KODIAK, Alaska (AP) - Matt Shadle left a career in fishing, found ranching in the Lower 48, and returned to Kodiak last month to sell his trawler and float hamster balls instead at the Crab Festival.
“I’ve sold my boat and I’m turning into a rancher. I’ve been a fisherman for 30 years. I’m no longer going to be a fisherman anymore,” Shadle said.
Quotas, observers and overweening regulations pushed him out of fishing.
But his new undertaking - hamster balls - turned out to be one of the festival’s main attractions, and quite lucrative as well, the Kodiak Daily Mirror (https://bit.ly/1tXe8rJ ) reported.
Shadle, 50, who lives between Homer and Salt Lake City, Utah, was busy packing kids into plastic “hamster balls,” i.e. water-walking balls.
The event was electric - constant activity, splashes, and screams of glee. Kids went inside the ball and kicked madly to keep their plastic spheres rotating on the water.
“I’ve seen more kids walk on water than any other place I’ve been,” Shadle said.
He added he was impressed by the athleticism of Kodiak’s kids.
For the adults, the experience was tantamount to watching hamsters running on a wheel, but with their kids instead.
The charge: $7 for five minutes.
The lines for his attraction were always long to bursting at the seams.
Shadle said he served roughly 1,800 kids for the entire festival - go figure his gross receipts.
But Shadle insisted, “We didn’t do this for the money. We did this because I love Kodiak and Kodiak made me the man that I am.”
He added that he would have brought more pools and more balls but had no idea the event was going to be so popular at CrabFest.
He also considered this outing his vacation. “It seems like every time I go on vacation I get lots of these,” he said, pointing to callouses on his hand.
But he still thinks big when it comes to Kodiak’s hamster ball future. Shadle proposes hosting hamster ball races in the harbor.
“I’d like to see a Hamster ball race and contest next year. It would be fun. It should be in the harbor. But we want the city council and the chamber to be behind it.”
Shadle says he left longlining a few years ago because the opportunity cost was too large and the quotas were too small.
“Now because the vessel cap is less than 90,000 pounds for the entire year, and I have to fish in all areas, I’m going to run out to the Bering Sea and fish four different areas to catch what?
Prices are favorable, he reports, but, “not enough to make a living . If I had a little 30-foot boat, and it was me and one guy, that’s how you’re going to make it now in the longline industry,” he said.
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Information from: Kodiak (Alaska) Daily Mirror, https://www.kodiakdailymirror.com
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