This season panned out, despite the pandemic
The base price wasn’t great for Bristol Bay this season, but it could have been worse. A lot of other things could have been worse, too.
Commercial fishermen didn’t cause a genocide of the local population.
Although plant workers made up the majority of the positive coronavirus cases, there were no fatalities that I heard of. I might have been more worried about the local population, but the plant workers were really the most vulnerable. They had no choice but to work and live in close quarters with one another, and they travelled from all around the world to do it. I think if fishermen had to expose themselves to that much risk, a lot more would have opted out this season. That’s what’s known as privilege.
There weren’t even any limits imposed on fishermen for COVID-19 reasons in the Bay, only for equipment failure.
Still, I’ve heard a lot of whining about the price. I’ll be able to make my payments, pay the crew, and come back next year, so I can’t complain.
Most of the crew even wants to come back, especially our newest crew member. She’d been a QC for a few seasons, but this was her first season on a gillnetter. When the fishing slowed down at the end, she said, “At this point I’m just thinking of it as training for next year.” After we’d hauled out of the water, she asked, “When is too early to buy my ticket for next year?” Seeing someone fall in love with fishing like that is one of my favorite things.
But, I experienced the other side of skippering this season too. I had to fire a deckhand for drinking too much. That’s the only thing that caused me to lose fishing time. I could blame it on the pandemic because running him back to Naknek myself cost me a day since the tenders wouldn’t take him, and he wasn’t allowed over any dock in Egegik to get to the airstrip. I should have seen it coming with that guy though. At least no one got hurt.
We put in a good catch of wild, sustainable, healthy food that’s feeding people around the world, while staying happy and healthy ourselves. That’s the bottom line.