April 4, 2025
By Alison Lorenz, WSG Communications Project Coordinator
One of the first questions to ask in a fisherman profile is what all the fisherman catches. Many fishermen specialize in one or two species, but some target several. With Jesse Holden, the answer was: everything.
One of Holden’s crab pots full of Dungeness crabs
“Crabbing, shrimping, gilnetting, diving, pretty much anything,” Holden lists, explaining what he can do off the boat he recently purchased, his largest yet. He crabs for Dungeness, catches prawns, gillnets for salmon, and dives for geoduck, sea urchins and sea cucumber. Holden also owns and operates a shellfish farm in Sequim Bay that grows oysters and manila clams. “We might do some mussels in the future,” he says.
With such a diverse operation, one might think Holden had spent a decade building his business’s many branches. In fact, he’s been fishing professionally for only a year and a half.
Holden says he’s always known he would be a fisherman. His uncle was one of the first Jamestown S’Klallam Tribal commercial harvest divers for geoduck, and he brought Holden’s father and cousins into the fold. His grandfather, too, came into the fishing business later in life through the oyster farm Holden now runs. Holden grew up fishing and diving with his family and quickly entered the business after high school, getting his own certification to dive for geoduck and deckhanding on crab and shrimp boats. But circumstances led him away from the water, and he spent seven years in the construction industry building homes. The steady yearround schedule, he says, taught him discipline and the value of hard work: “I needed that to translate into the self-structured work I do now.”
Still, it was only a matter of time before he returned to what he loved. In 2023, Holden was on a construction job on the coast when he happened to glimpse his cousins and other crew out on the water, pulling up crab pots and salmon. At that moment, he says, “I thought, I’ve overstayed my welcome here. It’s time to get back to fishing.”
Geoduck clams. Photo courtesy of Sean McDonald.
At the time of this interview, in the early fall, Holden was just finishing up geoduck diving season before the waters grew uncomfortably cold. Recreational geoduck harvesting involves digging several feet deep to wrestle the huge clams out of where they anchor in heavy, wet sand. In contrast, Holden describes his process as “like being an astronaut.” Divers like him go, on average, sixty feet underwater to harvest the clams. They bring a high powered water pump to blast the sand around the geoduck and break them loose, piling the clams into bags that can hold 200 lbs of geoduck before they’re sent back up to the boat. “It’s one of the toughest jobs you can do, go down where people aren’t supposed to go,” Holden says. “But it’s really peaceful down there.”
The family connection to fishing continues. Holden sells a portion of his geoduck catch to his cousins, who now own a seafood restaurant, Moby Duck Chowder & Seafood, in Port Angeles, WA. They prepare the geoduck in fritters and chowder, and also sell the clams and oysters from Holden’s farm over in Sequim Bay. Northwest Treaty Tribes and Maritime Washington wrote about the family’s seafood ties back in March. Holden also sells to other restaurants and commercial buyers. As for the salmon he catches, Holden markets that himself locally, keeping a steady stream of business through word of mouth, friends and family. “I fill peoples’ freezers up for them,” he says.
When I asked him if there were any moments in his career that made him particularly proud, Holden had a ready answer: “I’m proud of all of it so far.” The job, he notes, “is full of surprises. There’s always something to keep you on your toes. But honestly, I’m really proud of the operation. It takes guys up to five to ten years to build what I did in a year and a half.”
“My love is for the ocean and the beach,” Holden says. “It’s a cultural thing. My ancestors were hunters and gatherers, and that’s what I am too. I just knew: call it God if you want, but something brought me back to the water. It’s more free out there. It’s just me and my mission and I can have a good time doing it too.”
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Washington Sea Grant, based at the University of Washington, helps people and marine life thrive through research, technical expertise and education supporting the responsible use and conservation of coastal ecosystems. Washington Sea Grant is one of 34 Sea Grant programs supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in coastal and Great Lakes states that encourage the wise stewardship of our marine resources through research, education, outreach and technology transfer.
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APR
2025