Crossing the bar

Commercial fisherman Randy Johnson pilots his gillnet bowpicker, the Jaycie J, accross Strawberry Bar on his way back to Cordova on June 2 after a sockeye salmon fishing opener on the Copper River flats. Abnormally large southwest swells from a storm in the southern Gulf of Alaska made tremendous breakers and dangerous bar crossings for the fishermen who were expecting beautiful weather for the period. One 70-year-old fisherman's boat rolled on its side and was shoved down a large wave, but he was able to throttle the boat around, much like a surfer, and came out on the back of the wave to continue his journey. Photo and caption by Bob Martinson, a Copper River commercial fisherman