Ship's Log September 24-26 2019
One Ton For The Cow
I had to figure out what to do. My deckhand Walker just got hauled off by the local Sheriff with assistance by the Ilwaco Coast Guard crew. After the inspection the authorities had left with me alone to consider my options. There is a bunch of fish in the hold, and that is the first thing on my mind. Maybe second. I'm outa here to walk up to the Salt. They have what I need at the moment.
While sipping on vodka and rubbing my forehead trying to plan my next move, a skipper from a very nice vessel with lots of history and respect sat next to me. I tossed him my situation. We cracked up about it pretty good, then I shared my plan to just bust out the rest of the season alone. He did not bat an eye. He told me how many trips and even years he had spent out there alone. We discussed all the guys we knew who were out there taking on the battle single handedly. There are a surprisingly lot of guys that do it. Commercial tuna fish alone. Simple concept in a smaller vessel, but I’m thinking the James Lee is 53 feet long by 18 feet wide. Holds 18 tons of brine frozen tuna. It’s a long distance from the steering wheel to the fish gettin spot. I had done a lot of alone salmon trolling trips on my first commercial vessel the Manatee II, and I had already spent a 3 day trip out there alone on the James Lee earlier this year. (See whatever previous trip that happened on)... Just before picking up Mark. On that part of the trip, I had exhausted myself. Seriously hit the wall. But now I am smarter and will pace myself. And I am in way way better shape after working this past bunch of weeks eating perfect awesome food and exercising REGULARLY, I might just go for it again! And I am inspired by one guy I know who is 68 years old and runs a similar size and shape vessel by himself. I'm only 51. Prime time baby!!
The following morning I awoke to a lot of wind in Ilwaco, and on a very low tide. Supposed to motor over to Mike’s and sell my fish. This is the difficult part. How to make that happen alone? Well, sometimes you gotta have some friends around! Johnny and his deckhand from the Two Fisher’s were quick to help me out. They jumped aboard after cutting me loose and we made it happen. Walker and I had landed 3 tons for the 3 full days at sea, and the two half travel days. Johnny and his deckhand helped me get the vessel settled into position, and then guided the bucket into the fish hold while I watched the weights and counted the fish from up on the dock. Then they rode back to the mooring dock and helped tie me up. SO HELPFUL. We find that a LOT in this industry. There is a great deal of willingness for those in need who are working hard and come across unexpected difficulty.
Now I get to clean the fish hold. I could not talk Johnny’s deckhand into it. I would give him a hundred bucks for the hour of work. He had a previous plan. I’m irritated. The to do list is simple. Put on a full set of rain gear, fill a bucket with water and bleach/soap. Go in there. Use a broom to sweep all the loose shiteroo, fins and hearts and schlom... Put all that in an empty bucket, then scrub the whole thing with a doodle bug set up. A scrubby pad attached to a pole on a swivel thing a ma jig. Scrub every single bin board. Rinse with a fully blasting double pump deck hose, and then pump it all out. Takes me about an hour. This always takes the deckhand a lot longer. Unless I put that job between them and the local drinking establishment, where I am always enjoying my moment alone. Then it usually takes them an hour, but the job is suspect. With Mark Kimball I always hung around and helped until it was done. Maybe cause he is getting old. Ha!!
Back to the bar to consider my next move. There is a lot of boats in town. All the spots are taken and the ends of the dock are full as well. Seems a perfect fit. It was. Many vessels are giving it up for the year. I was pretty surprised at that notion! Still trolling up some pretty good numbers out there! But Ilwaco is a bait town. These bait boats really like to see multiple ton days. Big crew numbers and big boat expenses lead to the need. They jack pole their fish. They do not want to rely on a trolling situation for fish! Stick some guys back there in a basket and jack pole in a shitload of fish in a small amount of time. This method works best when there are schools of boiling tuna after schools of bait fish. This year the albacore were feeding deeper down in the water column. They rose up to the surface for short periods of time thru the day, or were spotty to the surface at best. These guys leave the dock with 150 ton goals for the season. I’m hoping to troll up 50 to 60 tons for the season.
The weather was crap. Blowing North, then South, never really settling into a stable period. However, there was a very short window approaching. One day. Just a little half day afternoon for travel, then a really nice day, then the morning for travel and the afternoon/evening blowing hard from the south again. I had this problem back at the ranch with a dead cow and the excavator. There was a 1700 dollar fee to drag my excavator out of the swamp. So I decided to untie the vessel on Sept. 24th and shoot for it, hoping to clear that 1700 and the thousand dollar cow instead of spending the days at the harbor spending money.
No additional fuel, bait or supply needed. Me and Seanna crossed out across the Columbia River bar at 11am. I got 47 fish that day and shut down at 8:45pm. The next day was decent with 120 fish, but the forecast is pushing for some rough stuff in the morning, I better set up for a one way tac back in. I motored up and out for a bunch of miles while I ate dinner. I wanted to add to the catch. I was getting close to a ton. The fish were small, maybe 11 pounds average. I needed about 20 more.
Too rough to turn around the next day, so I got my 22 on the one way tac in. Mike wanted them in order to top off a semi-truck load. So I sold him the one ton on the 27th. It was not too windy in the harbor so I handled it alone this time. I was pretty happy, and went to clean the hold and remake the brine. After stabilizing all that it was off to the Salt. Weather expected to get better on the 30th. Seanna and I will hang low until then.
