Honestly, I wasn’t sure how the first ever (but certainly not last) Young Fishermen’s Dinner/Bar Crawl would turn out. I had a few friends that were coming, but I didn’t expect to have over 20 people to start and end the night together.

Even though we were threatened in our comments section by older fishermen who wanted to crash our crawl and ensure we had proper supervision, the older generation was not to be seen. I heard there was a farewell special to Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes, so I am sure they had to set their Saturday night priorities.

To say that the Dinner was a success would be an understatement. The Market Arms was the perfect place to get started, not only were they extraordinarily accommodating, but they let us take over the back section with the pool table and long bar area to eat. Our server was dynamite and deserves to be sent a fresh sockeye fillet.

Something I enjoyed seeing was how many fishermen came on their own accord, that is to say, did not have a strong affiliation with anyone else who joined. We had young fishermen from around the state: Dutch Harbor longliners, Chignik seiners, Bristol Bay set and driftnetters, Southeast and Prince William Sound seiners and the list continues. Heck, we even had Alexandra Gutierrez from KUCB Dutch Harbor do a special radio report called “A Fishing Fleet With a Full Head of Hair“.

After a few hours of eating, drinking and mingling, our first stop was one of the few iconic fishermen bars left on Ballard Avenue, The Smoke Shop. The walls are lined with photos of boats from around Alaska and something strange happened once we all got settled. I found myself oddly giddy to be talking boats, gear, fishing methods and stories while staring at the pictures with a bunch of people my age (gasp!). In fact, I found it extraordinarily fun…but odd. I expected to look over at the classic bearded fisherman telling me stories about working on such boats 40 years ago.

I think this was the most young fishermen I’d ever been around, especially without older ones apart of the event. Was this the same for everyone else? It was awesome, to be frank.

We rounded out the night at another Ballard classic, the Lock and Keel. Someone thought of the brilliant idea of buying 20 shots, and I feel like someone else copied the same idea later into the night. However, the only thing I could feel the next morning was a solid pounding of success in the back of my head.

I’m already looking forward to the second annual dinner/crawl. We all met some new great friends and I hope it doesn’t take us another year to get together. But if it does, Expo 2012  better be ready.