Trawler fishing on the Bering Sea

[crstlextrm]

So it looks like I will be flying to Dutch on monday to start a 75 day contract on a trawler factory boat as a processor. Anyone else done this before? I did 135 days last year as a processor on a longliner/crabber and it wasnt hard, in fact we had too much slack time and I ended up only making around 5200 a month and only did 4 trips total. This company claims to do 2 or 3 trips a month so I am hoping to make a lot more money, even though some of the species we catch wont be as valuable. Anyways, if all goes well I am gonna try and stay the rest of the year up there, come back and ski a couple months, then go back. Kinda sucks I am going to miss all summer and most of foosball season, but I am tired of being the poor stoner that lives in his parents basement because i spent all my money on skiing.

[Nate Dogg]

I've never done it, so I really have nothing valuable to offer here. The idea of it caught my interest though. How did you go about getting started doing this? How does one get the work? What is the day to day gig like? Forced to sign on for long term or can you do short contracts? Just seems like something I wouldn't mind doing until I decide what direction to point life in. Any info is appreciated, sorry for the hijack.

[dk_alaskan]

you going to be a dragger?

[crstlextrm]

I've never done it, so I really have nothing valuable to offer here. The idea of it caught my interest though. How did you go about getting started doing this? How does one get the work? What is the day to day gig like? Forced to sign on for long term or can you do short contracts? Just seems like something I wouldn't mind doing until I decide what direction to point life in. Any info is appreciated, sorry for the hijack.

Alot of the companies that fish up there are based out of Seattle. The company I just signed up with is actually based out of Maine though, the O'hara corporation if you want to look em up. I did a 60 day contract last year through a small local company and signed a couple of extensions. If you stay for the entire length of your contract they will pay for travel between Seattle and Dutch. If you go I suggest staying at least 90 days to make a decent amount of dough. If you want I can PM you some numbers.

Day to day can vary alot on a longliner/crabber. During cod we would be on shift 16 hrs a day but due to shitty fishing we really only worked half that. Crab was feast or famine, we went on a 2 week dryspell where it would take a few days to catch enough to make processing worthwhile. Im not sure what it will be like on a trawler, but since we will be keeping just about every species we drag up Im sure it will be alot closer to 16 hrs a day. The boat I will be on fishes until late fall, then comes back to Seattle for repairs, at which point Im crossing my fingers I can find a spot as a bait boy on a crab catcher boat for red kings.

Anyways, from what Ive been told I will be either heading and or gutting all sorts of bottom feeders. Dont want to do this shit for a career but I would like to save up at least 100,000 before I give it up.

[OldLarry]

Walter Scott - ''It's no fish ye're buying, it's men's lives''

Careful out there boys-

[crstlextrm]

^^^ no kiddin, my buddy was on the Courageous last fall, they were the first boat on the scene after the Katmai went down and ended up with 4 bodies in their blast freezer. I heard some fucked up shit went down out there when they got on the scene but I dont really want to repeat it out of respect for the families involved. I just hope my new captain is as experienced and safety conscience as my last two were.

[dk_alaskan]

should have productive days with all the bycatch, eh

[crstlextrm]

yup, shit like arrowtooth and skates we didnt even really fuck with on the longliner, but Im pretty sure we will be keeping just about everything on the trawler. The only bycatch I hated seeing thrown back was the Halibut, we had to cut 1000's of lbs of that from the line.