Commercial Harvesters Weigh in on PFDs, Rain Gear, Boots
Veteran Bristol Bay set netter Shannon Ford Ward still vividly recalls that day in the Naknek-Kvichak district of Bristol Bay 15 years ago when the boat she and husband Don Ward were sailing went down after hitting a set net line that wasn’t supposed to be there.
The Mustang personal floatation devices, or PFDs, that they were wearing saved their lives, she said.
“When our boat went down, nobody else on our beach was wearing PFDs,” she said. “After our boat sinking, everybody started wearing them because we were able to give concrete examples of why you need to wear them.”
The Ward family, which has fished Bristol Bay since 1933, operates as Two If By SeaFoods, offering a variety of wild Alaska salmon products online.
The loss of two drift gillnetter crew who drowned during the 2024...