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

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“When I was a kid, I hooked several that were about that size, maybe even bigger, but they all got away,” I said, one-upping him.

I got a job longlining for halibut in Cross Sound with Joe and Sandy Craig on the Njord the following spring. The halibut I’d caught the previous summer had tripled in weight and multiplied in quantity. On our first day of pulling sets, I was eager to show off my knowledge and skills.

“Halibut!” I cried in the early gray morning as we bobbed in rough seas. Excited, we all grabbed our gaffs and waited as Joe hauled up the longline with hydraulics.

“Gray cod,” he said.

“Halibut!” I cried a few minutes later.

“Rougheye,” Joe corrected.

“Halibut!”

“Err…starfish,” Sandy said and gave Joe a worried look. When the first halibut came to the surface, I frantically whisked the water with my gaff until you could barely see the fish in all the foam. Joe gaffed it in the head, yanked it over the stern, then dispatched it with a perfectly aimed blow from a lead pipe. I had no money, and they didn’t want to pay for a floatplane to take me back to Juneau, so they were stuck with me.