Is it normal for your crewshare to be delayed?

Hey everyone. Im going to Bristol bay for the first time. The contract mentions that I will get half of my crewshare when the season ends and the rest can be held off till November. Is this normal? Just don’t wanna get scammed lol.

Half seems a bit high, but processors will typically issue a price/lb for the fish towards the end of the season end and owner/captain will pay you your % of catch, and then send another check in the fall when they release product at a higher price. Good luck! Price has been fantastic the last few years! Hope it keeps. Skipping out this year due to my wedding. Should be an interesting season.

That’s somewhat normal. If you do a good job it’s typical to get a ‘draw’, a varying percentage of the rest until the final settlement.

Stop worrying about getting ‘scammed’. It happens to greenhorns sometimes but there’s not really a good way to avoid it. If you do a good job another, better boat will want to hire you that doesn’t scam their crew. If you get shorted you’re unlikely to have effective legal recourse. Just focus on doing a good job and being someone they want back.

That would be good advise no matter what line of work you are in.

What exactly is a “share”. If the contract states a share of “4”, what does that mean? Is it 4%? 4 out of 1000 shares? I was offered a job and am trying to figure out what that means. There is no day rate or hourly rate for the job I was offered.

Share is a percentage. Some boats go by percentages and some go by ‘shares’. Same principle. Boats that go by shares do so because if there are added crew or other crews percentage is adjusted some people’s percentage goes down and they get butthurt over that. If they’re getting the same amount of ‘shares’ there’s less whining even though it amounts to the same thing.

4 percent of a boat gross income. So if the boat makes 200K, you get 8000

Google is your friend. fishing boat shares crew pay - Google Search

That’s not true. What a ‘share’ is depends on local fishery customs and the vagaries of the office if working for a large company.
By your definition I made 48% of the boats gross at my last job that paid by shares.