With fishing experience that predates Keith Colburn, "Wild" Bill Wichrowski, and even Sig Hansen, Rip Carlton is one of the longest-tenured commercial fishermen in the fleet. After moving to Alaska in the mid-1970s, Carlton started from the bottom, and never stopped hunting for more. He first worked in a factory while hunting for a job on a boat, and before going out on a fishing trip, his first job in the commercial fishing industry was on the dock, unloading shrimp (via The Bulletin). Factory work and dock work didn't last too long as he sidled up to Norwegian crab fisherman, and was given a job on a boat in only four months.
"I wanted to impress them with my work ethic and I did and they told me they heard a job might be opening up on another boat. So I went over and I got hired about 6:00 AM when the guys woke up with a hangover and nobody wanted to go fishing and I was standing there," Carlton told OPB.
Most deckhands are just happy to land the gig, but this was just the foot in the door for Carlton. He comically describes his rise from greenhorn to owner and operator in an interview with his processor and distributor, Keyport LLC. "When I was down on deck, filling bait cans for the first time, I looked at the guy running the hydraulics — the Chief — I go, 'that's the job you want.' Then, wait a second, I looked up at the guy running the boat, and I said, 'Naw, that's the job you want.' Then I got down to the shipyard, and I saw the owner just kind of show up once in a while and I went, 'Oh wait a minute ... That's the guy!' So I've done the whole thing." At this rate, he'll be running his own fleet in no time!
