The best days to work a salmon net are dry and bright. Bankside willows tilt from summer green to autumn gold. Light wind, no longer warm, riffles the river’s surface in arcs of silver. Late summer in the Arctic has as many days of lashing rain as it does sun, days when even layers of wool under rubberized overalls and jackets—slime gear, we call them, after their impermeable gummy film of salmon epithelia—cannot stop the cold. But even a wet day is good if the net is heavy.