During the summer of '95, Leslie Hunter, Walter and I commercial fished for Kings near Cunningham Mountain, which is called Qengaq in Yupik.

Before summer we got prepared for fishing so that when the kings arrived we would be ready for a good season. And although the prices were fairly low, we did pretty good on the amount of fish we caught.

Our first couple of drifts were fun because we were catching a lot of fish. As we continued to drift, the amount of fish began slacking off. But we kept going because we knew that we wouldn't be making any profit if our net was out of the water.

After several times drifting it got pretty boring because we weren't catching as much fish as we were at the start of the opening. But once when we were pulling in the net we caught another big run. And that made the end of the period much more fun. Parts of the net were underwater because there were still a few fish in it. I was taking care of the lead line because it is much heavier and that's where most of the fish get caught.

As I was pulling in the net it got real heavy and I was having a hard time pulling it in. I thought that we'd caught a snag or something. But when the "something" came up it was a huge King salmon. The head was so big that the 4 1/2 in. net mesh got stuck around its gills. Only half of its body was in the boat, and since I didn't want to lose it, I gaffed the huge fish and threw it in the boat.

After I was done untangling the net I threw the fish in the tote. It was really enormous and measured a foot and a 1/4 wide. It stood about five feet tall when I lifted it off the floor. And it weighed approximately 70 pounds. We were really freaking out because that was the biggest King salmon we ever saw!

By: Jack George