The First Day of Fishing By Roy Shangin

Grandpa Andy's boat the Sharon Dawn

            The first day of the 2011 Fishing Season was crazy because no one was ready and I wasn’t here at the Bay. We had a seven to eight hour boat ride from Perryville to Chignik. The time was three in the morning when I got to the Bay. After getting our net and block on board, my Grandpa Andy set off to start the opener at the sandbar for the first haul of the season.

            What I can remember of that morning is boats. Some were by us and some were at the upper bar. All the captains, skiffmen, and deckhands were waiting for the flair to go in the air. As soon as the flair was in the air, the boats and skiffs were all you could hear, with black in the air. The sound was loud and the jumpers were flying in and out of the water.

going really slow, boat full of reds!

In not even an hour we closed the net and began pulling it up on deck. I could see the fish swimming around, going crazy with their fins out of the water. I thought it was a small bag of fish until the fins from the fish came out of the water. The bag of fish was too big to bring on board so the deckhands and captain had to use a big net called a brailer (a special tote to bring big bags of fish on board). After the first haul of fish we put in my Grandpa Andy’s fishing boat, the fish-hole was half full.

Sunset leaving Perryville

I guess everyone had a very good day of fishing as well. By the end of the day I felt like my body was going to crash…and that was only the first day of the 2011 season.