did you talk to Eric_D yet? he would be the person to talk to for contacts. and thats a maybe. its kinda hard to get on a boat without knowing somone, but theres a chance. im just a 17 year old junior in high school, and no one in my family does it other than me.
if you do it, it will be a lot more interesting than sitting in an office. as for pay, you asked me about that. it depends on the captain, my captain started me off my first year at 10 percent gross, and every year i come back i get a 1 percent gross increase. so this year ill make 13 percent of the gross income. but you never know for sure how much you are gonna make, last year the prices were good, i worked 5 (started the end of june, through the first opening in august, missed one opening at the beginning, beginnings are slow anyways, because i went to Momentum, and it was slow enough the other deckhand just covered) openings (they were all between 2-4 days long) and made $8400. the openings down where i fish, usually start at noon on sundays, and go till noon on thursdays. but like i said you never know, last year most of them were only two days because it was the worst sockeye year since 1975, and they wanted to make sure enough of them made it through. a lot of captains in this area fish in a area called boat harbor inbetween openings, and usually dont catch a ton of fish in that area inbetween openings, my captain is old and rich, and dosent do that, he is also one of the best captains, which is why ive made so much money. gillnetting around here is done wiht small boats, like 32-42 feet usually, and it can be a shit ton of work, or really laid back, you never know. you need to also understand that there are a few captains (like mine) that dont anchor hardly ever, and fish through ever night. its not too bad when you not getting a ton of fish, and you can sleep and hour hear, or two there... but i once in a while you will have sets from hell at night, and those are the worse. my first year we sunk our net (your fucked if that happens, makes such a mess of fish and takes forever to get um all out) wiht fish, started picking at 12ish pm, finished getting those 14,000 pounds of fish out of that net by like 9am, fucking sucked, that whole time we were working our asses off, trying to get it in before we went over the line and were in a situation where we could get a huge fine. you also need to understand there is no sick leave or anythign like that. they other kid whose been the other deckhand wiht me for the last 3 years has to go to military school this year, and one of my friends is taking is place, otherwise you could have worked wiht me possibly. but my boss has sons who also fish, they are both REALLY good fishermen, pm me your name, age, and phone number and i think they might need a deckhand, ill find out for sure and give them your info. if you talk to them dont tell them i told you how much i made.
gillnetting down here is a lot different than up in bristol i know, steezemiester can tell you better than me about up there, but down here we use 200 fathom nets, that are around 25-30 ish feet deep, and probably 80 percent of our money comes from the chum, where its mostly sockeye up in bristol i think. its less combat down here from what ive heard. and i think they use a lot smaller nets.
i dont know what else to tell you about gillnetting, but i have longlined before, once... and they tured out really shitty for me, but there is a lot of money to be made longlining. i made one trip last march, and they boat ended up sinking, fuckin sucked, scared the shit out of me, and my mom wont sign any more longlining crew agreements, other wise i would be making some big bucks this spring. i made a 1000 bucks because it was my first trip(i lost my $200 camera, $80boots, and $150 dollar rain gear, didnt make shit considering what i went through), and after that trip ill make 10 percent in the future (which is a lot more), if you can get on a longliner youll be making bank, even tho they are cutting back on the ammont of IFQs to like 80 percent. im graduating a semester early next year, so next april and may ill be making bank doing this (ill be 18). dont let my story give you second thoughts if you can get a job on a longliner, because it was a really rare thing.
good luck getting on a boat, i peronaly couldnt have some minium wage job (unless i couldnt fish) becaue i would be bored and not making shit, and im kinda spoiled from the money ive been making since such a young age haha. you might enjoy it, or hate it, youll never know unless you try.
one more thing, no one knows what the prices are gonna be down here for chum this summer, but i told you how much i made and my captain dosent fish that long, there were 28 million dogs caught in southeast last year, they are prediction like 54million this year... you never know for sure but still
