What a Bunch of Hooligans

This past Sunday, we took a family hike and then we drove to a small fishing town called Whittier. We had never been to Whittier and decided we should take a drive down there before family comes to town. Whittier is the closest place to go out on fishing charters, day cruises, and the major cruiselines. In my humble opinion, the town is rather sleepy and not very impressive, but it serves its purpose.

The thing I found most fascinating about our trip to Whittier was not the actual town, but rather, what we saw on the side of the highway on our way there. As we drove down the main highway, with the ocean just to our right hand side, we noticed a line of cars parked on the shoulder. I could not for the life of me figure out what the big draw would be. As pedestrian ran across the highway in front of our car, my eyes followed them. It didn't take long for us to realize that, just over the guardrail, people were dip net fishing.

I'm sure you could have figured it out, but in case you didn't, dip nets are big nets on the end of a long pole. At certain times of the year, in certain areas, while fishing for certain types of fish, people use dip nets instead of actual fishing poles. When you see all these guys lined up in the water with their waders on and poles in hand it all seems very surreal. It's the kind of stuff you definitely don't see in California, but would catch a glimpse of in a movie.

The whole experience definitely gave me a new appreciation for the "stupid" things some people do at times. If you were to pull over on the side of the freeway to fish in Southern California, people would think you were crazy and you'd most likely get a ticket. Here, if you don't pull over on the side of the freeway when the fishing is good, people think you're crazy. It's all a matter of perspective I suppose. I'll certainly think twice before I get mad at someone for being "stupid".

Fishing, camping and gardening are about all anyone in Alaska talks about during this time of year, so I didn't really put much thought into what these guys were fishing for. I opened up today's newpaper and there was a small write up on the front page about the hooligan running. Apparantly they fish for hooligan on Twentymile River where it empties into Turnagain Arm along the Seward Highway. Commonly called hooligan, eulachon are oily fish that were traditionally used as candles when dried and fitted with wicks. Until the 1900s, large groups of Native Alaskans gathered along rivers to dry the fish and extract their oil using simple presses. Today, they are important as a subsistence species and are frozen, dried, and smoked mostly for human consumption.

I came across a little visual of hooligan fishing for you all on YouTube. I think it's about 3 minutes long. If you don't want to watch the whole thing, I would at least suggest you watch the first 2 minutes. It's crazy how many fish they come up with in one quick scoop.