Hooked!: True Stories of Obsession, Death, and Love from Alaska's Commercial Fishing Men and Women

Hooked! begins where The Deadliest Catch ends. The rousing sea stories are here: the dramas of near-death battles, the sickening tragedy of lovers and friends lost to the waters---but this is not the whole story. This collection represents an extraordinary holistic view of Alaskan fishing: not just men's lives on the water, but women's as well. Not just winter crab fishing, but the challenges and thrills of fishing for cod, salmon, halibut, and herring. Not just the dying, but the passionate living as well. Readers will understand as never before why so many men and women are hooked, unwilling or unable to leave this uncommon life. Included are fishing legends Mary Jacobs, one of the first women skippers in Alaska; Sig Hansen of The Deadliest Catch; Shannon Zellerhof and Martha Sutro, both women crabbers in the Bering Sea; Moe Bowstern, a performance poet and fisher extraordinaire; Toby Sullivan, salmon fisherman and award-winning writer. Also including Michael Crowley on his first hazing as a greenhorn; Wendy Erd on the bitter sweetness of leaving the fisheries; Naphtali Fields on her first storm at sea, Debra Nielsen on the tragic sinking and loss of her companions. Joel Gay riffs on the panic of herring fishing; Nancy Lord, author of numerous books, shares a day in the life of a salmon fisher; Joe Upton, author of Alaska Blues and Bering Sea Blues, writes of his tumultuous entrance into Alaskan fishing; Leslie Leyland Fields returns to the skiff to crew for her grown daughter; Spike Walker, popular fisher-author, tells the dramatic story of a sinking. Erin Fristad, hooked by the fishing life she has left behind, leaves her prestigious day job to return.