When people ask me what it’s like fishing in Bristol Bay, the first word that comes to mind is "manic." When the fish come, they come all at once, and we’re working around the clock to catch them. Although there is always that calm before the storm—or right after—when the seas are flat, the fleet waits in quiet anticipation for more chaos to come.
One fine morning like this, we’re anchored upriver, waiting out a blow and hoping to catch a couple hours of sleep without being rocked. We have put in most of our season, and as we roll into late July, we hope for a couple more good days of fishing to round off our catch.
There is a strict and collaborative management system in place in Bristol Bay to regulate the fishery. Our boats are limited to a 32-foot max length, and our net, called a gillnet, can only be 150 fathoms long. Additionally, there are only certain days and hours when we are allowed to fish, ensuring that enough salmon swim upstream to spawn before we catch our share as fishermen. All these measures keep Bristol Bay healthy and sustainable for generations to come. However, this also allows our boats to be nimble. On days like today, because my boat is 32 feet long and has a shallow draw, I can get in close to the bank where the salmon like to swim.
Having caught the sunset the night before, we roll out of bed in the predawn. We make coffee, pull anchor, and set the net in the upriver stillness along the district boundary. It’s the 3 am blue hour, and though night has not lifted off Bristol Bay, being this far north, close to solstice, the dark isn’t that dark anyway. There are no boats around us at this hour, and we watch the net slowly accumulate with fish. The tide is slack, and it’s at this time that the fish often push the hardest. The sun rises, and we bring in our net as we slowly drift downstream.
Once the fish are on the boat, we bleed them in their gill plate and place them under the deck in fish holds full of near-freezing 36-degree water. We then run out to set our net again and repeat the process. The day will go on like this until we deliver our fish to a tender, a larger boat that takes them to land to be processed some 12 hours later. We fish through the day, into the evening, until it is blue hour once more. Then get some sleep to start the next day, again and again, until the season’s end.
Jessica Normandeau is the captain of the commercial fishing vessel Leila M and the founder of Slipstream Sockeye. Learn more about her passion for fishing and her commitment to sustainable, wild-caught fishing practices here.