FH07,

During sockeye season in Bristol Bay a deckhand hears two commands: "move your ass!" and "move it faster!!" You toss the net bouy in the water on command in a fast paced strategy to cork the other boats and not get corked yourself. Then at the end of the drift, which lasts a matter of minutes, you switch on the power roller to retrieve 150 fathoms (900 ft) of gillnet onto the deck. Then while running under power to make the next set, you strip sockeye from the gillnet as fast as possible and toss them into the fish box. If you haven't got all the salmon out of the net when it's time to make the next set (there could be 200-300 sockeye), you hear the second command, quite impatiently. This is basically your life during open periods. You can eat, sleep, take a shower, take a pee during closed periods. When it's open, you fish, and only fish, almost no exceptions. You might fish 72 hours straight. As Seastrike said, it ain't for the feight of heart.

Sg