Gillnet fishing

One of my summer activities is helping a friend on his gillnet boat for the summer salmon season. It is a night fishing gig to stay out of the way of the sports fisherman. We are allowed to drop nets in at 9 pm and have to be out of the water by 6 am. We just did our 4th night of 7 we are allowed. I can't nap worth a crap when I want to so I am up for 26 to 28 hours pin the fishing nights. Last night was freaking crazy. We fish a drift or 2 before the low water tide and then went out in the shipping channel with the deep net a rode it about 2 hours. We are fishing for Chinook salmon but are allowed 4 sturgeon a week between 44 and 50 inches. Well last night on low water we got into the sturgeon, we had 15 in the net on this one set with 3 big ones getting out before we run them aboard. We had fish almost 7 foot long in that net tearing it up. We only ended up with 2 keepers and 2 undersized so we had to wrestle several of those big suckers back over the sides. I don't know how many more years I can do these all nighters but it is hard to say no to a ride or die friend.