it this way, instead of that? But moments of self-aware­ness don’t equate behav­ior change, and I sus­pect Ross is in for a steep learn­ing curve.

****

For today’s train­ing pur­pos­es, we put out only one set of 8 skates. “Makes my pro­duc­tiv­i­ty sense twitch, but this is the right way to do it,” Mar­tin sighs. As the say­ing goes, the only thing worse than not get­ting ‘em is get­ting ‘em, and if we set all 16 skates, Murphy’s Law would sure­ly guar­an­tee that we’d land on a major smash with one crew­man who’s nev­er cleaned a halibut.

In spite of the anx­i­ety, set­ting goes smooth­ly. Cov­etous alba­tross croak hoarse com­plaints as bait­ed hooks sink quick­ly out of sight and our bird avoid­ance gear streams par­al­lel to the out­go­ing gear. Ross takes to his job quick­ly, call­ing warn­ings to us when­ev­er the end of a skate approach­es. The ten­sion coiled in my bel­ly loosens as I toss the flag­pole over­board. “We’re fishin’!”

We’re fishin’!

Cleared of tubs of gear and bait­ed hooks, the deck sprawls like a skat­ing rink. Slip­pery like one, too: Ross and I scrub the sheen of pol­lock oil and hose off smeared humpy guts, to the mut­tered delight of the ful­mars tread­ing water right beneath our scup­pers, gob­bling each morsel that flush­es over­board. When every­thing has been prop­er­ly set up for haul­ing (indeed, Just So), I give one final, crit­i­cal sur­vey. It pass­es, so raingear is peeled off and hung back up.

Mar­tin shuts down the engine and says, “We’ll recon­vene in 3 hours, have some lunch, then start haul­ing.” Bright sun paints the cab­in walls, but we imme­di­ate­ly head for our bunks, prepar­ing for the intense go-go-go pace that’s just ahead. Before I can won­der too much about what our first set will bring, the sounds of water lap­ping at the hull next to my head and the hen-like cluck­ing of seabirds lul­la­by me to a sound sleep.