"Let 'er go!...Let 'er go!
by
Jay Kelley

© 2004   Jay Kelley
All rights reserved

Most herring purse seine fisheries in Alaska are dependent upon the spotter. Flying in a small plane above the fishing grounds, the spotter locates the herring school, and by radio, directs his boat to the fish. He tells the skipper when and where to release his net, and precisely how to deploy it to catch the fish. The competition is intense.

In Prince William Sound, (prior to the Exxon-Valdez oil spill), herring start showing up a few weeks before the opening of the fishery. A day or two before the opener, all of the seiners and tenders congregate close to where they expect to catch the fish.

The night before the morning opener, tension builds. It's difficult to sleep. If there is snow falling, and there often is on March 31, the spotter must constantly remove heavy wet snow from the wings and tail of his airplane to keep it afloat through the night.

Even though I had been flying herring surveys for the preceding four seasons in Prince William Sound, this was to be my first experience at actually setting boats by radio. I would be spotting for George and Andy Allen, two brothers from Cordova. I would also be providing backup for two other boats. Lanny Merritt, the other spotter for our 4-boat combine would be providing backup for my two boats.

Lanny sent his own personal boat, loaded with several barrels of aviation gasolene, food and two crewmen, out to Olsen Bay in Port Gravina along the north side of the Sound. Here we would tie up the airplanes and sleep at night.The two crewmen would help with the airplanes and fix meals.

April 1st: Lanny and I awaken to the 3:00am dinging of the alarm clock. It's snowing. As the early dawn light increases, the weather remains poor. We sweep snow off the planes with long handled push brooms. We doze, we eat, we read and wait.

At about 11:00am another spotter casts off from a nearby boat and taxis his plane for several minutes to warm up the engine. Lanny and I follow suit. My engine soon warms sufficiently for takeoff. I climb out of Olsen Bay and fly around the corner into St Matthews Bay, where most of the fishing fleet is waiting. There I join about 30 other airplanes flying in the soupy weather. We fly a race track pattern... into the head of the bay over the east shoreline, and out to the mouth of the bay over the west shoreline. Everyone complies with this unwritten arrangement. This continues for about an hour with no one catching any fish or even making a set. About half of the spotter planes are still tied to the sterns of their respective boats.

By 1:00p.m. the weather has improved to a broken cloud cover. The fleet is spread out from the head of St Matthews Bay to a few miles beyond the mouth of the bay. Some boats are scattered out toward Red Head, a prominent point of land further west. There are 7 boats in a small lagoon near Hell's Hole to the east. A few small sets are made on that first afternoon, but nothing very exciting. As evening approaches, the light becomes too faint for spotting and we retire for the night.

April 2: We awaken to a crisp, clear, frosty morning. I smooth down the accumulation of frost on the wings of the 115 horsepower Champ I'm about to fly. But,regardless of how the airplane is positioned in the water next to the boat, I am unable to reach it all, so some frost still remains unsmoothed. Frost tends to reduce lift, but there isn't much left, so I am not too worried about it. In spite of the remaining frost on the wings, the takeoff is eventually successful. After a long full-power run out to the mouth of Olsen Bay the plane launches itself into the air off of a large wave generated by a distant passing boat.

Soon the sun is high in the sky. Everyone is scattered, planes and boats alike. Then a boat makes a set in the small lagoon near Hell's Hole. The news spreads instantly and the race is on.

Within minutes, the fleet converges on the lagoon, and the resounding roar of 55 airplanes fills the air. We are all circling an area barely a half mile across. All of us are searching the water below, vying for the big set. Beneath us 105 seine boats and about 150 tenders are poised like predators, hungrily awaiting word from the sky. I see a school of herring rise to the surface, and double check the positions of my boats. George is closer.

"I key my mike, "George, do you read me? Turn left about 90 degrees and head straight across the bow of that big blue tender with the white house." George's boat turns and heads in the right direction.

"Full speed ahead, George. Kick 'er in the butt; you've got two boats coming up fast on your port side." His prop churns up foam as he gives it full throttle and the 48 foot seiner accelerates.

"Turn right about 10 degrees, George, the fish are moving toward the beach." His skiff man is in the jitney, its powerful engine running ready to pull and manuever one end of the net.

"The fish are about three boat lengths in front of you, George,...get ready...slow 'er down a little...Let 'er go! Let 'er go."

The jitney slews out behind the seiner. The corkline sizzles over the stern of the seiner as the net unfurls.

"Turn right, turn right, keep turning right. OK...looks good...straighten it out a little. hold that heading It's looking good, looking good. Ease it back to the right a little...Big gentle turn to the right..more right, more right."

The net is about two thirds of the way around the school of herring and still unfurling off the back deck of the seiner. I'm down to 500 feet, trying to avoid other airplanes. "Hard right, George, keep turning...Close it up, close it up."

The jitney slowly approaches the bow of George's seiner, straining with full power against the drag of the 900 foot long net. Finally the ends of the net are together and the purse lines fed through the deck winch and they begin to purse the net.

"It looks real good, George. You've got'em right in the middle of your seine."

A red and white cub flashes past my windshield close enough for me to read the 3 inch numbers on its tail. It rattles me a little and I become more vigilant.

I notice several boats heading up the beach and a dozen or more airplanes circling near Red Head. Andy's voice crackles into my headset, "Check it out, Jay. It looks like something is going on up by Red Head." I lift my right wing and purposely skid to the left to check for traffic and then head up the beach. Someone is making a set on a big school. It looks like about 75 tons. Another spotter starts talking on my frequency. I key my mike and say, "Let's change channels. Go to channel H. George, do you read me?" He doesn't hear me. He is still too busy with the fish he has just caught.

"Andy, did you pick that up?"
"Yeah, Jay, channel H...switching."
I glance around, amazed, and think to myself, 'My God, this has got to be absolutely nuts.'

I start looking for herring again. I see a school, and so do five or six other airplanes.

"Andy, turn left about 45 degrees and head straight for the beach." I watch his boat turn and see four other boats coming fast. One boat is moving at full speed along the beach. He and Andy are on a collision course, converging at a 90 degree angle toward the same school of fish. As they draw closer to each other, neither backs down. The fish are a boat length away.

"Andy, let 'er go let 'er go." His jitney lurches away and the other boat, appropriately named Antagonizer lets his net go too, and at the same time, cuts directly across Andy's bow. I can almost hear Andy's curses as he stops hard in full reverse, his bow just inches from the side of the other boat as it steams by at full speed, its net streaming away behind.

The waves from Andy's seiner almost swamp the competitor's jitney. The commotion spooks the fish and they dive out of sight. I think to myself, 'well at least he didn't get them either.'

A short time passes and I find a nice school of herring for Andy. The tender is still pumping fish out of George's seine...., and Lanny's two boats are both on sets. Time to stop for fuel.

I land in the calmer waters at the head of the bay, away from all the boats and commotion. I shut off the engine, and step out onto the right float. In the distance, the unceasing roar of airplanes sounds like the Reno air races.

We flew until dark. That evening, the Alaska Department of Fish & Game announced that Port Gravina was closed to further herring seining.

April 3: After a brief 2:00am meeting via radio with my two skippers, Andy and George, it's back to sleep for a few hours. I takeoff out of St Matthews Bay at the crack of dawn, and head for the Bays at the north end of Montague Island. I arrive an hour ahead of my boats. They had left six hours earlier.

I check the bays near the north end of Montague Island and take a swing around Green Island, but see no herring. Our four boats pull into Stockdale Harbor near the north end of Montague Island and I land for breakfast.
After a brief confab, two of our boats decide to leave for the northwest corner of the sound, so I head out in front of them to check Glacier Island...no herring there either.

As I turn back toward Montague, I see distant seiners stretched out all the way from Port Gravina on the north side of the sound to Montague Island, several boat hours to the south, and they're all heading for Rocky Bay at the very north end of Montague. I make a bee line for Rocky bay and radio our two travelling boats to head for Rocky Bay.

On the return flight to Montague, I count more than a hundred seiners steaming south toward Rocky Bay. From 4000 feet they look like little waterborne comets streaming along.

Back at Rocky Bay, several enormous sets are in progress, all of them over 100 tons and a few over 200 tons.
Whole seine nets are literally boiling with fish. Jitneys are frantically scurrying back and forth around the nets, trying to keep the fish from pouring out over the corklines. Some of the fishermen have big orange bladder floats attached at regular intervals along the corklines to keep the nets from sinking. Tenders are pumping madly, and boats not yet set are milling around like sharks in a feeding frenzy.

I am having a hard time seeing the schools of fish. They are deeper than they were at Gravina. I continually peer into seines that are being set, trying to discern what it is that other spotters can apparently see.
Suddenly I see it, a subtle shadowy edge, fast moving, deep and barely different in color from the deep green of the water. Once again George is close. I turn him toward this fast moving school of herring, but it's a race with another boat. George gets there first and the other boat politely turns away.

I shout instructions to him, non-stop over the radio until his net is closed in a big circle around the fish. Even before he begins to purse the net, I can see a large shadowy form deep in the net. As he purses, the fish come to the surface, and soon his net is boiling with fish.

It's fantastic! But then one side of the seine begins to sink with the weight of the fish and they begin to gush out in a huge swath over the sunken part of the corkline. George turns his skiff man loose, and he races the jitney back and forth in front of the escaping fish, trying to prevent any more from leaving. One of our tenders arrives with a dozen or more big orange bladder floats which are quickly attached to the corkline and soon the exodus is staunched.

Lanny has set Andy, and his other two boats are having fish pumped from their seines. It's time for a break. I put down in a lagoon on the edge of Rocky Bay and am soon joined by three other spotters. We beach our planes, tails to the beach, wing tip to wing tip, and discuss the days events. The tide continues to drop and we have to keep pushing our planes out so that we don't get stuck on the beach for six hours.

Someone makes a set right in the lagoon. Terry, one of the spotters, suggests that we all take off before the tender arrives and plugs the mouth of the lagoon. There isn't enough room to takeoff inside the lagoon, so we all fire up, taxi out into the main part of Rocky Bay and takeoff to resume our positions in the melee above us.

As the day goes by, more and more boats have made big sets and are having the fish pumped out of their seines into tenders. The tide continues to recede. Some tenders that were pumping in relatively deep water earlier in the day are still pumping from the same seines, but the tide is ebbing and the water is getting shallow. Soon there are tenders aground every where...on the rocks on the beach, in lagoons.

I count fifteen tenders aground. The Northwest Enterprise, 155 feet long is high and dry at the head of Rocky Bay. By mid-afternoon, the Pacific Voyager, 165 feet long, is leaning against a smaller tender, both aground on some rocks near the mouth of the bay. They appear to be supporting each other. The Polar Shell, 180 feet long, is aground along with the power scow Dritsik. Ten others also await the incoming tide to float them free.

Late in the afternoon, we are told by field announcement from the Alaska Department of Fish & Game that the fishery will close at 6:00 pm. I look at my watch. Only an hour and a half to go. I'm tired.

We make one more set and finally it's time for me to head for home. I stop at George's boat for fuel and a fantastic prime rib dinner before flying across Hinchenbrook Entrance and on to Cordova.

On the way back, I reflect on the past three days. On the first day, the morning opener in the bays of Port Gravina had been poor because of lousy weather. The afternoon had been better, and the second day was exceptional. Many medium-sized sets had been made at Gravina, but none like the huge sets at Rocky Bay on the third day. I had talked with several spotters. All of them had done quite well for their respective boats. Everyone seemed satisfied.

My thoughts are interrupted. I hear Gary, another pilot, call flight service on the radio. I say, "Gary, is that you?"
He comes back, "Yeah, who's that?"
"it's me, Jay."
"Hi, Jay, let's go to 22.9."
We switch frequencies, chat for a while and go our separate ways. I see Cordova in the distance. It'll be good to be home.

© 2004  Jay Kelley
All rights reserved