Went clamming over on Admiralty Island. The steamer
clams have seemingly died off for some unknown reason.
I could not find them anywhere. I did discover a
beach I’d not dug on before absolutely loaded with
butter and pink neck clams.

My good friend Ken, who grew up in Hawaii and is the
local clam expert, has always been a fan of pink
necks. He showed me where to look for them once, so
when I saw the pink siphon showing in the mud, I
started digging.

I got 10 gallons of clams in no time, and it was a
beautiful spring day, with intermittent snow flakes
but mostly dry and the sun trying to peak through.
There was a lone deer on the beach when I arrived –
sure not much deer sign around, more than a year after
the big die -off.

I got the clams home, and then had to badger Ken again
on how to process them. Steamer clams are the best –
just leave in a bucket, and change the sea water for a
few days to get the grit out. Then just steam and
eat.

Pink neck clams (aka, Arctic Surf Clam) are much
larger and so you have to shuck them and clean them.
Since I could see it was way more work than I wanted
to do, as I didn’t know if I’d like this clam, I
turned hero and gave away about 3/4 of them.

The rest I cleaned. First, I tried cutting them into
strips, rolled them in cracker crumbs, and fried in
olive oil. They tasted like calamari or – get this –
clam strips….

The next night, I diced several, put in a pan with
butter, olive oil, pesto, garlic and onions, and
sauteed while pasta came to a boil and cooked. Very
nice.

Now, I’ll have to figure out how to freeze so we can
put the rest up for the summer. We don’t dig clams
after April due to PSP danger, so won’t see more till
next fall at the earliest.

One bad note- our crab pot was gone! Never had one
missing over there. Hope it was not stolen. I’m
going to email the fish cops to see if they might have
picked it up because my name had rubbed off or
something.

Also saw a mink skulking around the cabin. It had a
freshly killed rodent or bird of some kind, and when
it sensed my presence, it took it about 10 yards away,
put it down, then came back where it was to resume
hunting. Don’t know if it ever saw me, but was
certainly taking preventative measures to protect his meal.

–
Mark Stopha and Sara Hannan
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
Wild Salmon and Salmon Pet Treats
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
907-463-3115
www.GoodSalmon.com

Our DEC here is really just incredible. They
requested, out of the blue, plans for how we’d set our
boats up under a direct marketing permit to dress fish
– the issue we’ve been fighting for for going on 2
years now. This came after a fishing association
representative and our state legislator’s chief of
staff told us DEC was going to come up with a solution
to address our situation for this fishing season.

Today, we get a reply from DEC that is almost
identical to all the replies we’ve received from our
govt. to date. :

Good morning Len,
Under the current regulations your proposed activity
of purchasing and processing salmon on board your
tender vessel would be covered under the vessel
processing requirements. A direct market vessel is
only allowed to process your own harvest. The
department has been discussing with you and one other
individual possible changes to the regulations. Before
proposing these changes to the regulations, we will
need to discuss them with other stakeholders and make
a determination on the appropriateness of such action.
If the determination is to make those changes, it
would not be done in time for the upcoming salmon
season. If you want to pursue the small floating
processor permit, the department would be happy to
review any application and drawings you submit, and
work with you on ways to meet the requirements.

Best Regards,
Duane McIntire

“We’re not going to help you. You can comment on the
regulations and we’ll consider them next year.” They
sound helpful for the legislators they copy on their
emails, but in fact have been anything but.

We already “commented on their regulations” last
October, and they rejected them out of hand. No
“stakeholder” discussion as they put it in this letter
– no nothing.

The DEC division director, Kristin Ryan, went in front
of the House Fisheries Committee 2 weeks ago and told
them absolutely false information. I then had to
write each committee member and the governor and show
them what she wrote to us, and the recording of what
she said to them – it was whatever the word is for
“opposite of consistent”. Misleasding. Dishonest.
Deceptive. Pick one.

DEC’s actions mean even more of our fish will go to
China, and her administration recently touted our high
exports to China – exports that are only exporting our
labor and oversight on fish processing to China. The
fish “exported” to China are raw frozen salmon that
will be processed to a finished product and then
“exported” right back here to the US for consumption.
Rather than keep the fish here, we’re encouraging
shipping our fish there – where we have no oversight –
and having them process our fish and send it back for
us to eat.

–

Ron and I went to the cabin on Thurs, as spring is
definitely on the way. Still below freezing at night,
but we’re in the midst of a stretch of sunny skies and
starlit nights.

We had pizza topped with Elk, sauteed mushrooms and
onions for dinner. O-MY-Garage is that a good combo.
On the way back to town, we checked the crab pot, and
were happy to see they’re back. We had over a dozen.
On crossing Stephens Passage, we saw a lone female
orca on the move. I can’t remember seeing a single
female before – only males have I seen alone.

We got home to more sun. We divided up the crab
catch, then I started handing out my share two by two
to friends. We ate a couple ourselves, and what’s not
to like about fresh crab.

Spent all day Friday changing the shocks on my truck.
I am still pulling dust and rust from the corners of
my eyes and from my nose. Not much required other
than brute force and a colorful vocabulary to change
shocks. Learned a long time ago to have the sawzall
handy and ready to cut off rusty bolts, rather than
trying too hard to back off a rusty nut. The nut wins
about 99% of the time. Putting on the $200 worth of
shocks reminded me I need new tires- badly. This is
the first set of tires I’ve actually ran bald from
new. That’s gotta mean I’m getting old.

–
Mark Stopha and Sara Hannan
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
Wild Salmon and Salmon Pet Treats
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
907-463-3115
www.GoodSalmon.com

My quasi-partner Len and I today finally got our say
in front of a legislative committee here in Juneau.
When we presented our issue, every person in the room
thought what we faced was absurd. We got verbal
support from everyone – a big processor
representative, the United Fishermen of Alaska, the
Southeast Seiners Association, and most of the
legislators on the committee. The big question now is
will we actually see any movement forward. It was
gratifying, at least, to “have our say” for a day.

–
Mark Stopha and Sara Hannan
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
Wild Salmon and Salmon Pet Treats
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
907-463-3115
www.GoodSalmon.com

Some things you can’t make up. Last year or so, a
captain of our ferry system managed to run a ferry
full of passengers aground on a charted reef on a
calm, sunny day. This week, the union he and the
ferry crew were members of were AWARDED nearly half a
million dollars by the state because they “failed to
notice” the unions when they put on a private vessel
and crew to take over the run of the state ferry crew
that ran the boat up on the rocks! I am not kidding.
Read it here:
http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/031708/sta_258637595.shtml

Fortunately, one of our best friends represents the
union, so I’ve been harrassing him to no end. He also
represents members who work at our harbors here in
town – where we charge harbor fees 40 to 400% more
than are communities, which has led to much of our
commercial fleet leaving town. I told him he could
team up his unions to raise money for the harbor here.
The captains and ferry crew could start grounding
some of the larger vessels, and they could take the
money they’d get back from the state to fund the
harbor, and everybody wins!!??!!

–
Mark Stopha and Sara Hannan
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
Wild Salmon and Salmon Pet Treats
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
907-463-3115
www.GoodSalmon.com

I’ve been helping my processor offload crab. Tonight,
one of the deckhands I was helping to load the live
golden king crab into the shipping tote was telling me
stories of Bering Sea crab. How on one boat he was
on, all the captains did was smoke dope from Seattle
all the way to Dutch Harbor, and how unsafe they were.
How some fishermen make $120,000 as deck hands in a
week fishing crab. And how now, since IFQ fishing was
introduced thanks to our Senator Stevens, his boat
will catch crab for another IFQ holder, and the boat
now only gets 30% of the value of the catch – the IFQ
holder gets 70%.

Today, a very big fish pleaded guilty to corruption
here – the chief of staff for former governor
Murkowski, Jim Clarke. He is as big a republican as
they come in the state, and many who have waited for
the whales to see indictments – Senator Stevens, his
son Ben, and Rep. Don Young – may not have long to
wait. Clarke was a big surprise, and so perhaps more
are in store.

As we’ve been trying to address our issues with the
state, I feel hopeless of sorts, knowing how corrupt
our system is here, from our local government all the
way up to Congress. Do I really want to deal with
these people, or just let it go.

–
Mark Stopha and Sara Hannan
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
Wild Salmon and Salmon Pet Treats
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
907-463-3115
www.GoodSalmon.com