Romance on the Edge 01 - Hooked

the Hartes and many others.
    Now she was stirring the waters by throwing her net in with the drifters. She’d always wanted to fish with the big boys. That’s where the real money was. Drifters literally drifted, they could drop their net wherever they wanted to fish—within the rules and regulations of the Fish and Game—while set netters set a thousand feet of net anchored from the beach and had to wait for the fish to swim to them.
    There was an unspoken code that drifters and set netters didn’t fraternize, much like a feud between opposing families. They each resented the other for taking any part of catch they deemed as theirs, due in part to each party believing the Fish and Game tipped the scales in the others’ favor. It was a cutthroat way of life. You picked your team, stood on one side of the line, and never crossed it.
    At least, no one had until now.
    Gramps waded out into the surf, boarded the skiff, and Sonya jumped into the bow after untying the line and giving the boat a hard push from shore. Gramps yanked the outboard engine’s dinosaur pull cord. It coughed, sputtered, and died.
    “Don’t tell me this engine’s giving us trouble again. I thought I fixed it last year.” He gave the pull cord another yank. It spit and caught, black smoke bubbling out the back of the engine. “Now that’s more like it.” He smiled.
    Sonya had told him they needed to buy another outboard engine two years ago, one with an electric start. Gramps had disagreed, figuring he could jerry-rig a little more life out of it. Someone was going to get stranded.
    Gramps powered up the skiff and skimmed the short distance toward the anchored drift boat Sonya had purchased months ago and had shipped from Seattle to South Naknek on a barge.
    “She’s a mite different than any other drift boat I’ve seen,” Gramps said, giving the whiskers on his chin a rub. “Sure sits high on the water.”
    “She’s a flat bottom jet boat, which will give us better mobility, quicker turns, and more speed than the traditional gill netter. She’s able to maneuver in shallow waters where the fish like to hang out.” Sonya felt her nerves dart around like salmon fry as she waited for his reaction. More than anything, she wanted Gramps to be proud of her.
    His bushy brows rose. “So we’ll have an upper hand on the other drifters. I like that.”
    “With a jet engine, versus the propeller that most of the other drifters have, there isn’t a prop for the net to get tangled on.”
    “She’s wider than I expected.”
    Sonya tied the skiff to the painter’s line attached to the stern of the drift boat. “She’s thirty-two foot long, fourteen-feet-wide aluminum bow-picker.” They took turns climbing up the ladder, leaving the skiff to drift behind.
    Gramps didn’t say anything as he made his way to the bow. He glanced around and Sonya started talking fast, explaining the benefits of the flat bottom bow-picker verses the other boats that seasoned fishermen had been using in the bay for decades.
    “There are sixteen holds, each able to carry a thousand pounds of salmon with extra space on deck for more.” She gestured to the rollers standing tall at the bow and stern. “The hydraulics will pull the nets over the front rollers rather than the stern like everyone else’s.”
    “What’s this pole doing hanging across the middle?”
    “Well, I had this idea. Having a pole there would help hold up the net in the middle so it doesn’t drag on the deck, making picking fish easier without bending over.”
    “Working smart, not hard. I won’t need to see a chiropractor when the season’s over.” He moved to the starboard side and rested his arm on the rail. “The sides are tall. It’ll take some effort to fall overboard.” He turned and noticed the name of the boat painted on the reel under the pilot house. “You’re calling her the Double Dippin ?”
    “That’s what we’re doing. Set netting and drifting.”
    “Yeah, but couldn’t you have been a little more subtle?”
    She met his gaze. “Have you ever known me to be subtle?”
    “You realize the drifters aren’t going to welcome you with open arms.”
    She barked out a laugh. “They’re going to flat out hate me. Especially when I take most of the catch.”
    His eyes twinkled. “I like the way you think. Show me the pilot house.”
    Gramps followed her up the narrow steps. Windows framed all four sides, including the door.
    “No blind spots,” he said.