A Fish Tale — Charlie Ebbers

A Fish Tale

Chartered fishing in Alaska's Prince William Sound.

“Do I throw up in a bag or on the deck?” Brian asked the captain. Another fisherman responded, “we’ll look for a bag.” I pushed open the cabin door and cleared out of Brian's way.

I’d heard those words before. My sister had mentioned throwing up only once when we were on the interstate in Los Angeles as kids, she said it quietly, and just once. She blew within seconds. Brian didn't last much longer.

The steel ceiling was low and there were sharp corners and metal hooks all about. I grabbed onto a cabin handle and watched Brian explode into the wind and the water. He clutched the cabin door and hurled. The winds dissipated the mix and the waves crashed over the top of the cabin. His face was drenched from the ocean spray. The boat didn’t slow, the four foot waves seemed to gain more pitch and I held on and called into the cabin for paper towels for Brian. He was pale and blank face, I was soaked in cold salt water. This was ocean fishing. We boarded the little boat at 5:45 in the morning in Valdez, shot out across Prince William Sound for two hours out into open water, and so far, at 11AM, had no hint of a fish. All we had were wet clothes and seasickness. It was my first time deep-sea fishing, my first time paying a guide but not the first time I rethought my decision-making skills. What had $330 bought?

Valdez, Alaska is small port town with both wealthy looking homes and trailer parks. Some people live in converted Conex boxes, some in small palatial grandeur. The wood buildings and the steel buildings are equally weathered by the salt spray and coastal rains. The clouds hang low in the valley and over the water and everything looks soaked. When the clouds clear out the town and the surrounding area glow. From downtown I counted ten glaciers looking just to the northeast. The mountain peaks are sharp and steep with their bases covered in spruce and cottonwood timber, a skirt of opal marbled with golden yellows.

There’s three ways to get there. You can drive through a canyon full of waterfalls and moss that at times gets avalanched shut. You can fly in over the peaks on bush planes or learjets, or you can catch a ride on a ferry or an oil tanker. Across the bay from town is the terminus of the trans-Alaska pipeline. Tankers pull in to fill up on oil from Alaska’s north slope. It's the end of Alaska's economic lifeline. In 1989, the infamous Exxon Valdez nailed the Bligh Reef spilling 10.8 million gallons into the waters of the Sound.

Maybe that’s why we weren’t catching any fish. Sure, we had seen whales spouting off that only Melville could identify, and there had been orcas following the last big tanker going to port, but there were no fish. Mountains sure. But no bites.

After an hour at our first stop, another fisherman, a retired Texan prison guard with a tightly-shaved mustache, started his comic relief routine and told me tales of his time with the Navy. The other two Alaskan fellas didn’t talk much and the captain swore at the fish to draw them forth. His first mate looked the part sitting in the cabin, but he kept his hands in his pockets unless he was eating tangerines. My stomach turned over while we were anchored and one burp came a little too close.

We pulled anchor and left – heading straight east into three and four foot waves. Water poured over the top, the wind swirled and that’s when Brian decided he had no choice but to chum the waters. Afterwards, he blamed it on the chocolate milk and cheap instant coffee I had given him. The whites of his eyes were bloody and his pupils flitted around like a moth searching for light. He hurled. I grabbed the scruff of his sweatshirt to keep him aboard. Thankfully, the ocean waves washed the Folgers and Darigold mixture to sea, but we were close to swimming too.

The captain hammered the gas pedal towards the second spot. After the paper towels came out I looked inside to see him taking a video of the heavy waters to show his friends and the girl who cleans the boat. The Texan wasn’t pleased with the scene and made his stance about cellphone driving known to all the millennials in ear shot.

When we got there I ate a sandwich and watched Brian's skin turn colors while he did jumping jacks and playing the air guitar, an attempt to gain back his equilibrium. It didn't work. He wretched while everyone else fished.

Then we got our first bite. The quieter of the two Alaskans set a hook in a halibut about 180 feet down. When the boat bobbed up he held the line taught, when the boat dropped down he reeled. What rose to the surface was an ugly looking fish, not particularly aerodynamic or beautiful. It was what we were after though, halibut. The guide pulled the fish aboard. It looked to be about 30 pounds and just as quick he threw it back.

“Eh, it was too small,” the quiet Alaskan said, “I’ll wait.” I sunk my line down there hoping to catch that fish. ‘Too small?’ I thought, ‘yeah right.’ The next thing I hear is the Texan is lecturing the Alaskan about letting one go, “you just never know if you’ll get another.”

The Texan caught his next. He didn’t take the rod out of the steel holder or wait to see the size, he knew he wanted that fish before he got a good look at it. He had his story. One fish down, and the guide relaxed. Everyone went back to their rods and watched for bites. Time passed, waves rocked the boat, and we all pulled up fish.

Then quietly, nonchalantly Brian was in a fight with a fish. I didn't see him drop his line. His rod was bent in half and he stared down at the water and reeled. The guide tried to coach him, but the fish's struggle was all absorbing. Brian stared into the depths and reeled, he wasn't using the boat's up and down, he just reeled. When the fish hit the surface it threw out it's best struggle. It was too late, the guide gaffed the monster and brought it in. Green-faced, Brian had made the catch of the day, he landed a 75-80 pound halibut. All the other men congratulated him and quietly went back to their rods to try and match him. None succeeded.