We headed east...

Hello.

In my last blast I defined the boundiries of the Bairdi fishery and I'm glad to report we headed east! When we left Dutch with a light load of 80 pots, our heading was northeast enroute to Amak Island, 135 miles from town. This small uninhabited island lies about 20 miles offshore north of the Alaska Pennisula and is home to some of the most fertile Bairdi grounds in the entire state.

The crew was able to get a day off being that it was Friday. Few, if any, boats will leave town on a Friday because most fishermen believe it's bad luck to set sail on that day, and going into this trip I wasn't about to push that!

The Bairdi crab is without doubt the slipperyist crab we target and notorious for it's ability to baffle skippers. They tend to hide in pockets rather than lie in large schools over several miles like King crab or Opilio would. In those fisheries a 30 pot string covering 5 miles would more than likely yeild the same or similar score in the whole string. With Bairdi a 15 pot string would more than likely read something like this.. 10,15,20,40,70,85,100,100,75,65,40,25,15,15. kinda scary because one could just as easily land on a 10 and miss the 100 altogether. (bear in mind that is over two miles of ground) With those numbers in mind and the fact we set out to catch 50,000+ crab (150,000 pounds total) it appears we could have our work cut out for us.

First things first, we'll set the 80 and steam another 100 miles northeast to round up 135 pots that were stored at the end of king crab. We are eager to get going as the holidays are looming. Capt. Monte "mouse"