Commercial Fish

Last summer of 2007, there was a commercial fish in the Kuskokwim just out here in the river and my sister and I decided to commercial fish. I had a lot of fun sitting in the boat looking at the net and guessing the numbers of fish being caught and telling stories with each other about the past. Although it was my first year to commercial fish, I kind of knew what was to be done, but one commercial fish time, we caught about 75 fish of three different types. We had caught more fish than the other times, because we use secret stuff, which Bristol Bay fisherman use to catch as much as they can. The time went by so fast that I had wanted to fish longer, but since it was time we started heading toward the dock. I hadn't thought my sister would take the little slough that took us to Bethel and so we stopped by to the fishcamp to drop off few fishes. Oscarville  is located 5 miles southwest of Bethel and between here and Bethel lays the fishcamp that belongs to us, that is like 1/5 miles in between. After commercial fishing, my sister and I were on our way to fishcamp to drop off a few fish. When we settled the boat, I quickly grabbed three of the King Salmons and got out of the boat, went up to the land took about 30 steps to get to the spot where we place fish in. As I reached it, I lifted up the plywood with my right leg, so that I could put the fish in. Once the plywood was removed I quickly placed the three King Salmons in and took the plywood and covered the spot with the plywood. I had a good time on land for a while to walk, but when I started taking the same path that I took,  I started to smell the fish, they smelled like the secret stuff we used for catching as much as we can. Also, I had to push the boat out so that it can be in  the deepened part of the water so that the motor can work just fine. She started driving in the slough toward the Bethel Dock, and it took about 10-15 minutes cause the boat was load of fish. As soon as we got to the dock we waited for about another 10 minutes until we got to the grabber to put in fish and weigh the amount and the number of fish caught by us. My sister helped out more than me because she was pro at commercial fishing. She got paid extra because I gilled every fish that was in the boat. After the fish was all gone from the boat, we got out and let the next line continue because there was more fisherman's that was waiting on their turn. We stopped somewhere near the brown piles and climbed up the ladder to get on the road and head over to the hotdog and pop center. We grabbed two each of hotdogs and took a soda pop. We then, right away, headed back to the boat, and ate. We enjoyed the view of the other fishermans and they were amazed of how the two girls would be fishing in the river themselves, without any guy to support them. I got nervous and all when they kept saying, but my sister was so brave enough to tell them that she started commercial fishing when she was 14, that was 6 years ago. I just stood silent and listening to the conversation, and smiling. Then after all we went home and relaxed.