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More training should help as finding reliable crew for boats is difficult, according to Darren Platt, captain of the Agnes Sabine, a salmon fishing boat based in Kodiak. When Platt started running his own boat in 2010, unemployment was high and labor was easier to find, but as jobs have become more available in the lower 48, Platt has noticed fewer people making their way to Kodiak to work. That loss of labor, combined with a lack of experienced career fishers, makes fully staffing a boat a challenge. “We need to continuously bring in people from outside to come up and work,” he said. “And it’s usually college students or young folks looking for an adventure, but not career fisherman.” For Juan Zuniga, a first-year deckhand on Platt’s boat, that sense of adventure and the prospect of making good money drew him to Kodiak from his home in Florida. Platt’s been teaching Zuniga everything he knows about working on a boat. “This is a pretty far place from where I live so a very big step out of my comfort zone,” Zuniga said. “I still got a lot to learn.” Retaining deckhands is key for Platt and he says he focuses on keeping crew members as comfortable as possible so that they might return again to work the following season.
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