Roy came down from Haines fishing with me for the first time this past week. It was great to be hosting him fishing after all the times he’s hosted me fishing in the Chilkat River and picking the cherries from his trees. He bought his house from the parents of a long time teacher now here in Craig, and the parents live in Hollis.

Things didn’t start out so good. Roy had a short layover during a plane change in Juneau, and when the plane he transferred to got to Klawock, his luggage did not make it with him. The luggage would arrive on the evening flight, so we couldn’t leave town to start our fishing trip as planned, and I’m thinking – well, we’ve lost a day of fishing.

Doug was walking by the high school as we returned to town from the airport, and I stopped to see if he’d like a ride. He jumped in. He had left his rig at the mechanic at the launch ramp, and was walking home. When we told him our predicament, he said we should fish near town at a couple spots he’d recently caught fish. Why didn’t I think of that? He told me of one spot that I knew of, but didn’t even think of, fishing near town, so we headed there first. As usual, a setback leads to a lucky encounter and some new fishing information.

Roy and I fished the 3 different spots from Doug’s intel. At the last spot- the closest spot to town – we had one on, it came right to the surface, and spit the hook. We got Roy’s luggage that evening, jumped on the boat, and headed for an anchorage about 2 hours from town. A humpback whale cruised our anchorage.

Next morning I was up shortly after first light, and started my morning routine. I put the coffee peculator on to boil, removed the cushions from the galley table I sleep on and returned it to normal table height. I recently replaced the table with two telescopic legs that came with the boat with a coffee table I got on craigslist. I removed the legs, and installed a center leg that goes up and down with a hand crank. The telescopic legs on the original table was difficult to lift up to table height, and the new hand crank leg has been a welcome success.

I then checked the oil and coolant on the Yanmar, started the engine, and went to the bow to pull the anchor. When I returned to the helm, Roy was up, dressed, and ready to go. We motored the short distance to our fishing drag, poured the finished coffee into two thermoses I got at the St Vincent Depaul Thrift store in Juneau, had our first of many cups of coffee, and soon had the trolling gear out.

We caught a couple nice king salmon, a couple unexpected chicken halibut, and a big black rock fish we had for dinner the first day. That sure sets up the week nicely and puts me at ease, knowing Roy has already got a nice catch of fish to take home, even if we caught nothing the rest of the week.

The king salmon are bigger this year. The first increase in size I’ve seen in 20 years. I’m not sure yet what to make of it, but I like it.

We were up early fishing the next day. It’s great to have early risers aboard, as I love fishing the early morning. The winds came up later in the morning. After several passes, we caught a chicken halibut but no king salmon. We moved to my other favorite spot, about an hour away. The winds were up there, too, from the opposite direction (I don’t know how this is possible, but it is!) and we caught no salmon. We continued on to the inside waters and fished the Prince of Wales Island shore. More of nothing there, and we headed for the harbor.

We headed out the next day mid morning and were at fishing spot number 2 by mid day. We caught two nice kings by late afternoon, and anchored up. A whale that seemed to homestead the mouth of the anchorage was back feeding. The whales in the area have some specialized feeding behavior I’ve not seen around Juneau. This whale would seem to swirl around sideways, with first a pectoral fin out of the water, followed by the tip of a tail. Then the whale would stand on its head, with his tail out of the water, and slowly tip over backwards. From the sonar, it looked like the whales were feeding on masses of krill, as we also saw floating krill cases.

On day 5, we were fishing about 5 am on a beautiful partly cloudy morning. With not much luck on the electric blue spoons, I recalled seeing herring in the kings I’d cleaned, so I put a King Kandy cut-plug lure on one pole, and the blue spoon on the other. We caught two kings by mid-day, both on the King Kandy. I also lost what I’m sure was a bigger halibut, which cut the line at the precious King Kandy. We thought we were hung yet again on kelp, and Roy put the engine in neutral so I could pull the wad of kelp in. After allowing me to yard it up like a pile of kelp, the fish started to pull. It was fighting like a halibut, and it cut the line right at the lure before I got a look at it. We tried for a third fish all afternoon, but no action. Roy idled us right to the mouth of our anchorage, and said pull the lines. When I hauled in one rod, I saw the other rod bouncing and thought we had shallowed up and that the cannon ball was bouncing on the bottom. I grabbed the rod and started cranking up the down rigger to get off the bottom. Then realized we had a fish on, so called Roy back to help. We landed Laura’s proxy fish, which will make her happy. We had for dinner what we ate every night after – fried king salmon collars and green salad with red onions, bell peppers, and a European white cheese I love from Costco.

The next morning, we got our first king about 545 am. Friends showed up in a couple boats an hour later. They fished a few hours after we caught our fish, then left for better fishing elsewhere. We fished the rest of the day with the whales and the sunshine, but no more keepers. We released a shaker king and beautiful ocean-bright chum salmon.

The NOAA forecast for the waters just west of us, on the open ocean, for our last day of fishing showed the winds would pick up. The WINDY app showed winds at 8 kts, increasing to 12 kts where we were fishing. We got up extra early to get in a solid day of fishing, knowing we’d leave midday for town. We caught the first king about 2 hours later at 630 am, and it was our biggest of the season at over 21 lbs. I saw the first needle fish of the season in this king, along with some partially digested herring. I put the blue spoon back on one rod after seeing the needle fish, but we caught no more fish when we pulled the gear at 1145 am and headed for town ahead of the weather.

Back ashore, we enjoyed our first showers in a week, and had a dinner of elk burgers and socialization with Brian and Ellen and their house, along with Howard and Michelle.

Up bright and early again to get fish boxes packed, and Roy on the plane to Ketchikan and on to Juneau, where he’d take his son’s truck back on the ferry to Haines. I also sent Laura her fish on the plane to Juneau. A great start to the season.

Bob and I finally got out of Juneau on Saturday, waiting all week on weather. We headed to the now traditional first stop to fish for shrimp.

Things didn’t start off so good. Bob was running the boat as I put out a string of 5 shrimp pots for spot prawns. I fed out the string, put on a crab buoy, and under it went. Oh boy. I’d had to untangle some of the line and we either drifted deeper than the line we had out, or the tide current was such that the single crab buoy was sucked under. We tried dragging for it with no luck. One of my shrimping buddies is going to look for it next time he goes there, hopefully at a minus tide.

With my tail between my legs, we headed to the trawling spot. Things got a lot better trawling. We made a couple trawls of about an hour, and got a nice cod end full of mostly coon stripes, with some spot prawns and nice pink shrimp in the minority.

We put the shrimp on ice and anchored up for the night. I got the canning pot out of storage under the galley seats to start steaming shrimp tails and we got to processing. When all the shrimp were cooked, I first put them into seawater to stop them from cooking, then put them on ice to chill. With 2 more days of traveling, we’d have plenty of time to shuck and freeze them.

We waited til mid-day to leave on day 2, as low tide was at noon, and we hoped our pot buoy would pop up. We looked around through low tide change and no luck, then headed for Craig.

We traded off processing shrimp. I scooped a big stainless steel bowl of tails and got to removing the shell while Bob tended the helm. About an hour later, we switched duties. We traveled in about a 2 foot chop down Stephens Passage. By the time we got to Pybus Bay, the shrimp were all cooked, shucked, doled out into vac pack bags, and into the freezer. We found a cozy spot in the bay, and anchored up for the night.

I was up at first light on Day 3, and we were on our way about 4 am. There was a little chop going across Frederick Sound. We got to Rocky Pass mid-morning and down the channel we went. I’m always amazed for some reason that we rarely pass a boat during the whole length of the Pass. We exited the south end without incident, and crossed Sumner Strait to El Capitan Passage, passing Port Protection in the distance. I didn’t notice anyone out fishing in front of Port Protection, which may be indicative of the slow king salmon fishing so far this year.

After bucking the tide for the whole trip, we now had the tide behind us and were making such good time I just kept going til it was almost dark. We got to Sarheen Cove at the south end of the Pass, and anchored for the night.

I slept in a bit and got us on our way about 545 am on Day 4. We looked around for a place to fish the shrimp trawl in the spot I’d fished with Mike several years ago, but I couldn’t find a spot I liked that wasn’t too deep for my liking. We were a floating garage sale with all the stuff I was carting down to Craig, and I didn’t feel like trying to get enough tow line and create enough stern deck space for it all. So after looking around a bit, we kept going in fair seas.

An hour later, we arrived at the grave of a Shaman that’s a century old I’d guess, maybe older. It’s on a nondescript island, and you have to know just where to look to actually see the grave, with the totem warrior standing guard at graveside. It’s one of the coolest?, most spiritual?, or maybe the feeling is something else that I can’t find a phrase for. I just know it’s incredible. Every time.

We continued to make good time and were into Craig mid-day. It wasn’t pouring rain for a change, and Bob and I spent the afternoon offloading all the stuff I’d brought for me – futon, queen box spring, truck tires, stand up freezer, many cases of empty and full canning jars, two folding kayaks, and for others – two plastic kayaks, power washer, headlamps, shop lights, brown and white bags of sugar, and coffee syrup. When I load the boat, I inventory the items as I stash them around the boat so I can be sure to offload everything and not take something back to Juneau with me.

I had some wine and Bob some beer after dinner and lots of exercise offloading the boat. We got up late the next morning, and Bob got some unsettling news. His roofer reported there was rot under the old roofing they’d taken off. So, Bob decided to go home the next evening. I scrambled to get ready for a day of fishing on the skiff, as we wanted to get out and back faster than the 6 kt tug.

We took the skiff to fuel it up. The tank was still empty from running out of gas hunting with Nick and Amanda in November. When we got to the boat launch, the engine wouldn’t start. I kept squeezing the fuel bulb, and couldn’t feel it fill up. After trying for 20 minutes or so, I called Chet to ask for advice. He said to bring it by the shop.

He came out to take a look at things and listen to my troubleshooting assessment so far. He agreed fuel wasn’t getting to the outboard. After another 15 minutes, we realized the fuel selector valve was not open to the big engine fuel line, but was selecting for the kicker. Chet also thought there might be an airlock, so he cut off the fuel bulb to the main engine, spliced in a run-a-day can of gas into the fuel line, pumped fuel into the big engine with the bulb on the small tank, then spliced back in the line to the bulb from my fuel tank. He said to crank it and turn it off immediately if it started. It barely turned over when it started and I turned it off. So, nothing wrong at the motor.

I got under the area inside the cabin where the fuel line comes in from the tank to the fuel filter, and then goes out through a selector that either directs the fuel to the kicker or the main motor. When I switched it to the other line, Chet started getting fuel through the bulb. Problem solved. Chet waved us away and went back to what we drew him away from. He’s always so helpful and hope his soon-to-be retirement works for him. He’s one of the most important businesses in the town, keeping hundreds of subsistence, charter, and government boats on the water with repairs and maintenance.

We finally got the boat launched about 3 pm and ran to a favorite spot of mine. Doug said there were also lots of whales, just like last year, so at least we’d get a sea mammal show. We put the trolling gear out and got fishing.

The whales did not disappoint. The sonar showed lots of feed, and the many humpback whales were diving and feeding all around us.

Then there it was. We got one on. I grabbed the rod. Oh, it was a nice king. I handed the rod to Bob, then started to crank up the downrigger. The fish was running hard across the back of the boat, so I took the rod back from Bob for a second to run the line up and over the roof to the other side of the boat, and handed the rod back to Bob. He hung on for all he was worth, working the real. Then it happened: about 30 yards behind the boat, a big, beautiful, ocean bright king salmon leapt 3 feet out of the water…. and spit the hook! Oh. It was beautiful. I say you don’t remember all the big kings and deer you harvest, but you always remember the big king salmon and big bucks you you lose. With Bob in his 70’s and me in my 60’s, our reaction was joy at the event, and the disappointment minor. We were here, with all these whales, and now had a story to tell.

We got the rods back fishing. We caught a couple rockfish we had for dinner, and a ling cod that went into the freezer.

Yesterday, we got up late again, and then jumped in the truck to take an island road tour. We went though Klawock and on to Thorne Bay. I contacted people in Craig to find out if the back road to Coffman Cove from Thorne Bay was cleared of the big slide that stopped Sean and Pat and I in our tracks last year, just miles from Coffman Cove. Both Ellen and Doug reported the road was open, so I didn’t give it another thought, and off we went. An hour later, we got to the slide that stopped us last summer. We passed that slide, and another big slide was cleared a little further down the road. Wow. Big spruce, hemlock and cedar trees piled in a jumble on either side of the road. Not long after, we came to a road barrier blocking the road. Oh no!….not again. We went around the barrier and came to a wash out on the road. We got out of the truck to see if we could get past it, and I saw some vehicle tracks going around it. We’ll try it. We made our way around, and it was a little sketchy, but out we came on the other side. WHEW. Bob got out to move the barrier on the Coffman Cove side of the washout. I passed him in the truck, he reset the barrier, and away we went.

We got to Coffman Cove mid day. We put our orders in at AK-49, the best burger joint on the Island, then went next store to the Rigging Shack general store to look around and listen to Coffman Cove news and gossip.

Our orders were soon ready at the cafe, and we ate our burgers on the covered porch. I asked the owner of the Rigging Shack if business was okay, since activity seemed dead in Coffman Cove, and she said actually it was very busy, with bear hunters, etc., so must be we just caught the town on a crappy weather day and/or everyone was out hunting and fishing.

We got back in the afternoon with full bellies. I luckily remembered to get all the shrimp out of the freezer for Bob to take home, and we headed to the airport. The NBA game was on, so the delay in the flight getting in from Sitka was actually a welcome event. I saw Bob off and got home to listen to the closing moments of the game. Indiana scored their only go ahead bucket in the whole game with 3/10ths of a second left, and won the game.

I took the Salvation Army pastors and their kids shrimping today. The pastors are originally from the Czech Republic, and their kids still live there. It was the kids first visit to the US.

After a shitty, shitty May of weather – normally a best month to be here – we got calm winds and just light rain. Not bad, all things considered.

We left a little after our scheduled 8 am departure as the daughter had eaten Dungeness crab for the first time the evening before, and seems to have had an allergic reaction – swelling around her eyes.

The troop sounded like they wanted to cancel early in the morning. Because it was sprinkling. I think they thought we were going out in an open skiff, so I sent them some encouragement and a picture of the tug, and they were ready to go.

It was about a 3 hour run to the shrimping spot. I got some advice from Nick on the way, as he’d been there the most recently. We saw a couple humpback whales as we headed up the inlet, and there were lots of the various seabirds – murrellettes, murres, seagulls, scoters, Bonaparte gulls, and the like – working the waters.

When we got to the area, I ran a track at about 100 feet, and studied the sounder to be sure there were no obvious obstacles to hang the net. Then we turned around and followed the track back while I deployed the net. It’s always a cluster the first set. Tangled lines, tying lines together, etc. But we got it set and towed for about half an hour.

The haul was decent. About a 5 gallon pail full of mostly pink shrimp, with a handful of side stripes. After removing the fish and seaweed, we had about 4 gallons of shrimp.

We turned around and made another pass on a different tack. We hung up on something after 20 minutes or so, and I think it was an old crab pot buoy and line as it appeared when we got the towline hauled and pulling in the net leads.

When I went to haul back the second tow, the electric hauler didn’t work! Just dead. I reset the switch at the battery. Nothing. I put the volt tester at the battery leads on the back wall where the hauler leads bolted on: a solid 13+ volts. So, I took the line forward to the anchor capstain and hauled back the line that way. When I got the net leads up, I hauled them around to the back again to the swim step and up through the stern door. Another 1–2 gallons of shrimp the second haul. As I was sorting the mess of lines near the hauler, there it was: the battery lead from the hauler to the battery leads was laying on the deck! The wire had come out of the ring terminal crimp! Problem solved.

The pink shrimp were much larger than the tiny ones Kurt and I got in January, and there wasn’t a single shrimp carrying eggs.

The pastor mother broke out homemade bread, sliced roast pork and pickles for lunch on the way home. She cooks lunches like these for our monthly Salvation Army Advisory Board meetings, and the Eastern European foods are always great. She made rhubarb cake, too.

We got home early in the evening, and after losing my cherry spot in the harbor to a rogue gillnetter, I found a spot next to my friend Matt, who said his stall neighbor was on the grid in Hoonah, so not to worry about using the stall. Matt towed me into Funter Bay when I ran out of fuel – could it be 30 years ago?!? – and we’ve been friends ever since. He’s got teen boys now and I’ve been happy giving him lots of Paul’s steel shotgun shells for him to take his kids duck hunting on the Juneau flats.

The Czechs took what shrimp they wanted, and then I got busy getting rid of the rest of the shrimp. A lady sitting by her boat on the float near us took a handful – “this will make an omelete”. Then to the flats to Jeffy, Chris, Mila and Ben. On to Chris at the shop in the Valley for his, and then a stop at the Africans for theirs. When I got home, I scooped out a large stainless bowl full to start on, and Bob would come by later to take the remainder from the bucket.

I spent about 45 minutes pinching the heads from the shrimp and putting the heads in one bowl, and the tails in another, in full contentment.

I later put the heads in a blender and put the paste in vac pac bags to freeze, and use for shrimp cakes. The tails I put in the fridge to eat tomorrow.

Sara’s last day of the legislative session was today. I can hear her sawing logs in the other room with the TV on after another year comes to a close in the legislature.

I realized for me at the end of the day on the tug how I was bee boppin’ around on my new hip and it was all so enjoyable. Just a great frickin’ day all around.

I couldn’t wait til later to test the shrimp paste.  I took some out of the freezer, as it wasn’t frozen through yet.  Added an egg, chopped onion, Mama Lil’s peppers and spooned it out into a hot pan of butter.  Topped with kelp relish, mayo and sriracha sauce.  Pretty good!  This doubles or more our use of shrimp weight.

Dorothy helped me on the boat this morning. I needed her to get down in the engine room and remove a light fixture for me so I could put it where I could get at it, and make it work. She was a natural with the tools and working in the tight space. We soon had the fixture out and the job done. I paid her $20/hr. $10/hr for the labor, and $10/hr hush money to not tell the labor law authorities.

Her mom sent along some of the African sauce made with the beaver meat I gave them to try. CRAP, is that good. We are now beaver fans.

This afternoon, I took Dorothy’s big sister Gloria shooting again. Brian’s pilot friend flew up from Craig for a plane inspection, and brought my spare .243, which will be her deer gun for now. I knew the rifle was sighted in because I had a piece of flagging tape saying so when I uncased it. I went through the gun with Gloria on how it worked. Then I took one shot: bullseye. Ok. It’s still sighted in.

Then she shot about a dozen times. She had a tight enough group, but everything was high and to the left of the bullseye. So, I shot again to be sure the scope was dialed in. My second shot was right next to my first shot.

I called Sara’s sister in Craig, who has taught oodles of people to shoot over 30+ years being the lead Hunter Ed person on Prince of Wales. She said, oh yes. People can see differently shooting. Each person can be different on the same gun. I guess I didn’t know that. So, we just need to have her sight the gun in for her eyes the next time. Lesson learned.

I finally dug into checking my raw water pump impeller on the tug. I started to do the job last fall, and when I saw that the pump was buried below the alternator and facing rearward, I thought – I’ll leave it for now, as my engine is running fine.

The impeller change was on my list, and after doing all the other maintenance tasks on my list, only this job remained. I knew sooner or later I’d need to tackle and understand it, and I finally got to it.

We’re living in such a great time for learning engine maintenance. I searched online for replacing the impeller on my Yanmar 4JH3-TE engine raw water pump and read quite a bit of advice before I started.

I closed the raw water thru-hull seacock valve, and got down to business. I first saw the wires coming up to the alternator were weaving through the two hoses on the raw water pump. So, I disconnected the wiring and rerouted it over the hoses so it was not in the way. Next, I looked at the pump. I removed the cover plate, and saw it was not going to be easy to remove the impeller. It’s not something that just pulls out, like an air filter. I tried to pull on the impeller in the confined space, and it wasn’t moving.

Then I looked at the whole pump, and remembered a post about removing it altogether, instead of trying to remove the impeller with the pump in place. Viola. The pump is held on with just 3 bolts and a nut on a stud bolt. First, I removed both hoses from the pump, which came off surprisingly easy. Then I backed out the three bolts and the nut, which also backed out easily. The pump itself was easily grasped and removed in the palm of my hand, and I soon had it up on the deck of the helm.

Now to remove the impeller. Although no fins were missing, I could see some were broken on one side, and it was surely time for a change. One post said locking needle nose pliers were a good tool for gripping the impeller to remove it, so off I went to Ace Hardware and found the pliers for 20 bucks. I removed the impeller by locking the jaws in there, and working the impeller back and forth until it finally gave way and came out a little at a time.

From more online advice, I found a zip tie big enough to wrap around the fins of the new impeller, and tightened it so the fins were bent in the proper direction. This allowed me to install the impeller on the shaft, and as I worked the impeller inside the housing and down the shaft, the zip tie worked itself up and off the impeller as the impeller seated itself in the pump housing.

I made the mistake of replacing the old O ring with one that came with the new impeller that was the same diameter, but a smaller thickness, than the old one. I first tested the pump for leaks by pouring water in the pump and moving the gear by hand. No water leakage, so maybe I’m good. I reinstalled the pump. I opened up the through hull valve for the raw water pump intake, and started the engine. The pump leaked like a sieve…..

I removed the pump again, reinstalled the old O ring (which I cleaned off and coated in vaseline), then put a border of red RTV high temp permatex to form a gasket on the cover plate, as a back up. I screwed down the cover plate, wiped off the permatex that squeezed out, and let the pump sit for 24 hrs per the permatex directions to let the gasket dope set up.

I could have just gone with the O ring and hoped it didn’t leak, as there was no gasket there when I removed the cover plate, but I didn’t want to have to remove the pump again if I didn’t have to. So, I don’t know if it was just the O ring that made for proper sealing, or if I actually needed the additional red permatex.

When I cranked it up this time, there were no leaks. Now, the overboard raw water discharge showed a steady stream now, and not a pulsing action as with the old impeller.

One problem with the pump install is getting the nut on the stud bolt. I wish the engineers would have put that stud on the outside, where it’s easy to get to for hand starting the nut, instead of the inside next to the engine, where I can’t get my big mitt.

After several trial and errors trying to balance the nut in the socket to start it, and retrieving the nut from the bilge, I put a piece of electric tape across the mouth of the socket, and jammed the nut into the tape and into the socket. That held the nut for me to start it on the bolt. Once the nut started on the bolt, I just peeled the tape off.

So, another task learned, and ready with confidence for next time. And really glad I did this tied up to the dock, and not in an emergency situation for the first time in heavy seas. This was simple enough to do every year when I change the fuel filter.

Ellen taught me how to make this dish with halibut, and I’ve modified it for my low carb diet to salmon with dashing success!

And, it’s for a toaster oven, oven or air fryer. I used a toaster oven with “turbo” setting at 450.

Brush the piece of salmon with olive oil or melted butter or whatever oil you want.

Dice up an herb if you have it (I used basil from Juneau Greens), or use dill or salt and pepper or lemon pepper or whatever you want. It sticks nicely to the oil you brushed on.

Sprinkle almond flour on top. This is my low carb option, and you could instead use bread crumbs, cracker crumbs, or nothing at all! But the almond flour does add a nice nutty flavor, because, if you didn’t know already, almond flour is made from almonds, which are… wait for it… a nut!

I put it in a cold oven at 450 degrees for about 17 minutes. You want the thickest part to cook to a minimum of 145 degrees.

You can overcook this one a bit and still have it be moist if you eat it while hot. If you want leftovers, you’ll want to be a little more attentive not to overcook it.

That’s it! Super easy and almost foolproof.