Posted by Hannah Moulton Belec on March 23rd, 2010 in Trout Magazine

Sig Hansen, star of the Discovery Channel hit Deadliest Catch and captain of the Northwestern crab boat, took some time to tell Trout why he opposes the proposed Pebble Mine in Alaska. You read our interview with Hansen in the spring issue of Trout, but read on for the questions and answers we didn’t have room for in the print edition.

Why did you become a commercial fisherman?
I think we really didn’t have a choice in the matter. We were 12 years old at the time and we’re fourth generation fishermen so it was more or less expected of us.

On Deadliest Catch they focus on crab fishing in the Bering Sea, but have you spent time fishing for other catches?
Well, my first job was fishing for salmon in Bristol Bay. I’ve done fishing in Norway as a teenager when we were fishing in the summers kind of on and off and I had a full time job in Bristol Bay. I was 14 when I went up there and started doing that. We’d do that for half the summer and then you’d get a job on another boat, either the crab boat or you’d get a job in Norway. So I got my first paycheck, basically, from Bristol Bay.

Do you still fish there?
We do a lot of salmon tendering there now. Pretty much most of the guys on our crew fish there during the summers. Nick has a license and a vessel, and Jake, another crew member, fishes up there, and Matt fishes up there every once in a while. And my brothers, Edgar and Norman, have participated in the bay, so we’re all familiar with it. And the Northwestern, our crab boat, tenders during the summers and has been doing that since, I think it was the early 90s we started tendering there.