LUNKERS, LOGS,
AND MACK ATTACKS

Learn all this deep-sea fishing lingo and you might be able to get a job on one of those Deadliest Catch boats. Okay, not really, but at least you’ll know what they’re talking about.

•Candy: Fish used as bait; more often than not, it’s live squid.

•Barney: A know-it-all fisherman who also seems unable to actually catch anything (as in the similar talks-a-big-game Barney Fife from The Andy Griffith Show).

•Fresh dead: In lieu of live squid, a fisherman’s next choice is just-killed, or “fresh dead,” squid.

•Green stuff: cold or dirty water.

•Boil: A disturbance on the surface level of the water when a big fish chases after a smaller fish.

•Soaking bait: Throwing candy out into the ocean…and waiting until it gets a bite.

•Chummer: A seasick fisherman.

•Dogs: Seals (because they bark).

•Bucketmouth: A massive sea bass.

•Alby: An albacore tuna.

•Longfin: An albacore tuna.

•Log: A large barracuda.

•Lunker: A massive trout or sea bass.

•Bounce: To haul a fish up and into a boat without any help.

•Condo: A huge float of kelp moving its way across the sea.

•Steel kelp: An offshore oil rig.

•Come unbuttoned: When a fish wriggles its way off of a hook.

•Coffee grinder: When a line gets a bite and the reel spins wildly.

•Mack attack: Fishermen have to throw bait at mackerel to get them to go away, so that they can catch more desirable fish. A “mack attack” occurs when the mackerel eat up everything tossed their way…and they still won’t scram.

•Breezers: Unwanted fish swimming through a prime fishing spot.

•Hitchhiker: A ling cod that’s attached itself to a rockfish.

•Chickens: Seagulls.

•Cocktail: When fishermen use two or more baits on the same hooks at the same time.

•Bird’s nest: A pile of unwound, overrun fishing line falling off a spool.

What’s the difference between whiskey and bourbon? Bourbon is made in the U.S.