Ship's Log September 9-September 21 2020

For The Birds

We live about 8 miles up Smith River on a ranch near Reedsport Oregon. The wild fires were beginning to rage and eviction orders were being given throughout the state. There was a hot east wind blowing early in the morning before daybreak, and when I stepped outside with my coffee cup in hand I could taste the smoke, and my eyes were burning. The nearest fires were far enough away not to cause immediate concern, however the feeling was eerie and gave me a sense of unease. I got into the little truck and motored off to get to the James Lee in Charleston and debark upon this trip. My coffee has ashes in it! I drank it anyways and listened to NPR and a big long line of fear mongering bullshit. This media lately!! Covid 19 and now big WILDFIRES!!

Seanna, Apollo, Jeff and I headed out, and shortly after crossing the bar, while still in cell service a brightly colored little land bird flew into the wheel house, took a look around and then flew back out the side door window. I knew we would be seeing lots of that this trip with the smokey skies and the fires, little dudes like this get blown up in the plumes of hot smoke and many end up exhausted at sea unable to land. They rest a bit on commercial boats then fly off to their ultimate end in a watery grave. Over the years I have had many on my different boats, and ALWAYS wish I had a little cage to put them in, feed them bread and water, then return them to land with me. So... I took a gallon plastic clear jug full of Safeway chip treats and put the treats into a gallon bag and made a cool little cage.

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Ship's Log January 23 2021

The unexpected chance to participate in the 2021 Oregon Dungeness Crab season came via a message from Sully on January 8th at about 1pm. The strike had blown up, guys were moving boats and loading bait. It is GO TIME, and their day guy that was lined up for the wheelhouse of the Loui M flaked out.

COOL. An opportunity for a short stint onboard this vessel is rare. The holidays were past, and I was willing. Kristi and I discussed it, I shot Sully a message, then I flew into action getting my gear ready. At 5pm Seanna and I met the vessel at the dock in Charleston where we loaded up the bait and headed out to sea.

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After offloading the previous trip's fish in Charleston, Kristi met me for breakfast. We discussed my plans to head out on my own. We talked about gathering whatever I could catch, and then having a dock sale from this final trip. She and I and the very pregnant Seanna went down the dock to the side of the James Lee where I gave them a quick kiss, pulled the lines, hopped aboard and motored off to sea.

The to do list is not that big a deal. Get the buoys up out of the water, pull all the dock lines into the vessel so they don’t drag out, then tip out the trolling poles and make them real tight. Get it out across the bar, then put the autopilot on a go-to in the area where my partner Zeke is fishing on the Sunset Charge. Once away from all the channel markers and the sport vessels chasing salmon, I could relax a bit from the watch and make my brine in the fish hold. I put all the lines out and started to go through them all searching for weakness, correcting any issues. Sixty-five miles to go at just under 7 mph I had a lot of time to organize the vessel to my needs. James Lee was stocked for 24 days at sea if needed.

Lots of time to think. I considered a new plan of attack for my fish sales. The 2021 opening price of $1.52 per pound was a serious let down. I sold 43,500 pounds at that price this year. I then got a bump in price to $1.90 per pound for another 16,500 pounds on the last offload. During those offloads I "bought back" near 7,000 pounds to put into Fishpatrick’s cans for direct sales through the website. So, to date I had landed about 67,000 pounds and kinda felt overall dissatisfied with what I was paid. Besides that, I had tossed back a virtual shitload of fish that were below the 24-inch mark. Those are fat, yummy, excellent eating fish. But the big buyers say "NO NO!!" to them. This year was a bumper crop of 8 to 9 pound albacore. Those above that threshold were pretty scarce overall, so mid-season the company Wild Planet advertised to its vessels that they can keep these smaller fish and Wild Planet now wanted them… The shortage of bigger fish led to the "need." But they still did not pay much for them.

Screw it, I will keep all the good fish I catch this trip and sell them dockside. The little twinkie 6 to 7 pounders will get a free ride back into the ocean, so I set my mark down to 22 inches which gives an 8 pound and up keeper size.

I got news of a couple more boats that went down this summer. The biggest surprise was the Lanola. This beautiful wood boat, near in size to James Lee, is a bit of a partner boat of mine. We communicate on occasion via Satellite Phone. Frank Akers ran that vessel alone for many years. He is in his 60’s and I really look up to him. He inspires me. There are a surprising number of single-handed fishermen who troll salmon and albacore without deckhands. Not too many run these bigger vessels on their own, but Frank did it and with great success. To hear that his vessel sank was a major blow, and still is very sad. He got out of it alive. Then news of the Mellville sinking. Another older wooden vessel with a huge history of success. That captain and crew were also rescued without lives lost. This year the albacore water was littered with a lot of floating logs and other debris. I don’t know how many logs I bumped out of my way on all the miles of travel day and night out there this year. It’s a crap shoot really. On James Lee during the night there is zero vision other than radar, and radar does not show those logs. Faith… There were other vessels lost this year too. More than any previous year since I’ve been doing this. I do not know the cause of any of the sinkings really…

During this trip there were times of very large fish. Zeke and I call them "Large Marge" BIGS!! And on this day of catching those quality fish I looked over and a big 30 foot long by about 3 feet thick log was running right along side me and about to go through all my starboard side gear… and there were fish on nearly every line there. First the log popped off the fish on the chain line, then as I watched helplessly, the shearboat with 2 fish on it got wiped out... and finally that log ate my long bobber and the fish on that line. The chain and shear gear sets flew forward up and into the rigging to be tangled up and the long bobber gear flew way forward but settled back in place without the jigs and hooks. Lost 4 Large Marges and 4 hooks and jigs. Plus had to spend time fixing it all before having the chance to get more. The other side and stern and diver kept me too busy to fix those until that bite ended. I kept tossing bait and was kind of cracking up inside with the experience of it.

Zeke and I were down off of Brookings taking advantage of the weather window there. That’s where we both caught a lot of Bonita. (Skipjack). I had not gotten any of these in previous years. The weather forecast turned to shit, so we began to work our way up north. Every day we caught fish. One day I landed a bit over 300!! It was a grind doing it all, but I seriously enjoyed my solitude. And the fact that I can eat whenever I want. Whatever I want. No need to accommodate the wishes of another. Normally I make a great breakfast at 9am and a big dinner at dark. For lunch you're on your own. But now with nobody expecting my meals, I can just do whatever I want to accommodate my own diabetic self. Makes it a lot easier to manage. All the messes are mine. The bathroom does not get unexpectedly stinky. So many perks to going it alone.

I noticed that I mostly missed Seanna. She is supposed to be around, everywhere, all the time. But she is with the family at home in the final stages of her pregnancy. As I write this re-cap, she is over in that pen with 2 adorable little pups. Eyes just opened but not able to walk much and cannot seem to see or recognize yet... Best I had was the short life of the fish I landed, and some kelp flies that constantly bothered me in the house. The solitude was for real. I enjoyed it immensely. Zeke was always there for a conversation on the 2 meter radio. Sometimes during a long bite while I was pulling fish, dealing with them, all that stuff... Zeke would get nervous. Then he would make my satellite phone ring. It's loud! He kept an eye out and never wandered too far off. I do not know how many times he helped me out this summer, floating me fishing gear, much needed salt, and good advice. He is a serious getter!! Filled up the Sunset Charge to the top 3 times and then some!! Bet he is still planning to get more fish this year.

On my day 15, Zeke and his crew had the Sunset Charge plugged full of fish, they were headed in. The weather was turning and would make things “un-fishable” tomorrow. We were pretty close to the Columbia river, and I considered ducking in there with him. But the weather did not look good for quite some time, so instead we split, and I took the wind down south, traveling overnight to arrive in Winchester Bay early in the morning of September 16^th with near 15,000 pounds of fish.

The dock sale was a success; all my fish got sold as I had hoped. The final little bit went down to Chuck’s Seafoods to be split between us and my final can order needed for Fishpatrick’s Specialty Canned Tuna cans. I finished strong, made my boat payment, and stocked away nearly 4 tons of albacore into cans for sale now. Next year the James Lee will have a brand new refrigeration system. Seanna will go back to sea with me, and all my fish will be sold directly to the end user. My sons Zac and Wyatt will be welcome additions anytime they want to participate. Kristi will always be there to take your orders and ship your tuna. This family business will continue.

July 17-Aug 10... 25 days

After salmon, me and Zac really attacked the boat and got it ready for the summer albacore season. Zac is 17 now. He is motivated to buy a new car. He does whatever it takes to get the thing done needed to perform the entire operation. Zac understands that requirement.

Wyatt at 15 is going to hang back and join up when things get more interesting. He also wants a new car. But will wait til the tuna are needing pulled in to earn it.

We departed on July 17th at 7pm. It was a blustery sea, and a very rough bar crossing. Lol!! Virtually all of our stuff in the house went flying, everything off the shelves, everything not locked down somehow. We were lucky that Wyatt had the forethought to put the little screw into the refrigerator door.

We ran all night, both kids were jacked up so I made use of that and they wheel watched while I slept soundly with faith and comfort.

7am we caught our first fish. I had gotten up at 5, slipped into my boots, peed, thought hmmmmm... set the gear. We got over a hundred fish on this day one of fishing.

Zeke on Sunset Charge called and reported the crazy high score of near 600. Way up north... so off we went for that additional 100 mile run. In the rough. Irritating. Broke rule number one. Don’t leave fish to find fish.

Spent a bunch of days with meager scores.

Day 12... . Zac had been getting up with me these past few days and joining in on the morning bite. Wyatt always sleeps in. Zac usually gets up about 7, and by then I already have a bunch of fish in the box. I like those quiet mornings, coffee, fishing, gettin... fishin... coffee... couple satellite phone calls... Zeke on the Sunset Charge and Calvin on the Julia C.

“You guys gettin??...”

Oh... “Hey Zac... ” He's coming up from below... ”Go pull those fish in... there’s some fish on back there.” I'm not real sure about that, just assuming maybe..

At 12:37 pm day 14 Zac hit the wall.

Piled up on the couch in a position usually associated with a toddler mashed into a corner of a room on a blanket. Forget about it.

Wyatt and I took over the deck. I remember feeling kind of like I better keep things really clean in order for Zac to be happy when he gets back on deck. He had so much to do with the paint and preparation of that deck that all his moves were to keep it like that. His moves. I liked them!! Better than me at it. During his absence, I was very unusual with my instant rinse of the deck on every bloody fish!

Couple hours later he came out, put on his gear and grabbed the hose and a scrubby thing and brought the deck back up to par... then pulled a bunch of fish. Wyatt was always willing as long as the fish were coming... otherwise quick to boredom and the couch or the bunk... Lol!!

Food is always plentiful!! Zac even brought a little blender, and we had a bunch of frozen fruit and yogurt for smoothies every day!

On day 25 we were fully plugged with fish and returned to Charleston for the initial offload to get over 7 tons done into Fishpatrick’s labeled cans for sale thru fishpatrick.com. Then we headed to home port of Winchester Bay for a direct sale to the public. Brian at the Sportsmen’s Cannery got a couple of tons, and 6 tons were sold at the dock sale. Super thanks to all of those friends who came to purchase our fish. We brought the last 3 tons back to Chucks Seafood's in Charleston.

During the entire trip, Zac, Wyatt, Me and Seanna had an incredible fun time. Zero conflicts. The kids both earned plenty to buy the car of their choice. In fact Wyatt already got himself a sweet low mile ride for when he turns 16 clear out in May of '23... Bought and paid for. Zac will take his time finding his second vehicle entirely purchased with his own money and he is only 17. Well deserved on both accounts and I could not be more proud of these two kids!!