In every fishery, across all gear types and target species, there is a shared moment of truth. You’ve placed your bet – selected the spot, set your gear, waited – and now watch with anxious eyes as the line ascends. What will emerge? Experienced trollers can tell by...
I keep a framed photo on my desk. Three fishermen crouched on deck, wearing orange Grundens and matching end-of-a-long-day grins. Team ’77: friends born a few months apart, working on a salmon troller that shared our birth year. This picture is proof of the enduring...
Yesterday I received a letter from a friend. Dear Tele, she wrote. Many times I think of you and Joel out on the seas all by yourselves. What a contrast it must be to come back to land, people and cities. I wonder if you have caught lots and lots of fish. I wonder if...
June, 1981. Southcentral Alaska’s round-the-clock summer rays nurture life beyond: 1000 pound pumpkins, 100 pound cabbage, perpetually pants-less three-year olds. That afternoon was no exception. Clad in a T-shirt, underpants, and socks, I squatted amongst the...
