Herring

This morning a gentle rain glances lightly off the south windows. Steel gray clouds hang limply over Kachemak Bay. The scanty ice flows are backed up against the Spit on this end of the bay signifying a low in the gulf and a counterclockwise turn of moist laden maritime air spilling in from the East. It feels warm. The dog lies contentedly in his doghouse. I head out to Land’s End to catch a basketball game. Still January, it feels like spring may be early. Eagles fly by. The sand looks dark with flakes of coal and sea mud. Soon the floatplanes will be trailered down to the boat harbor preparing for the Herring fishery. There is plenty of room in the small boat section this time of year. That’s a good thing. The floatplane lacks both brakes and reverse gear. The better, maybe braver pilots dock their planes nose first against the dock. They will taxi out in early hours on flat water for a take off out of Coal Bay hopefully in sheltered waters and missing the wake of larger boats on their take-off run.

The Herring fishery proves a lucrative endeavor. Fortunes can still be made with a good catch and the sale of the roe to Japan. The challenge demands aircraft spotters with the moxie to circle low over the schools of fish avoiding many other aircraft doing the same thing. The split from a successful skipper encourages the gamble, a gamble with life. Secret codes and sophisticated radio equipment direct the skippers below to the biggest and closest catch. Some pilots use spotters, some fly alone. Nights are spent nose into the fishing boats in the lee of Nordyke Island in Kamishak Bay or some such place hoping the weather will hold for the opening. Such is life on the lower Cook Inlet.