FEATURE
IN PROFILE
Silver with a heart of gold
Prout family angling to lead Bering Sea crab’s next generation on the Silver Spray By Brian Hagenbuch
t was during Sterling Prout’s first crabbing trip that one his dad’s catchphrases took on a new, more ominous undertone. As a young teen, Sterling had spent pleasant enough summers salmon tendering in Prince William Sound on the family boat, the F/V Silver Spray. Then, when Sterling was 17, one of his dad’s crab crew got hurt during the opilio season. Bill Prout — known on the ground as Hip — offered Sterling the spot, and Sterling recalls thinking, “Sure, no problem. I’ll fly out to Dutch (Harbor), and it will be just like tendering.” It was shockingly different from tendering. The Silver Spray
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32 National Fisherman \ July 2021
got throttled by rough weather on the way out of Dutch Harbor, and Sterling got seasick. Soon enough, he was on deck in the middle of the Bering Sea winter with older men he didn’t know amidst yelling and jostling, while baiting and pushing pots. The seasoned crew did not show the skipper’s young son any special mercy. “I just didn’t want any part of it. I even cried. It was brutal,” Sterling said. Sterling said all he wanted was to turn the boat around and head back to port, and that’s when his dad, a longtime Bering Sea crab veteran, rolled out one of his catchphrases: “That’s not the www.nationalfisherman.com
