Commercial Salmon Trolling - Day 2

Without giving you too much boring detail on how the fish gear works, fishing leaders are snapped onto the troll wire (the part that hangs down straight into the water) about 5 fathoms apart from each other.  The depth of the wire depends on the depth of the water and trollers develop "drags" that are at certain depths.   In general, we fished with about 30 fathoms of wire spooled out.  We snapped leaders on the wire every 5 fathoms (a fathom is 6 feet just in case you didn't want to google it) for about 6 leaders per wire and 24 leaders in all (4 lines, two on each side).

When you "run the gear," a person turns the handle on the hydraulics and a wire comes up.  As the leaders show, the person unsnaps it and coils it up on the stern deck just behind the cockpit.  The cockpit is a lower area in the back of the boat so you're working the gear at waist height.

Tom has a "just legal" king salmon on the hook!! (King salmon have to be 28 inches long in order to keep them.) You can see the wire hanging down with the little blue collar.  He pulls the leader and gives the fish a smack on the head with the gaff hook to stun it.  Then he turns the gaff hook around and uses the gaff part to lift the fish onto the boat.  

Oh yeah, here it comes!

Look at that ocean - nice and calm - what a nice day for fishing.

And there's the fish safely aboard the boat.  He unhooks it by pulling the leader with the gaff hook in the crook of the hook and back goes the leader and hook into the water.

On the right of the photo are fish he caught earlier that have been "gilled" and bled.

Nice job, Tom!