Tide, Feather, Snow_ A Life in Alaska - Miranda Weiss [33]
We undid the nets from the roof of the car. Cynthia offered to stay on the beach with the kids, so John and I put the waders on over our pants and long-sleeved shirts. These waterproof overalls were heavy but supple, with shoulder straps and attached rubber boots. It was a cool summer day, and it was always colder on the beach as wind swept off the Inlet’s fifty-five-degree water to shore. I watched as John walked into the water ahead of me with his net outstretched and perpendicular to the river’s bottom. He casually greeted the man standing in the river a few feet in front of him. I carried my net to the edge of the water and then waded into the river, trying to keep the net upright in front of me. I inched it forward until it fell over, then I picked it up and started again. Shoving the circular frame of net along the sandy river bottom, I continued into the river until I was aligned with John and the handle of my net stretched toward the center of the river. Already John was adjusting how he held his net by observing the people around us. I did the same and rested the handle on my left shoulder and held it there with my hand. In the river up to my sternum, I shifted around to stand comfortably, feet spread, both hands gripping the end of the net’s handle to keep it upright. John asked the man next to him how the fishing had been earlier that morning.
“Nothing to speak of but they hit pretty good last night, ’bout ten o’clock,” the man reported. “My wife’s got a full cooler,” he said, tipping his head toward the top of the beach where, I assumed, his wife sat with the fish. They continued to talk about fishing, the timing of that day’s tides, whether the commercial boats had an opener and were allowed to extend their nets in the Inlet to intercept fish on their way to the river’s mouth.
“See all them drifters out there?” the man motioned beyond the mouth of the river toward the Inlet where nearly a dozen commercial fishing boats with large spools in their sterns lined up on the horizon. We were vultures, all of us, circling.
The cold water pressed heavily against me. It was a delicious feeling being held by the river like that. The water buoyed me up and squeezed me. It did not chuck me out. Slack high tide had filled the river’s mouth with seawater—a zealous gulp that swelled the channel far beyond its bounds and would later be spit back out.
No one was catching any fish, despite the fact that there were scores of people in the water and crowding the beach. We stood there anyway, a few feet apart from one another, holding our dip nets extending toward the middle of the river. These nets looked like giant versions of the green, foot-long nets used to scoop goldfish out of an aquarium. The dip net’s fine filament caught a fish behind its gills, or simply tangled it in the bag of net. Around me, people were using all sorts of homemade nets. A man nearby had fashioned his handle out of a bicycle handlebar. Another had used a crutch. Some homemade nets had been made with long pieces of PVC pipe, which sagged, or copper tubing, which was a little bit more rigid. Other people had extra-sturdy nets they’d welded from aluminum pipe; some had bought nets ready-made. Duct tape patched many of the nets, and a few people had attached empty, capped soda bottles to the top of the mouth