Editor's Note: This was written July 4, 2001. This year is a different story with mostly fair weather and salmon striking drift nets in record numbers. But the basics remain the same. Cristy Fry's regular Seawatch column is catch as catch can, while she and her husband, David Fry, pursue their profession on their drift boat, Realist.

It's the Fourth of July. The sky is the gray that makes me think of someone's face right before they get seasick; a flush of pink behind the mountains, everywhere else greenish-black and ragged where it shows through the fog.

I'm hanging on with calm determination in the sloppy ocean, on the back deck of our 34-foot gillnetter, Realist, looking around the horizon. My horizon is close. Through rents in the cotton fog, I can see other gillnetters, running with us, orange-clad figures clinging to the rails and flying bridges, heads bowed against the pelting rain. Bright red buoys dangle over sterns, ready for the “Big Fling,” that exact moment when the clock strikes 7 a.m. — the time Fish and Game says we can start fishing. Dozens of deckhands will heave buoys over the fairleads, and the nets will begin to clatter over reels amid the roar and smoke of full-throttle diesel engines.

Our little boat rolls and slams in the confused seas. Tide rip, wind-driven ridges and boat wakes moil the water, as we all maneuver on the rip for the perfect set.

I love this moment in an early July salmon opening in Cook Inlet, anticipation driving back the cold. I can almost feel the glorious blue-backed, silver-sided salmon churning up the inlet under our hull, stealthy and sleek, survival-bent for the Kenai River in an ancient dance of life.

I see another boat jumping the gun, just a little. I holler to my husband, David, and throw the buoy as he guns the throttle, weaving around boats still waiting for their clocks to read seven. On a day like this with fog down on the deck, it's unlikely that enforcement planes will be flying; but we wait the agonizing extra half-minute, playing by the rules. When the net is halfway out, I see a splash at the corkline that's not a breaking wave.

“We've got a hit!” I shout.

David looks back quickly and grins, then just as quickly swings his focus back to his tight maneuvering. The brisk wind blows loose web around the back deck, threatening to hang up on equipment and tear salmon-freeing holes. I concentrate on keeping the net between the fairleads with my gloved hands, until the last cork thumps over the rail. I set the brake on the reel. By the time I get a chance to look up, there are splashes all up and down the net, small schools of salmon meeting their match in the nearly invisible web. I jump up and down on the heaving deck, yelling and laughing in exhilaration, trying not to get thrown overboard while pumping both fists in the air. David is just as exuberantly celebrating the catch, wedged into the skipper's chair on the pitching flying bridge.

The cell phone rings; the caller ID telling us it's one of our partners, Wes, on the Maria B. We're close together; he's only a mile up the rip. He's getting similar action, and we agree to call him when the hits slack off where we are and we'll both make a run for it, trying to stay ahead of the fish.

We spend an hour running the net to keep it aligned with the current, towing it in a semi-curve, so that the salmon will follow along the edge and swim into its belly. As we guide the net in the eight-foot seas, we can see heads and tails of gilled salmon on the surface of the water. The action slows, and we decide it's time to pick.

Pulling on our gloves with rubber sleeves that reach to our shoulders, we crank up the stereo and stand on either side of the net on the back deck. David steps on the pedal that activates the reel, and the boat responds to the drag of the net, keeping her stern to. We both keep an eye on other boats and nets to make sure we don't drift down on someone still towing on his net.

The first wad of fish comes slithering over the rail and lands with a “slosh-thud” at our feet. We begin deftly untangling them from the web, sometimes helping each other, sometimes working separately. Once the body of a fish is untangled from the net, we hold the web on either side of its gills and give a sharp shake. A strand or two of web may break and the fish falls to the deck.

Drift fishing is a learned skill. It's not genetic. When I first started salmon fishing with my dad, I learned that the faster I picked, the more money I made. I developed “web vision;” an ability to see through the mess, determine which way the fish rolled when it hit so I'd know the fastest way to untangle it. Sometimes the fastest way is with a sharp knife. However, I'm the one who spends many precious hours between openings mending the net, so that's the last resort.

We work without thinking or looking up, except to check our position, trying to swiftly clear the net and get it back in the water. Generally, we are allowed two 12-hour periods a week for about five weeks, and we need to make every stroke count. Time is truly money in this fishery.

Fish and Game uses the commercial fishermen to regulate the flow of fish into their spawning beds, announcing “emergency” openings periodically to stem the flow, so we always work with one ear tuned to the radio. (Currently, late July 2005, the fishery is almost continuously open.)

Once the last fish comes aboard and we wind the rest of the net on the reel, David leaps to the flying bridge and heads north, to run up ahead of the school of fish. I brace my feet against the heaving deck and slide the fish down into the hold, counting the sockeyes — the “money fish.” They are incredible specimens of sea life, fat and sleek, substantial in my hands. I thank them for their sacrifice and urge them into the brailer bags. With the fish in the hold, I face the stern and watch the other boats we pass, engaged in every stage of the game. Some are hauling their nets, some are towing, and some are running. I count the “wigglers” hanging off the stern of boats that are reeling their nets in; fresh hits that indicate we're close to the school.

Spray flies over the cabin and rattles on the hood of my raincoat, stinging an exposed cheek. I squeeze my eyes tight shut and turn my full face into the spray for a few seconds. Yeah. This is fun.

David is on the cell phone, talking to other boats in our group, and watching the GPS (global positioning satellite system) to compare positions. We pass a buddy boat that's getting fresh hits, find an open spot just above it and set the net again.

And so goes the holiday. While others are drinking beer at bonfires on the beaches, watching parades and eating watermelon, we're taking turns at the helm and grabbing a sandwich or Cup O' Noodles. I log the position of each set, we answer the cell phone, call and check in with our friends, and haul and set the net. We crash north, chasing the imagined fish, into the stiff northwest wind until the tide turns, and then struggle to stay off the sandbars on the south end of Kalgin Island as the tide floods. We watch the clock. I think about what is undoubtedly happening back in Homer right now. I could be at a beach party, singing sea chanteys and eating charcoaled chicken, but I wouldn't trade this day for all the beer at the Salty Dawg.

As the clock slowly ticks toward the 7 p.m. closing, the wind and sea calm considerably. We drift down the Inlet on our last set. The sun breaks through the clouds, lighting the magnificent volcanoes. Redoubt. Iliamna. Augustine. Across the shimmering water, they give back gold glow from their snow. I decide I like my office. I'm tired, having started this day around 2 a.m., but this is the break I need to fillet out the half-dozen or so prime reds I've saved out to put in the smoker before the next opening.

And, we still have to line up with the other boats at the processors' dock to deliver our fish. It will be at least midnight before we rest.

This, I decide, is the life. As the years have worn on, and my body wears out, I've given thought to what else I could do to make a living. They tell me that if I get a note from my doctor, the state of Alaska will help pay to find a new vocation. Sometimes, in the throes of sleep deprivation and exhaustion, I think there must be a better way. I think, I'm getting too old for this life. I wake up in agony and tears some nights from the carpal tunnel in my wrists and the tendonitis in my shoulders and elbows.

But being a fisherman is what I do. It's who I am. And, beyond doubt, it's what I love.

I'm sure I could make a living doing something else, but I'm having a hard time figuring out what I could do that would nourish my soul like chasing the crafty sockeye salmon from the deck of the Realist.

After we reel in the last set and point the bow for home, we share a glass of wine and a piece of smoked salmon, rub each other's tired shoulders and enjoy the warmth of the late evening sun of an Alaska Fourth of July. We dust off and give new meaning to that old cliché our parents used when they were chopping wood and hauling water, skinning moose: “I wonder what the poor people are doing today?”

Cristy Fry has commercial fished in Homer since 1978, and has also designed and built gear for the industry. She currently longlines for halibut and sablefish, and gillnets salmon in upper Cook Inlet aboard the F/V Realist.