Teacher vs. Troller pay?
johnJr
2009-03-02 03:17:06
Hi everyone,
great forum...it has been awhile since I have posted, but I'm still toying with the idea of taking the plunge. I am a teacher that is tired of apathetic students/parents that think there future lies in professional sports, American Idol, video game testing, and many more ludicrous ideas...it is like a doctor giving CPR to a cadaver.
But, is it MY dream that is ludicrous? I want to make my living on the sea...be my own boss...steer my own ship (literally AND figuratively). However, my wife wants to know how much I can make. I have told her that it depends on hard work and luck and that no paycheck trolling has ANY guarantees attached to it.
On the other side, my father knows many people in Ketchikan that troll, and he has been asking questions for me as well. From him, the idea I get is that even the most incompetent troller can make the equivalent of a teacher's salary ($40-50k).
Please, if any of you can give me a ballpark estimate...and it can be very broad...I would greatly appreciate it.
tacorajim
2009-03-02 04:47:01
Not to sound cruel, but there are no guarentees for newbies. It's a way of life.
Salty
2009-03-02 05:56:52
My feeling is unless you have another job, another source of income (a retirement, spouse working, etc.) then you better plan to be in the top 25 to make a living trolling. With the quota down and the prices likely to be down this year it will be tough to break in.
Short answer, don't give up the teaching job. Go crew for at least a summer or part of a summer to learn if it is for you before you give up the job and invest.
Trolling around SE Alaska like my wife and I do in protected waters either scratching for a few nice big Kings, chasing chums, or working the tides in Cross Sound for fall coho is the cats meow to me but most of the fleet does not participate in either the scratchy spring fisheries or the low value chum troll opportunities.
Trolling off shore for small coho in a huge pack of trollers, making long tacks, shaking kings, shaking pinks, scrubbing jelly fish, fighting the weather is something most trollers seem to prefer. If you like that then trolling might be for you.
But maybe there is more to that off shore trolling than I understand, perhaps the guys are misleading me with all that radio and dock whining. Perhaps they are out there tacking with the wind, avoiding the fleet, the kings, the pinks, and are in the pink.
I used to have teachers that I just knew were not into teaching anymore...at all. And, it reflects in the teaching and in the students. If you don't like being a teacher anymore, I suggest quitting and getting a job somewhere else. As for trolling, get a deckhand job first. Try to get on a freezer boat and spend 21 days out there scratching for cohos and doing the painful math many days when you realize you are making less than 2 dollars an hour sometimes. Or, get a boat and drop 50K into an investment and watch all your money and time dive into the boat. Come out the other end with arthritic wrists and no medical insurance and end up looking for a job on the state ferry system for benefits.
It is very difficult to separate the dreaminess of trolling and fishing with the reality. I always try to recall a moment longlining on a snap+on vessel early one morning, the sun just cusping over the Fairweathers 70 miles away and the craddle of the albatross...and curtly the old Norwegian skipper yelled at me to /Quit dreaming and SnapON!*
codfoot
2009-03-02 21:44:27
Whatever you do, don't quit your day job until after you've sampled the reality of fishing!
kalitan97828
2009-03-02 22:36:45
As a retired teacher who has fished since 1962 with the exception of a few years when I was playing Supt. of Schools, I would second the work in the fishery for a summer or more to see if you like it. I would suggest that gillnetting may be more lucrative than trolling but having done both I enjoy trolling the most. Something about konking one of the kings Salty misses gets in your blood. I would suggest that teaching and fishing are not mutually exclusive. You have a shorter fishing season but come from the end of Sept you have a paycheck from the district. Having taken two sabaticals during my career I would suggest that you take a year off and return to school . It does wonders for your attidude as well as your teaching. Can't say it improved my fishing, however.
johnJr
2009-03-03 00:06:48
THANK YOU!! Very informative...as I thought...like teaching, trolling sounds like something that you LOVE to do, and NOT like something you rely on to get rich...that's ok with me. As for the one post about the lack of my love of teaching, it is not entirely accurate for me to say that I don't love it...I do...it is just VERY frustrating for me to be a gangbuster (developing novel ways of teaching, preparing labs for students to apply knowledge in a way that is engaging and not boring, etc.) and yet see the "worksheet queens" kick back, read the newspaper during classtime, make the same money, and get the same level of respect. Perhaps that is why I am so frustrated...because I work TOO hard at trying to make a difference and it seems that the students couldn't care less.
Anyway, without spending too much time on the counselor's couch, thanks...I think I like this lifestyle, but from you I am getting, "Be sure you have a more consistent income." Wise words, indeed...thank you, and I will take that into consideration as I make my move into trolling over the next couple of years.
johnJr
2009-03-03 00:10:39
oh yeah...and I am FROM Ketchikan (although currently stuck in New Mexico)...as a younger man, I worked seiners before (skiff man) but never trollers...I plan on going out this summer for an opening or two on a troller to "get the feel."
thanks again!
tacorajim
2009-03-03 01:28:25
FROM Ketchikan? Johnny Kristovich of the
Rainier
2009-03-03 05:44:52
John
I asked a similar question a couple months back. I am a teacher that was looking at trolling as a possible career change. I generally like teaching, but there is talk of some major budget cuts that will be putting teachers out of work in my district. I was able to line up a summer job closer to home in Westport as a deckhand on a charter (ahhhh!)/ tuna boat. I am not going to get rich doing it, but I am sure that it'll be an education. The bottom line is that there is alot of good people out there that are willing to help you with the learning curve. Network and find somebody that you'll feel comfortable working for. I have run the numbers many times and unless you have everything paid for it looks to be a tough start with no other income.
yak2you2
2009-03-03 16:31:10
Teaching is one of the very few jobs that meshes with fishing, why not to do both? Heck you get summers off, go fish, then in the fall you can go back to work and pay for all the money you spent on your boat.
longfinner
2009-03-04 06:30:10
There must be a large number of teachers that troll or is it a large number of trollers that teach? I second yak2you2 with why not both, teach and troll. Keep your benefits, recharge yourself with fishing and adventure. Keep the best of two worlds. I know where you are coming from Johnjr. Must be high school science? The labs. I love it "worksheet queens" never heard that one but it fits them! They are everywhere and the worst part you can not get rid of them and they know it. I know your frustration. I left in 2003. Sounds like you have a plan. Hope you have a great summer.
Salty
2009-03-04 07:48:34
Wow,
What a great thread. On the topic of teaching and trolling. With all due respect to the great teachers and trollers who have made it work, I don't recommend it. My mother was a teacher, my wife is a teacher, I taught for a year, and one of my sons and his wife are teachers. My wife crewed and taught for many years, my son still teaches and crews with me or his younger brother for part of each summer. I worked several years in the late 90's and early 2000's from October to May and then fished the summer.
The best fishermen, educators I knew/know for some reasons were/are administrators rather than teachers. I just listed a bunch but ended up deleting that line so as not to reveal the high line fisher administrators.
Teachers are often exhausted by the end of May when trolling is just getting started. Trying to do your boat work in early May and finish up the school year is just is too much for most people. Then when you are exhausted from the season in late August and just starting to make some money fishing fall coho you have to hang it up and summon up the enthusiasm and energy to greet a whole bunch of new, eager, brite eyed students.
Administrators seem to have more ability or the jobs are more compatible than for the teachers. Maybe Carl can explain why.
I found that even with a job I loved in the winter months with a great boss who designed the job around my fishing it was challenging to mesh the two. When I got done in September the boss and the rest of the staff were eagerly waiting for me to join the team and the projects with enthusiasm and fresh ideas. Mostly in October I was ready to rest for a while.
In the spring I was hurrying to finish up the projects so I could make an April winter king trip. Because I was part time I did not really have an opportunity to progress in the job and take on more responsibility or make more money. It meant that each season I had to get used to younger less experienced people taking the positions and calling the shots I would be in line for if I wasn't fishing.
I started to lose my edge in the fishing. I was always behind in the maintenance, not totally in tune with the bites, and missing out on some good winter king fishing. The first year I winter fished after leaving the job I made more than two years wages. I was also coaching middle school basketball during those years. I can't imagine how we did it now.
What I recommend is marrying someone with a good job, like a teacher. It sure worked for me and now that she is retired we are having a great time trolling together. Playing with the kids all winter was lots more fun than working.