INSPIRED BY ALASKA
Though his first love has always been sport fishing, for his first fifteen years in Alaska Dave Atcheson made his living in the commercial fishing industry, working in various capacities for Icicle Seafoods and as a crewman on various salmon and herring seiners, setnetting in Prince William Sound, and drifting on the Copper River Flats outside of Cordova. Those experiences, along with frequent trips into the backcountry via foot, canoe, and raft have bound him to this unique Alaskan landscape.
Dave Atcheson is an avid sport fisher and hunter and, along with Dead Reckoning, is the author of National Geographic’s Hidden Alaska: Bristol Bay and Beyond and the guidebook Fishing Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula. He has written for a variety of periodicals, from Outdoor Life to Boys’ Life, and is a frequent contributor to Alaska Magazine and past contributing editor for Fish Alaska Magazine.
Dave confesses all in his book Dead Reckoning.
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The Confessional
We asked & our authors answered…
Dave has been known to…eat too much and have one beer too many.
Things Dave likes…warmth from a wood stove, a good micro-brew, and chocolate ice cream, not necessarily all at the same time.
Favorite Alaska places: Kenai River, Swanson Lakes, and his backyard in Sterling, Alaska.
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Description
Dave Atcheson is an avid sport fisher and hunter and, along with Dead Reckoning, is the author of National Geographic’s Hidden Alaska: Bristol Bay and Beyond and the guidebook Fishing Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula. He has written for a variety of periodicals, from Outdoor Life to Boys’ Life, and is a frequent contributor to Alaska Magazine and past contributing editor for Fish Alaska Magazine.
A story of survival and an ode to the outdoors. Reminiscent of The Perfect Storm and Into the Wild, Dead Reckoning, Navigating a Life on the Last Frontier, Courting Tragedy on its High Seas, is not only an intimate look at life in Alaska’s fishing industry, but also an insider’s view into one of Alaska’s small communities and the myriad of upstarts, dropouts, and rogues that color its landscape.
Sneaky Peek
Something about the way he sized me up from the deck of his boat, his stance, his stabbing glare—a look that told me he and he alone was the boss, off shore and on—made me hesitate, even when he finally asked us in a gravelly voice to come aboard. But as we began to take that step over the rail and onto the boat he stopped short, turning abruptly to look me in the eye and catching just a glint of my momentary panic. “So, you want to be a fisherman,” he said, more of a wager than a question. Then, without waiting for a response he quickly turned, leading us into his kingdom, the beginning of my long and desultory alternative education. My introduction to the sea.
Though his first love has always been sport fishing, for his first fifteen years in Alaska Dave Atcheson made his living in the commercial fishing industry, working in various capacities for Icicle Seafoods and as a crewman on various salmon and herring seiners, setnetting in Prince William Sound, and drifting on the Copper River Flats outside of Cordova. Those experiences, along with frequent trips into the backcountry via foot, canoe, and raft have bound him to this unique Alaskan landscape.
