Crabbing

[TBinKodiak]

Well I got some pictures off the camera. These are Baridi Tanner crab, inbetween the king crab and opillio Tanner crab or snowcrab, and run around 2.3lbs for a legal crab (5.5" across the shell)with a few pushing 3.5lbs. Ray's boat is a 48' salmon seiner that we worked on for 6 weeks (weekends) to get ready for crabbing, we built the rails, deck, ran new lines and buoys, and mended the old pots we borrowed. On the boat was Ray who ran the boat and helped when he could, Art and I were the Crewmen. A lot of boats run 3 crewmen, but you get a higher share if you just go with 2 (also do a lot more work). We were allowed to fish with 20 pots and could pull gear between 8 am and 6pm, which meant we were working on deck from around 7am to 7pm. We would go through 500-600lbs of herring ground up in the chopper and stuffed in bags and bait jars per day, we would also put in a hanging bait of either cod or old salmon. The first day started at noon, but we were still able to set all our gear and run it once. We ran through our gear twice the next two days or 40 pots a day which kept everyone moving so fast we didn't even take a few minutes to eat lunch. On the 4th day our tank was full and we had to deck load the last 4 pots and head to the tender. The tender is a larger boat contracted by the processor to pick up crab from fishermen on the fishing grounds. This cost us $.12 a pound and we had to hand unload all the crab, which took about 6 hours. The next day they announced the SE section would close so we pulled our pots and loaded them for the 11 hour run back to Kodiak, we were fishing the southeast side of Kodiak. Our last days haul was around 3,500 lbs of crab. We tried the northeast section for a few days but ended up going backwards on fuel costs and couldn't find any decent crab. Art got blood poisoning and left the boat when we got back to Kodiak, so we picked up Craig who salmon fishes with Ray to help out in the NE section. Ended up dropping the pots off in Port Lions on Saturday then put away gear and cleaned the boat Monday and Tuesday. Back to my realjob on Wednesday.
Physical tole was 3 blackend fingernails, got a pot dropped on my foot (pots were 400lbs) which swelled and bruised. Other than that just a few bruises, bloody nose and sore muscles.

Pots lined up ready to hand launch. They were only 400lb pots so we manually shoved them over the side.

Sorting crab.

Full tank and deck loaded.

Full Tank

Just scratching the surface.

 

[TBinKodiak]

We worked 6hours into the night to unload our first 4 days catch. A little shut eye then pull pots and run to Kodiak.
Last pot pulled in SE section 127 legal crab.

Getting ready to offload day 5 catch at the cannery.

Much easier having them unload even if it was 2am.

 

[elk_hunter]

Wow, way to go!

 

[JoseCuervo]

You got any side view pictures of the boat, taken from somebody off the boat so we can see size and scale?

Very cool/

 

[Oak]

That looks like work. Thanks for sharing the photos.

 

[noharleyyet]

I smell lemon garlic butter. Awesome pictures.

 

[Dinkshooter]

That looks cool. I would be out there..................if I wasn't terrified of the big water.

 

[TBinKodiak]

You got any side view pictures of the boat, taken from somebody off the boat so we can see size and scale?

Very cool/

The boat is named the Northwestern and my buddy bought the same year the Deadliest Catch came out so he's thinking about renaming it. The other Northwestern out of Seattle is 125 feet by 29 feet. The one we were on was 48 feet by 15 feet, I don't think I have any side view pictures though.

 

[schmalts]

What time of year was this?

 

[TBinKodiak]

What time of year was this?

Two weeks from January 13th to the 26th 2010. I only took pictures on the nice days.

 

[WFGinNM]

Very nice, keep the pictures coming. I sure miss Kodiak, and I've only been there once. Got to live through your pics.

--Bill

 

[Ovis]

You're not giving up your day job are you?

 

[IdahoBugler]

Man I'm hungry for crab now. Congrats on a great haul.

 

[Spitz]

Thanks for sharing. That's a pretty neat job/line of work to have under your belt. Great pictures.

 

[TBinKodiak]

You're not giving up your day job are you?

Well I got invited to go cod fishing in March down on the peninsula, but I have a trip planned to Spain with the wife. I may give up my job, but not my marriage.
Also got invited to go herring fishing in April, I'd think about it if I could get the skiff job salmon fishing. I got it offered to me last year, but only had 2 days notice to give to my job. Figured I couldn't afford to burn bridges. His skiff man made over $40k for 2.5 months work last summer.

WFG here's a few more. I didn't even bring the camera out most days. Day 3 was a real @ss kicker. That was the day I had a pot jump the rail and land on my foot. Art also got knocked to the deck twice by the block swinging and hitting him in the head. Probably 10 foot seas with a few washing over the deck, yet it was one of our best days for crab and quickest days running all 40 pots. Just got in a groove I guess.
Art threw the hook and coiled while I ran the hydraulics.

We had two shots of floating line (pink line 33 fathoms or 198 feet each) attached to the pot. This keeps the line from snagging on bottom. The blue shot is also 33 fathoms but is sinking line and that is attached to the bouys. This keeps the line under water so other boats don't run over your line. There were two bouys seperated by 2 fathoms (12 feet) of floating line. This allowed us to through the hook between them and drag them in. Art would run them through the block (pic above)and I would coil and tie the bouy lines. Once they were done I would speed up the hydros so we would bring the pot up quicker. Sometimes the line would jump off the block due to knots or tangles. It was my responsibility to shut it down so it wouldn't jump or backlash and catch Arts's hand in the block. Exciting at times but we managed.
Art coiling.

This makes me wonder how many times I had my hands down in that thing.

I know that feeling.

The cannery crew knocking out our catch.

We were allowed a 2 minute break for every 6 hours worked. Actually that's a lie, we weren't allowed any breaks, but did sneek in a couple.

The rope around the waste helped keep clothing tight and also has a knife taped to it. That was basically your last chance if you got in the bite of the line while a pot was going over and ended up going down with it. I checked numerous times a day to make sure the knife was still attached. Your clothing underneath was soaking wet from about a half hour after we started working until we changed at knight. Trying to drink enough water to keep up was always a challenge and I was dehydrated most days.
An interesting vacation, just not sure if I'd want to, or could at my age, do it for a living.

 

[icb12]

Great pictures!

 

[Wyodeerhunter]

Figured I couldn't afford to burn bridges

Sometimes to build new bridges you have to burn some old ones. wise man once told me that

Great pics and looks like a hell of an experience.