Longline

Retrieving the end of the longline

A longline is pretty much what is sounds like.  A really, really long line, with lots of hooks on it.  Since we're fishing for sablefish, which are a groundfish (live on our near the bottom of the ocean), the line is held near the bottom with weights.  Fish bite the baited hooks, and get reeled in using a giant winch. 

Mark, baiting hoots and coiling line.

First, a set of buoys are set out on one end of the line.  They help you find your gear so you can retrieve it.  Then there's some weights (5 links of a giant chain and a big anchor, in this case) that are far enough from the buoys that the weights sit on the ocean floor and the buoys still float on the surface.  Then continuing on one long line (spliced together) are 3600 hooks, evenly spaced, hand baited with squid.  Every 45 hooks there's a 7 lbs weight to hold everything down.  On the end of the longline (3-4 miles later) there's another set of chains and anchor and another buoy. Two of these are set each day for a total of 7200 hooks.  If for some reason the line breaks you can go to the other end and start pulling it in from the other side.  Each day the deckhands bait all the hooks by hand, coiling the line as they go.  It takes hours and hours.  When this vessels fishes normally (for Pacific cod) they fish far more hooks (maybe 40,000? I can't remember exactly) and use an automatic baiter. 

Serge and Elliot, getting ready to bring in fish at the rail.

The longline is 'set' - or released from the boat - via a small hole at the back of the boat. 

This is where the line is released when being set - this is the back of the boat (factory deck) - it's also where I stood and puked when I got seasick on day 2...

When it's pulled back in (hopefully with lots of fish on it) it comes in through an opening in the side of the boat (aka the 'rail').  In really bad weather, water comes into the boat over the rail, which is about 8-10 feet over the water surface. 

Fish moving up a ladder towards the processors.

Once the fish come on board, they move up a series of ladders to the processors, who will remove the heads (by far that's the messiest job on the boat), remove the guts, and wash and prepare for freezing.  Every day the factory is scrubbed down, but it's messy work, especially on a moving boat.  This boat was very sloshy - sometimes a foot or more water on the floor, rolling with the boat in the waves.  A couple of days we had pretty heavy seas and water would roll up the walls and rain down from the ceiling, but of course it's not just seawater, but seawater filled with all the nasty bits of fish innards and severed fish heads that didn't make it into the grinder yet. 

I admit I got seasick briefly on day 2.  It was the worst weather day - 10-12 foot seas, which wasn't bad in itself, but towards the end of the day we were taking some samples from a really gross (slimy, mushy) fish species, and the boat ended up sideways to the big waves for a couple of minutes, which meant there was a lot of gross water flying about while I was wrist deep in mushy fish.  I calmly walked (or stumbled, really) to the back of the boat, puked up all my lunch, then felt much better for the rest of the trip.  And the best part about puking while wearing foul weather gear (ie head to tow rubber) is that you can just hose yourself off if you get any on you!