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187 Sea-Brothers IF YOU WERE THE ONLY GILL-NETTER in Cook Inlet you wouldn’t have any competition. You’d have all those reds to yourself! But you’d probably end up running a long way to find them. You’d realize how big the Inlet is, and if you broke down you’d wish you weren’t out there alone. When you’re out there but not catching much, it’s always good to spot a group of boats on the horizon. It might be a good idea to head that way and see what’s going on. Even if you took a chance and ended up doing pretty well way south of the fleet, you can’t help wondering how the other boats are doing up north. It’s part of the natural history of fishing to want both things at once—to have the fish all to yourself, and when that’s not working out, to have a little help from your friends. You learn right away that it’s nice to be in a group, to be able to talk with friends on other boats, to help each other even if you’re also trying to out-fish them. You love being high boat in the group or catching even just a few more than a particular friend you’ve been running neck and neck with all season. The competitive spirit is real and undeniable in all of us, I’m afraid. I like the way Hemingway dealt with it in Green Hills of Africa, where he confessed to the embarrassing bitter sense of competition he felt when a hunting partner bested him. The guide, “Pop,” finally puts things in perspective when he says, “We have very primitive emotions. . . . It’s impossible not to be competitive. Spoils everything, though.” The really good fishermen or “highliners” muster enough quiet modesty to conceal their pride at being high boat, but you don’t get to be a highliner without a lot of drive. In the old days when fishermen would gather at mug-up to tell stories about how it had gone the day before, to find out how others had done and where the best catches had been made, you could tell by the way people stood around and glanced at each other who’d done well and who hadn’t. The highliners knew for damned sure who their competition was. Among the fishermen I’ve known, the 188 Sea-Brothers competitive drive seems reflected in their athletic careers. Jon was an AllAmerican halfback at a Los Angeles high school, before an injury sidelined him in his first year of college. Mike was a Big Ten end at Michigan, and John a Big Ten wrestler at Iowa. Thor was a brilliant high-school and small-college basketball player and decathalete. I set school and stadium records in the shot put at Washington, and Tim, the new owner of Ishmael, was a high-school track star. But even with all this competitive edge in the fishing life, you also want a group of friends you can count on to help you get on the fish when you’re drawing a blank, and you want to do the same for them. It’s complicated, though, because, for one thing, every group has one or two people known for giving excited calls on the radio that never seem to pay off for their friends. Somebody might see a few fresh hits and want to pass on the good news. If he can put you on the fish, maybe you’ll reciprocate. Or there are fishermen in the group that you suspect might get on the radio to give good reports—but only after they’ve been seeing good hits for quite a while. They might want to help their friends, but they don’t want everybody to show up too soon and ruin their good set. You get to know whose calls are most important and how to read the emotion in a friend’s voice. The dynamics of the group raises the old question about cooperation (or mutual aid) and self-interested competition. I think most fishermen realize that it’s not either or, but both things at once, something like reciprocal altruism. And I wonder how much different we are from other fish hunters like the whales. Of course the orcas (which are actually dolphins) hunt together, sometimes in horrific feeding frenzies, when they’ve been known...

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