[This series on May’s hal­ibut fish­ing was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished on Alas­ka Way­points.  Feels like an eter­ni­ty ago, but I just real­ized I nev­er fin­ished shar­ing them here on Hooked. You can re-read Part 1 here, and the con­clud­ing Part 3 post should be up with­in a few weeks.]

****

The first fish to slap the deck is small, a 24-pounder. With Mar­tin sta­tioned at the hauler, I’ve tak­en the lead on train­ing Ross how to han­dle and clean hal­ibut, and class is now in session.

“Grab the gan­gion to hold the head steady, and bleed it like this.”  I slice an X below the cheek, and a crim­son sheet bil­lows across the deck. “Keep each fish flipped bel­ly side up, like this, so they don’t bruise.”

We admire the glow of the fish’s under­side, and I feel a flick­er of self-doubt. It’s been a year since I cleaned a hal­ibut; will I remem­ber enough to teach some­one new?  But as it turns out, mem­o­ry is not the prob­lem; ver­bal­ly decon­struct­ing a sub­con­scious process is.

My hands move with Oui­ja-board con­fi­dence, the knife danc­ing through skin, mus­cle and mem­brane with a cer­tain­ty that’s absent from my words. This les­son isn’t as sim­ple as “Cut here,” but a more intri­cate puz­zle of, “Cut here, slice that mus­cle, make a cut that flows with the gill plate. Bring your knife all the way through up there, but just a shal­low cut along here through the top lay­er of tis­sue.” As if guid­ing a child’s first Cray­oned alpha­bet-writ­ing efforts, I place my gloved hands over his to re-direct the blade.

****

Before haul­ing, Mar­tin and I gave Ross our final words of wis­dom – or a last lec­ture, depend­ing on your per­spec­tive – on what to expect. It’s hard to con­vey the per­pet­u­al motion inten­si­ty of longlin­ing, when someone’s only com­par­a­tive expe­ri­ence is the men­tal grind and long-term endurance test of trolling.

“Take care of all your bod­i­ly needs before we set or haul. Go to the head, get some­thing to eat, stash a snack or some­thing to drink on deck some­where it won’t get slimed. Longlin­ing is all about speed, and once we start, we don’t stop until everything’s done.”

Inter­nal­ly, I rolled my eyes. Longlin­ing is hard work, sure, but with trips under a week long, it’s only a few days of hard. You focus, go wher­ev­er you need to go with­in your­self to do what needs to be done, and don’t stop mov­ing until the cap­tain says it’s time to stop. And for that, hope­ful­ly you make some good mon­ey, stay safe, and learn what your body and mind can endure when necessary.

Non-fish­ing friends shake their heads, won­der aloud why any­one would vol­un­tar­i­ly put them­selves through these demands, but it’s this push­ing through and beyond my per­ceived lim­its that is pre­cise­ly what I love about our work. New deck­hands have to make the men­tal leap that fish­ing is a job where the hard­er you push your­self and the faster you work, the greater rewards you see. I’m hope­ful that my work part­ner will under­stand that the faster we have every­thing cleaned, iced, re-bait­ed, and scrubbed, the soon­er we’ll be off our boots.

****

But right now, we’re in the midst of it, mid­way through our sec­ond set. Still an ocean away from being done. I slice, gut, and scrape my way through the pile, sur­rep­ti­tious­ly mon­i­tor­ing Ross’s process all the while. Cring­ing at the knife clutched in his hand as he awk­ward­ly wres­tles one wild­ly-thrash­ing hal­ibut after anoth­er, I won­der how to explain the pow­er of a fish that’s one mas­sive mus­cle con­tort­ed with rage, fear, and sur­vival instinct, and the urgency of han­dling hal­ibut in the least dis­as­ter-prone man­ner pos­si­ble. What­ev­er I’ve said so far doesn’t seem to have worked.

Sure enough, it’s not long before an angry 55-pounder thwacks him on the wrist. He jumps back, cradling right hand in left.

“Are you okay?” These three words have been burst­ing from my mouth sev­er­al times a day.

He nods, look­ing at the fish with respect­ful eyes. “It’s like being hit with a base­ball bat.”

The 2008 all-female crew, late night up to our armpits clean­ing halibut.

When Ross and I begin bait­ing hooks in prepa­ra­tion for the next morn­ing, the day’s end is close enough that I allow myself to start fan­ta­siz­ing about my bunk. We’ve soaked and hauled 2 sets. No major smash on either, we’ve chipped away per­haps a quar­ter of our quo­ta today, a good train­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty with­out ever being overwhelmed.

I’m qui­et­ly pleased with my crewmate’s work. His clean­ing motions are slow but con­sis­tent, and he’s nev­er stopped work­ing. One moment’s stretch, gloved fists pressed into the small of his back, was the only indi­ca­tor of the day’s demands. True to my Nor­we­gian ances­tors, sto­icism impress­es me.

I’m pierc­ing a cir­cle hook through a chunk of pol­lock, one eye on the fiery sun sink­ing into the hori­zon, when a new smell forces its way on deck. Unlike the usu­al loom­ing odors of longlin­ing, this one makes my mouth water imme­di­ate­ly. “Oh my god, what are you mak­ing?” I call to the cabin.

In answer, Mar­tin hollers out the gal­ley win­dow. “We don’t have any bay leaf or cardamom?”

Exas­per­at­ed by his first ven­ture into the spice cup­board, he grum­bles adap­ta­tions to his recipe. Even in meal-mak­ing, a captain’s plans are con­stant­ly in flux.

It’s 10:00 when I study the deck. “That’s good, Ross.” All of the hal­ibut, ling cod and yel­low­eye have been iced, 16 skates’ worth of bait­ed hooks are draped over the cock­pit, and the deck has been scrubbed. After 9 ½ hours on deck in con­stant motion, we’re done for the day. Tofu cur­ry over rice, Extra-Strength Advil, and the bunks are call­ing us home, if only for a brief respite.

At the end of a long hal­ibut day.