Читать книгу Never Cry Halibut. and Other Alaska Hunting and Fishing Tales онлайн

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“I hired a Jonah!” I heard Joe muttering as we tossed about, trying to snag the buoys attached to one side of our set. The fishing was slow, so the three of us got to spend a lot of time yelling, swearing, and bonding. One of my duties was to relay directions and curses between Joe, who was situated in the stern, and Sandy, who was driving in the wheelhouse. It was like the commercial fishing version of the game Telephone.

“Look,” Sandy had warned me on the first day we met, “when we’re out fishing, you’re going to hear Joe and me yell a lot of horrible things at each other. We still love each other; it just gets a little stressful at times. I’m sorry that you’ll often be the go-between for the two of us.”

I didn’t mind though. Whenever we snagged a set on the rocky sea floor, I got a chance to blow off some steam and work on my improv, adding a little extra drama and profanity to their warnings at each other.

One afternoon, after we’d finished up with their halibut quota, we decided to take the skiff out to Port Althorp and troll for a king. The sudden transition from working with hundreds of hooks to just one left me with that same drowsiness I got toward the end of my days of going fishing with my dad. I was half-asleep when Joe and Sandy started yelling, the line on the reel began zinging, and the spasmodic pole was shoved into my hands. They’d trolled these waters for nearly forty years and caught thousands of kings, but for the next five minutes, with all their whooping and hollering, I could have believed this was their first.