Knute Nemeth (Charleston) is a commercial fisherman and storyteller. He’s also been part of a towboat crew, a US Navy seaman, and, most recently, captained the Charleston Marine Life Center’s research vessel. He also runs Tuna Guys, which catches and sells tuna caught on the Oregon coast.
Bio
Knute Nemeth (Charleston) is a commercial fisherman and storyteller. He’s also been part of a towboat crew, a US Navy seaman, and, most recently, captained the Charleston Marine Life Center’s research vessel. He also runs Tuna Guys, which catches and sells tuna caught on the Oregon coast. His lifelong love of the sea started when he was a boy. Nemeth, who was born in Spokane, WA, moved with his family to Astoria, Oregon when he was six. Surrounded by fishermen, he especially loved to ride his bike “down the docks and check out the boats.” At 17, he enlisted and served for three years. Once his stint was done, got into electronics for a while, spent time in Florida, and then he wanted to get back to the west coast, on the water. Nemeth googled deep water ports and ended up in Coos Bay, where he’s lived since 1982. He has spent a lifetime out on the open ocean on every kind of vessel, from seven-foot sail boats to fifty-seven-foot drag boats.
Nemeth’s time in commercial fishing started when he moved back to Oregon. In Coos Bay, he explained, “I started walking the docks and ended up getting a job on a salmon trawler and going to California right away and fishing salmon following the school fish up California into Oregon. And I was fishing between April and Halloween, . . . for salmon season. And then I worked on a variety of other boats . . . crabbing” as well as hook and line fishing for albacore. He’s worked as a deckhand and as captain and notes that the trick to working well together is staying rational. Nemeth explains that “it makes the job a lot better when you're fishing with somebody you get along with and you don't have to scream at each other all the time. And after a while you develop a routine of you can perform throughout the day without even talking, just your gestures.”
In 1990, Nemeth started working at Sause Brothers, a towboat company operating in the Pacific Ocean. He missed fishing, though, so, he explained, that he’d still “go out fishing with my buddies. . . . like going out and working vessels on the water.” After he retired from tow-boating in 2014, he joined the Boat Operations/Assistant Facilities Manager for the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology, where he worked with students and scientists.
Nemeth found fame later in life at Burning Man and made his first cinematic debut in 2014 in the film Taking My Parents to Burning Man. With his long-time fishing partner and friend, Jim Peterson, Nemeth hatched the idea to haul and sell tuna to the attendees. Too late, the duo found out that only barter is allowed at the festival, but their tuna was indeed a hit, and they became known as The Tuna Guys. Nemeth summed up his interest and passion for the sea by saying, “I like fishing because you're getting your hands wet, and you feel like you're communing with the ocean and Mother Nature. You're right on the level there. I mean, physically, literally right on the level of the ocean and it's all raw and there's just something about it.” Nemeth, who can spin vivid tales of his life at sea, is also very active in his community and has served as president to both the Charleston Fisherman’s Memorial and the Charleston Community Enhancement Corporation.