A celebration of life was held this past weekend for Billy P alleson. I fished for Herring, Halibut and Salmon with Billy P on his old boat the Sea Ranger. I also fished for Halibut and Salmon with his father Harold who owned the Ocean Sunset. Billy will always be remembered as a great fisherman and for his larger than life character. He had a million one liners that have stuck in my mind to this day and was always up for a practical joke to break the tension during long nights at sea. I have so many stories and memories of my time with Bill but one that sticks in my mind more than any other was the first opening for Halibut after the Individual Quota System started. I had fished Halibut during the shot gun openings with Harold P alleson on the Ocean Sunset and Barry McGregor on the Manitou III. Along with Billy P on the Sea Ranger and Sammy on the La Porsche we scrambled for the hot lines on Soaker City. At that time the City was a secret spot and I remember sneaking off from Hardy in the middle of the night to get out there unnoticed. Once the opening gun went off and the gear was flying off the back of the boat she was full on till they shut her down. We all rocked the clock on those openings. My first 8 day trip after we started hauling we were all up for 48hrs straight and then rotated 4hrs each of bunk time every 24 for the rest of the opening. With the amount of fish we caught you didnt know whether to shit or go blind after a couple days. Bills crew was Cokes and Smokes 24/7and were lucky to have one cooked meal each day. The Sea Ranger only held about 20,000 lbs so Bill would unload to Harlod on the grounds who could pack over 50,000 lbs. Harold started off as a cook fishing Halibut in the Bearing Sea and so we always enjoyed 3 square meals on the Ocean Sunset. Anyway suffice to say when the time of IVQs came we were all looking forward to a more laid back gentlemen type Halibut fishery. This is what Billy P had been promoting to me and the other deckhand, Derek Hanson ,when we rigged the Sea Ranger for that first opening. We wont need 5 guys on deck anymore, we can just haul our 3 skate strings a day and be farting in silk. Heavy Lettuce boys!. We left from Hardy the night before it opened. I think it was early March or late February but it was definately shitty weather. We baited up on the way out , bucking a 30kt Westerly. By the time we got there the wind was switching to SE gales. As daylight broke Bill comes out the back door to hand me a smoke and gleefully announcesWe got it all to ourselves! No shit Bill who else would be crazy enough to be out on the City in a 40 foot boat this time of year. We unloaded the drum and started hauling. 36 hrs later we were plugged. Then we got shit kicked all the way back to Hardy. Then we were told to run for the big price in Vancouver so continued the shit kicking all night down Johnstone Strait. The SE gale turned to Storm force in the Gulf and we took a queer one off the bottom of Sabine Channel that broke all the welds on the baiting claim. We lashed it down and limped into Steveston to sell the first load of Halibut of the relaxing quota system. RIP Billy P. Forever in our memories.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 15:00:45 +0000
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