Chapter two…
A Good Day
“One, two, three pull”, we leaned back hard,
dragging the mess to the other side of the boat. We each grabbed the webbing as low as we could for another
go. “One, two, three pull”. With a little momentum, the blob
morphed and slid across the boat.
The load was more or less balanced now. To keep piling on the port side of the boat was to risk
swamping the skiff.
“ Okay, good enough, are you ready?” With a nod, Pete got
back into position. He was
on the lead line. I had the
corks. We both reached over the
gunnels as low as we could and with a somewhat coordinated effort, we lifted
and heaved and coerced the next section of our net up, over and into the boat
along with it twenty flopping, shiny, silvery salmon.
Down the net we slowly progressed fighting to
gain each foot of net. “They’re
getting thicker”, Pete noticed. He
was right. The rest of the net was
plugged, writhing with hundreds of fish.
We had tried to pick the fish out of the net before pulling the net into
the boat, but we have learned that sometimes you just can’t keep up. This was one of those times and if we
didn’t hurry the dropping waters of Cook Inlet’s tide would leave us high and
dry.
“Kynsey, how much water do we have?” She grabbed the boat hook and dipped it
over the side. My thirteen-year-old niece was glistening in her brand new
raingear from the stern. The neon
orange and green piping were making quite the fashion statement. I might have to smear a little blood on
it for good measure.
“ Three feet deep!” she announced. Not much. Just then Pete found some inspiration and along with it a shot of adrenaline, I could feel him
pulling harder which inspired me to do the same.
“ Pete you're an animal!” I shouted. The fish were flying over the rounded gunnels in
droves. A fat chum flew into
the boat catapulting itself into my face.
“Aghhh”. A streak of slime
ran diagonally across my beard.
We covered ten feet of net quickly before the surge died and we had to rest. Over the side, I noticed a nice sockeye dangling by a tooth on the wrong side of the net. In all its glory, the huge red salmon was idling in the current, unaware of it's predicament. Just then the webbing slipped off the tooth and it began to drift back unencumbered by the the net. I lunged at it taking careful aim with my hands. I latched onto it with as much grip as I could muster and quickly flopped it into the boat. “Nice one Steve” dad noticed. Once again the pile was tipping the boat hard to port and it was time to drag it back.
We covered ten feet of net quickly before the surge died and we had to rest. Over the side, I noticed a nice sockeye dangling by a tooth on the wrong side of the net. In all its glory, the huge red salmon was idling in the current, unaware of it's predicament. Just then the webbing slipped off the tooth and it began to drift back unencumbered by the the net. I lunged at it taking careful aim with my hands. I latched onto it with as much grip as I could muster and quickly flopped it into the boat. “Nice one Steve” dad noticed. Once again the pile was tipping the boat hard to port and it was time to drag it back.
With half of the net into the boat the
skiff was sitting decidedly lower in the water. Could the skiff handle all this weight? “Maybe the other net has fewer fish”
dad said.
“Maybe”. We knew though, that the last net
had been loading up for even longer than the first, and was probably teeming
with fish too. We could do it, I
told myself, we would just have to be smart about how we loaded the boat. Today the weather was in our
favor. The glassy reflection of
the waters revealed no wind.
A lone seal bobbed seaward of our net,
waiting for his chance. The seals had
gathered in greater numbers this week.
I had spotted over 150 on the sand bar yesterday. I was glad there was only one hanging
around us today. The seals like to
swim up to our nets and eat our fish.
Unfortunately they don’t finish what they start. Systematically, they will make their
way down the net taking a single bite out of each fish they encounter.
Harbor seals near the mouth |
Finally we got to the end of the first net and
pulled up the outer anchor. Dad
pulled the tiller handle around steering us towards our other net. The bow dug into the water
purposing downward. We had too much weight int the bow! Pete and I quickly scrambled over the fish to the stern hoping our fat-asses would help with the counter balance. Our weight was just enough to level us
out.
Dad ran the boat over to our second net
and then into shore. I hustled up
the beach to retrieve the inner anchor from its muddy perch. “ Hey, here’s the bear tracks.” I shouted. Alongside the anchor line were the
muddy paw prints of an adult brown bear.
Canted inward pigeon-toe style, the tracks led up to the grass.
We knew this bear. We had seen him last night on our way
to fishcamp. We had arrived too
early on the tide and it wasn’t deep enough to run our props. We had to
wait. The bear was a quarter of a
mile off shore standing on a shallow sandbar. He was fishing.
It appeared as if the bear was walking on water. Peculiar. Upon noticing us, the bear walked and
swam it’s was back to the beach disappearing among the drift and the grasses. He would have plenty to eat on this
tide if he was so inclined.
Cook Inlet bear fishing |
Our wake, standing six feet or more, was
rolling out the back of the boat like a series of rolling moguls. Catching them
by surprise, the wake unveiled hundreds more fish that had somehow escaped our
treachery. Surfing, flopping
against the bank, darting and finning, the waters were alive all around
us. Those were the lucky ones I
thought.
Pete dad and I sorting it all out at Tide Creek. |
Wow! I am really enjoying your writing. Keep it up and you could be famous.
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