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“There’s nothing better in life than catching king salmon,” Joe said as we admired the rainbow-scaled salmon. We barbecued a chunk on a cedar plank, and I embarked on a path of seafood snobbery.

Besides getting wet and hypothermic, tangling lines, and getting in the way of angry captains, there were other benefits to commercial fishing. A lot of folks who normally wouldn’t have thought much of me but suffered some romantic notions about commercial fishermen gave me much more respect than I deserved. I used my “Don’t worry, I’m a commercial fisherman” trick to fool MC, who’d recently moved to Alaska, into hanging out with me. She denies it, but I think dating a commercial fisherman was on her bucket list. I got her hooked on seafood, and she hasn’t been able to shake me since. Things got a bit rough when she discovered the true extent of my fishing skills.

“I can’t wait to catch my first salmon!” she exclaimed when she visited in Elfin Cove. On a day off, I borrowed Joe and Sandy’s skiff and took her to the head end of Port Althorp. Thousands of humpies were milling and splashing in the shallows, waiting for the tide to rise so they could swim upriver and spawn. Armed with a quarter-ounce pixie, I was sure she’d have a fish the first cast. Two hours later, we were still fishless. She looked at me, quietly judging, as humpies leaped out of the water in every direction. On the way back to Elfin Cove, I pointed out whales, sea otters, a derelict cannery, glaciers, and mountains, but she seemed uninterested. Bob-o, one of the most hardcore fisherman in the Cross Sound fleet, tried to make me feel better.