Anyone who has been down the Seward Highway lately will tell you that the hooligan crowd is back. You'll see many slovenly clad fisherman bearing buckets off the highway, seeking the hooligans that run this time of year, small herring-like fish resembling smelt. In Anchorage, dipnetting for hooligans in the rivers starts in May and serves to whet the fisherman's appetite for the real fish yet to come.
Hooligan fishing requires a much smaller dipnet (with maybe a two-foot diameter) a pair of waders, some patience, and a love for oily fish. In a town where everyone can get fresh wild Alaskan salmon without much trouble, the hooligans lie pretty low in the hierarchy of fish. Most people will scrunch up their noses at the sound of "hooligans" and snootily say, "Aren't they really oily?" But if you press these skeptics further, they will admit that they've never fished for them or eaten them. For the hooligan, its reputation precedes itself. As someone who has fished for them and eaten them, I'll say this. They are oily, which translates into being soft-fleshed. For this reason, I am not a big fan of the hooligan. They also do not have a very characteristic flavor. Nonetheless, Hooligan dipnetting is popular among the Alaska Natives here as well as non-white immigrant population. In fact, dipnetting for hooligans is one of the few activities in Alaska in which a Chinese person doesn't feel like a minority. I've met Indians, Filipinos, Koreans, South Americans -- all kinds of people harvesting buckets of hooligans.
For me, the appeal of hooligan dipnetting is the thrill of getting multiple fish in one dip. Try this with salmon and you'll be floating down a river to your demise. When the river is hot with hooligans, it is not unheard of to have six or even seven hooligans squirming in your net at once. At the end of the day, you can sling your net over your shoulder with a sizeable bounty of miniature fish and feel like a real bad-ass fisherman of tiny tiny fish. Hooligan dipnetting is also a great activity for couples. It is customary to have a hooligan "wife" or "bitch" depending on your relationship with your partner. One person stands in the river dipnetting, and when the net catches something, he throws the fish to said hooligan "wife" or "bitch" who stores it in a cooler or bucket of cold water. Without the hooligan wife/bitch, the fisherman would have to wade out of the river every time just to deposit a single fish, so he/she/whatever is really instrumental to the process. Behind every good hooligan fisherman is literally a hooligan wife or bitch. There's nothing sadder than fishing for hooligan by yourself.
Before you run off the side of the highway with your hooligan net, a couple of warnings about hooligan dipnetting. First, it's reserved only for residents, so tourists have no choice but to stop on the highway and gawk. Second, the river can be cold - wear socks, maybe long underwear under your waders and certainly gloves. Third, the fish are frisky. It is not uncommon for the hooligans to give one last reproductive spray as you try to drop them into the bucket. So don't take it personally.
The best thing about warming up with hooligans is that it means the salmon will be coming soon.
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