For the past year I’ve been very interested in becoming a deckhand for a fishing boat. More specifically I’m interested in training for cold water crabbing in Alaska. I understand these guys are rough and mentally stable for baring sea, and I believe I ready for a task like that. I live in Fresno CA, so I understand it might be difficult to make that step, but I’m willing to save money. Before I move there, would I need any certification such as USCG documents, or can I show up at a dock and ask around who needs a hand? If anyone has some insight I would appreciate it.
I have worked in the Bering Sea and I know the Alaskan fishing business so please listen to me son…
Very simply, there is NO place up in Alaska for some 20 something green kid on a fishing vessel…especially a crabber! The skippers of those boats DO NOT want a guy like you. Any of the nonsense you have seen on Deadliest Catch is only made up for the show. Fishing in Alaska is NOTHING like what you see on that stupid effing goddamned made for cable bullshit. What you are seeing there is fucking make-believe “reality TV”! Deadliest Catch is the worst thing to have ever happened to Dutch Harbor and the REAL fishermen of the Bering (not “baring”) Sea!
The only thing you can do is like every other stupid kid without an “in” who wants to become a roughneck Alaska fisherman is to go to work for one of the seafood processing companies like Trident, Icicle, Unisea, etc… as a processor working on the “slime line” for long miserable hours at pathetically low wages but let the master or mate or deck boss know that you want to become a deckhand and if you show that you are a buttkicker out there in the plant, then they’ll see a guy who is worth moving out to the deck. Then you’ll have to do it all over again out there but now it will be in the wind and snow and numbing cold. You’ll have to do horrible jobs like offloading the crabbers by climbing down into the tanks(holds) of the boats, crouching for hours and then literally hand tossing the live crabs into a big brailer net. If you survive that for a couple of seasons, then you might to be seen by the crews of those crab boats as an asskicking deckhand and maybe…just maybe one of those guys one day would say “hey, I hear that so and so boat needs a new hand…do you want be to tell them you’re interested?” You are looking at a minimum of four long years to get there “IF” you’re lucky!
FOR GOD’S SAKE…PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE YOUR CURRENT JOB. DO NOT SPEND MONEY ON SOME “HEADHUNTER” TO GET YOU A FISHING JOB IN ALASKA. DO NOT MOVE TO ALASKA. DO NOT MOVE TO SEATTLE EVEN!
Do this…Google “Alaska Seafood Processing Company” and look at the newhire level job descriptions of each company. Then decide if you still want to chase something that is only a dream and in no way reality. If you do, then come back here and I’ll give you some pointers on how to make your track to the goal line a little easier for you, but read everything you can first so when you come back you can ask informed and not stupid pointless questions!
If I have managed to avoid you doing anything horribly stupid then I will know that I have done something truly useful here in all this time other that to be the resident malcontent always yelling at all the “goddamned kids to stay off my effing lawn…bunch of lousy punks!”
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He’s right that the show is nonsense but the industry isn’t all bad. You might get lucky and land a tender job if you spend time in Seattle (fun town)
He’s also right about shitty jobs and conditions but hell, that’s how i started. Started as a cook now i drive tugs and make a decent living. Regret it almost everyday.
Should have just gotten an engineering degree.
Go for it kid.
[QUOTE=shaq;71300]He’s right that the show is nonsense but the industry isn’t all bad. You might get lucky and land a tender job if you spend time in Seattle (fun town)
He’s also right about shitty jobs and conditions but hell, that’s how i started. Started as a cook now i drive tugs and make a decent living. Regret it almost everyday.
Should have just gotten an engineering degree.
Go for it kid.[/QUOTE]
All fine to hang out in Ballard and kick around docks then party in the bars if you have a JOB and MONEY to spend while you seek that job on a tender (which are all now up in Alaska already for the season anyway). Kid, stay in Fresno and do research first so you can make an INFORMED decision about the next course to steer in your life.
As the man said “should have just gotten an engineering degree”…go to school and learn a skill or trade or anything to make you more marketable to more that just Target. Pick something that involves working with tools like say diesel mechanics or electrical work or welding which might help segway you into a boat job while also allowing you a skill useful anywhere.
Well… It wasn’t quite the answer you were looking for was it? Look further down the list in this forum. There is a section just on the fishing industry.
When I mentioned the TV show, I was trying to be nice about its fake(ness)
To go over it again: This is a TOUGH business. The Bering Sea is unforgiving.
If you want to fish, go to the local fishing industry in warm water. But I think the days of fast bucks, and easy money are really tough to come by.
Does anyone know if MMCs and TWICs are required on fishing boats? That may be info this guy needs.
[QUOTE=cappy208;71314]Does anyone know if MMCs and TWICs are required on fishing boats? That may be info this guy needs.[/QUOTE]
Nowhere that I know of unless it is a very big factory trawler or processor and I am not sure even the deckhands/seamen need a damned thing!
You guys remember Ordinary Seaman?
He went from cruise ships to the Ocean Phoenix.
He worked one season and then swallowed the anchor.
Some portion of the deck gang on a processor has to be credentialed.
The big boys trawlers and such that tie up at pier 90/91 in Seattle I believe have to get twic cards to access the port in order to get to the boats. Most of the deck crew on the trawlers know their stuff. The processor crews well…it’s hit and miss but I think the deck crews all have mmd’s. The processor crews I would doubt most are foreign and are here on work visas.
I also was there for thirty years and you would be way better off to go to an academy and get a degree in nautical engineering and a 3 rd mates license then try it if you are still full of dreams! C captain was right on the money.
Actually OS - Anthony is his name, is sailing for one of the small coastal cruise ship outfits in the NE.
[QUOTE=mtskier;71390]Actually OS - Anthony is his name, is sailing for one of the small coastal cruise ship outfits in the NE.[/QUOTE]
He went to the PMI workboat academy program for a long while then it was mentioned on here that he changed industries, as I recall.
[QUOTE=r0h87;71296]For the past year I’ve been very interested in becoming a deckhand for a fishing boat. More specifically I’m interested in training for cold water crabbing in Alaska. I understand these guys are rough and mentally stable for baring sea, and I believe I ready for a task like that. I live in Fresno CA, so I understand it might be difficult to make that step, but I’m willing to save money. Before I move there, would I need any certification such as USCG documents, or can I show up at a dock and ask around who needs a hand? If anyone has some insight I would appreciate it.[/QUOTE]
CHANCE 'EM BRAH!
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