Tony and Don Gilich
Excerpt from "Victory at Sea," by Lee Makovich, "Fishermen's News," September, 1997
Tony Gilich came to America in 1915. He was just 20 years old and a stranger in a new land. Tony immediately went out fishing with his cousin and pioneer fisherman, top skipper Andrew Gilich, aboard the 50-foot Babare-built seiner Traveler. Tony paid attention and learned very quickly. Just two years later in 1917, he purchased an interest in the 62-foot Skansie -built seiner Commander, and he was officially in the fishing business.
Tony operated the Commander at the Salmon Banks in the San Juan Islands for two seasons. He did well right from the start, and in 1919, decided to sell his interest in the vessel and build a new fishing boat, the Victory.
Because of a small run of salmon in the Puget Sound that season, Tony headed the Victory straight for Kodiak, Alaska, and had an extremely successful season there. He returned to Puget Sound in time to fish the 1919 fall opening. We can only imagine what a challenge this undertaking must have been for Tony a young man with just two years of experience in the fishing business taking his brand new boat to a far away fishing ground that he had never seen before.
Tony did extremely well at Kodiak, and paid his share in the Victory off that very first year. Tony didn't venture to Alaska to fish salmon again, and he concentrated his efforts almost exclusively in the Puget Sound. In just a few short years, it became universally accepted throughout the fishing community that Tony Gilich was one of the top skippers to ever fish the Salmon Banks.
Tony's son Don began his career in the fishing industry in 1935 when he was 15 years old. He went out with skipper Tony Novak on the Harmony, in which his father held part interest. The next year, when he was 16 years old, Don became a member of the crew on his father's boat, the Victory, and received a full share. He would go on to spend the next 58 seasons on the Victory as a crewman, and eventually as her skipper.
"I had always been interested in working on the net, and even at 16 years old, I was as accomplished a net-man as anyone else on my dad's crew," Don said.
During WWII, Tony chartered the Victory to the U.S. Coast Guard as a patrol vessel. As part of the arrangement, Don would enter the Coast Guard Reserve and serve as the Victory's skipper. The Victory was stationed at Port Angeles. Don said, "We went out looking for enemy submarines or planes, and we also ran errands which kept us pretty busy." The Victory was back in the fishing business in 1943 after the Coast Guard acquired another patrol boat.
Don began running the Victory on a part-time basis in the 1940s. When Tony retired in 1971, Don began operating the boat on a full-time basis. Since that time, many improvements and additions have taken place aboard the Victory.
