My uncle, Roy Maricich, has been a highliner salmon fisherman in Alaska for the past 50 years.  He claims that his success is a result of hard work, luck, and learning from past mistakes.  I'm convinced that his abilities are derived from more of a natural origin.  As if he was born from Mother Nature herself and placed on this earth to fish.  Roy's instinct is ever so apparent when the odds are against him.  Like the most wild of animals, his will to survive is a driving force in his life.  One thing's for sure, he'll never quit, no matter how bad things look.

It was the summer of '92, and the fishing at Afognak Island, Alaska was poor.  Roy decided that we'd seen enough.  We tightened up the rigging of the Lady Lyla, and traveled to the mainland.  The trip across the Shelikof Straits was a bumpy one, the seas were building to more than 15 feet.

Not only was the weather crappy when we'd reached the fishing grounds off of Dakavak, but Roy's worst nightmare had came true.  While we'd wasted an entire day sifting water at Afognak, boats were catching 1,000 to 2,500 red salmon a haul in Dakavak.  Some boats had grossed $50,000 boat stocks in the time that we'd been piddling around in the wrong area -- equating to about $5,000 per each deck hand on those boats, for only a day's work.  Roy was chewing toothpicks like a fiend, a habit he only partook when the odds weren't in his favor. It was getting late in the day, but we had time to make one haul.  While the net was in the water, the nightmare got worse.  The engine in our power skiff died.  Without it, we couldn't fish...  >>>>

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