Arseny’s Page

My story is about going fishing all by myself for the very first time. Before fishing I did all kinds of things go hang out and worked on the boat. The morning before fishing I got ice and drove to the fishing grounds. When the fishing opened how much i caught on the first and second sets. My story is a non fiction which means it did actually happen in real life, the people in the story are also real. I think people who never went fishing all alone should read it because then they will find that fishing for the first time by yourself is not scary but actually fun. 

Last Chance

After fishing through almost the whole season in Cordova my dad told me.

“Arseny, I have decided to go home for a while and let you fish on your own.”

“Why do you want to go home?” I asked him.

“The season is a long one. I am really tired and I just want to relax for a couple weeks,” answered my dad.

“So when are you leaving?”

“I was hoping to go tomorrow,” he told me, “Unless you want me to stay for a few days?”

“No, no it’s all cool,” I said, “You can go I can take care of things.”

My dad packed up his clothes and among other things by evening and was all ready to go. All he had to do is wait till tomorrow. We ate dinner and we both went to sleep.

“Arseny, wake up!”

“What?” I asked Dad “What’s going on?”

“I need you to take me to the ferry terminal,” said my dad.

“Do you want to go yourself, and I can just pick up the truck later?” I suggested to him.

“No I think it is better if you just dropped me off. Now, let’s go!”

“Ok, ok let’s go,” I answered as I was climbing out of my top bunk. I put on my clothes and then on my jacket and we walked off the boat on to the dock and started to walk to our truck. It’s a long walk because we park almost at the end and my dad had a lot of stuff. We jumped into  the truck and off we went. The drive was quick. Cordova isn’t very big; it is just a town on a side of a mountain. At the ferry terminal before dad got out I gave him a hug and said good bye. He took his stuff and went to the terminal to buy his ferry ticket. I turned the truck around and drove out of there fast. If there had been any cops I would’ve got a big fat speeding ticket. I quickly returned to my boat, climbed back into my bed, and fell asleep.

“Arseny! Wake up! Where’s Dad? I need to talk to him,” my brother Walter woke me up.

“Dad went home,” I told him.

“Why?”

“I guess he’s pretty tired from all the fishing,” I answered him.

“Ok. So you’re taking over the boat?” asked my brother.

“Yeah, I guess I am,” I smiled.

“Alright, cool. Anyway I need your help with something. Want to help out?” He said.

“Sure, why not,” I told him.

I went outside. This time it was very sunny. I jumped on to the dock and ran to my brothers’ boat. He wanted help with the net. We took the net of the reel and spread it on the dock. He needed to mend the net before the opener the next day. People who passed by looked at me weird because I was just smiling. I was excited to fish on my own the next day.

“What’s going on?” asked my brother.

“Nothing, just sort of happy, I guess,” I said.

We started pulling the net from the reel on the boat. It took us like five minutes to do it all and after we finished my brother started to mend it and I took off to back to my boat. There I did a double check on the engines to make sure they are running smooth, the power roller and the reel. Everything looked like it was ready to go. I also needed to do something else. I needed groceries. I went to a store bought all kinds of food. As I was walking down the dock a couple of my friends call out to me.

“Hey Arson, you busy?” asked one of my friends.

“No, just have to take this stuff to my boat,” I said turning myself to face them. “You want to help me? it’s kind of heavy.”

“Yeah give me a bag,” one of them said.

“Thanks man,” I told him, “So what are you guys doing? I thought you guys were working on stuff?”

“We were, but we finished early, and want to go to Bidarki to play some ball, you in?” the buddy who was holding one of the bags asked me.

“Sure why not,” I replied.

After we dropped of my groceries we went straight to Bidarki. It’s a place with saunas, workout room and a basketball court. We played basketball for a couple hours, lifted weights, and then took a sauna. After Bidarki, I decided to go to the boat and sleep. I wanted to wake up at five a.m. and have time to get to the fishing grounds.

“Hey later guys,” I told them, “I need some sleep before the opener. So I am going to crash,” I made myself dinner and then also ate some junk food. I climbed into bed and turned on my TV; I watched a couple episodes before falling asleep.

The night zoomed by. Before I knew it the alarm clock was ringing right next to my ear, which kind of hurt. I jumped out of bed and looked at the time. It was 5:05 A.M. I put on my clothes and started the engines; I left them on so they could warm up. I went outside, and untied the boat, and started driving toward the Ocean Beauty cannery. I went there because I needed ice. I drove up and there was already two boats getting ice in front of me, so I waited. Three minutes later the boat drove off and I drove up, tie the boat up and started filling my fish hold with ice. After I got enough ice, I untied the boat and drove off the dock. As I was driving off my brother Walter drove up to me.

“Hey, where are you going to fish today?” he asked me.

“Probably between Strawberry channel and Hook Point.” I told him.

“Yeah cool me too. He replied back.

“Alright I guess I will see you out there.” I said, but I don’t think he heard me because he topped his engines almost full bore and the boat took off very fast. After a minute I too decided to go fast and made the engines run on 36 rpms. I took off cruising at 31 to 32 knots. After maybe like five or six minutes, I caught up to my brother and passed him, all around me there were a lot of boats; everyone was cruising to the fishing grounds. I had to go side to side when I was passing so I don’t hit any of the boats.

The boat going that fast is easy to control but its hard when it drives on to another boats wave and just dives in, but it is still very fun. Half-hour later, I was driving out of the Strawberry Channel and headed toward the Hook Point. The waves were huge in the channel that I had to slow down and drive slowly though. They are big there because it is very shallow like maybe ranging from one foot to 15. After the channel, the waves got smaller and so I started going fast again. I drove until I was between the Channel and Hook Point. After that I slowed down, and drove slowly towards shore until I was 150 to 200 yards from land. I stopped, looked at my watch. It was only ten minutes left till seven which is when I could set out the net. Then out of nowhere I heard someone on the private radio.

“Last Chance, Last Chance,” someone was trying to get a hold of me.

“Last Chance back to the call,” I radioed back.

“Yo, this is Shock Wave. Where you at?” he asked me.

“Between Strawberry and Hook Point,” I replied.

“Is there a lot of boats out there?” Dennis from Shock Wave asked.

I looked around and counted like 20 to 30 boats, “Yeah sure are and they are almost all Russian, there only three boats that are American,” I said surprisingly

“Wow that’s a lot, any jumpers though?” he exclaimed

“Yeah I seen a couple, anyhow I can’t talk now, got to get ready to set the net,” I replied. I went outside, got the net ready to be thrown out and turned the bow picker facing the shore. Just as it turned, I threw one end of the net, put the gear in reverse, and pushed on the gas and the net started rolling off the reel and into the water. Couple minutes later, the whole net was in the water. I stopped the boat and threw a buoy into the water and decided to drive by the net to see if any fish were caught. By the time I got to the other side I counted around twenty to thirty silvers, which was great for the start of silver season. I drove back to the other side and tied the line to the boat, then turned off the engines. Jet boats can’t stay in one spot because they don’t have neutral. I walked inside, sat on my captain seat, turned on the DVD player, and took out some junk food to eat.

After an hour and half, the movie ended. I turned it off and decided to go and take out the net to see if there were any fish. I went outside got in the rain gear, started one engine, turned on the hydraulics and started to take the net in. The fish started pouring in. I finished taking the net in and then put it out again. I threw the fish in to the bag in the fish hold with ice. I counted 135 silvers and it was a full bag, which meant that it was 1000 pounds or more. The second set, I also stayed for an hour and half. That set I took out 100 silvers and threw them into another bag with a lot of ice on the fish so it will be cold. After I finished I walked inside the cabin, took my seat and started watching the net.

“Last Chance, you here?” Dennis from Shock Wave radioed in.

“Yes I’m here,” I replied, “What’s up?”

“Catching any fish?” he asked.

“A little here and there,” I told him.

“Ye like how much?”

“Well the first set I had was 130……..

“WHAT!!!!!!!!!!” he yelled through the radio before I could finish. “How did you catch so much? I only got 30 my first set.”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “The fish was just catching I guess.”

“Are you using silver net?”

“No, still using the red one,” I stated, after that I didn’t hear from him till the end of the opener.

The fishing went on for another eight hours; it was pretty much the same: taking out the net, setting the net back out, throwing the fish with ice into a bag. Some sets had little fish like 15 to 25 and some sets had 60 to 80. As the opener was near closing, I had five bags full and like 10 silvers in the sixth one. I waited until it was 30 minutes before seven in the evening to go take out my last set. The last set was a good one; 50 silvers. I threw in the fish and the last of the ice in the bag. Took off my rain gear and walked inside the cabin. I could see boats driving toward the channel already. I went to a cabinet, took out a bag of Oreos, jumped on the seat and started the other engine. I pushed the gas handles up to the cruising speed and left them like that. The boat went on step and we were cruising through the water toward the channel. After 15 minutes I was inside the channel and the boat started going faster because of the tide.

In the channel it took me 30 minutes to drive up to the harbor. Right next to the harbor are the canneries, I drove up to Ocean Beauty and there were already a lot of boats in line to deliver. I drove up to my Brother Walter and tied up to him. We waited for a couple hours before it was our turn, then drove up to the cannery and delivered. The workers took out my six bags out of my fish hold and weigh them; it was 6,034 pounds all together. I got my fishing ticket and drove into the harbor; it was getting a little bit dark when I tied up and cleaned the fish hold. People passing by stopped and asked how much I caught. I told them a little, I didn’t want to brag. It got dark and I was tired so I decided to go to sleep.

The next morning I went to pick up my check for the opener. I walked in to the office of Ocean Beauty and asked for a check in my name and when I got it I couldn’t believe how much money I got for one opener. It was $12,068.65 dollars. I started jumping up and down and everyone around me thought I was some crazy person. I went straight to the bank and deposited it into my account. I was so happy that on that same day I took all my friends out to dinner and we celebrated my first successful opener.