We’re under an overcast sky of uncertainty here this
season. King salmon prices are at all time high
prices. Interest in our king salmon has always been
high until now, as our prices seem to have exceeded
the price tolerance of our customers, even though our
pricing is still less than what’s out there on the
market. So, we’ve retreated from putting fish in the
freezer, and now are just delivering fresh fish and
only buying what we need for delivery.

If it were not for the high salmon prices, however,
there might be few fish available at all, as fuel
prices are so high that the high fish prices are the
only way many fishermen can afford to go fishing this
time of year, when they’re only catching one salmon
species. When the coho salmon show up, then the
poundage of salmon caught per gallon of fuel burned
will go down, but prices will likely decline somewhat
as well.

My state regulators have shut down much of our
anticipated business plan. As a troller, I dressed
(i.e., gilled and gutted) all my fish on board my boat
and iced them, as this is the way to achieve top
quality. All my fish then went through a licensed
fish processor as required by law. When I sold my
boat, I planned to buy fish right out of the water in
the round from boats, dress and ice them aboard my
tender vessel as I did my troller, and deliver them to
the same processor for butchering and packaging.
This is the same process of moving fish from the water
to the processor as occurred aboard my own boat, but
the state says since it’s not me that caught the fish,
I cannot dress the fish aboard my tender unless I get
a processing license, even though all my fish will go
through a processor again. A processing license
requires an investment of hundreds of thousands of
dollars to buy a vessel and equipment to meet the
license requirments. This would mean I’d have to run
lots and lots of fish through just to pay the overhead
– if, and only if I already had markets lined up for
millions of pounds of fish. Of course, this also
means I would not be able to care for each fish as I
do now, and therefore, I’d be a high volume,
commodity-grade operation like the rest of the
processors in the state, and therefore lose the niche
I have now.

I went through every appeal process, and was denied,
but not based on any sort of science, just politics,
and the ease of saying “no” rather than trying to work
with a tiny, high-quality producing operator like me
that actually lives and operates here in the state.
I’ve written the governor, but with an 89% approval
rating and a gas line trying to get built, I can
understand why a solitary fish buyer cannot be on her
agenda right now.

So, I’ve thrown in my lot with another catcher boat
who is essentially in the same boat as I was – he
needs more high quality salmon to meet his market
demand, but can’t get them due to the same state
regulations.

The state is just pushing more fish into the
“commodity” grade by their inflexibility – and this is
the fish that is on an exponential growth curve of
growth for reprocessing in China. And many of the
companies shipping our salmon and jobs to China for
reprossessing are companies that were awarded
marketing grants from the federal government – i.e.,
US taxpayers are now paying to move our fish and jobs
to China. The more fish that goes to China, the more
jobs we lose here, and the bigger potential for some
sort of contamination when the fish returns to our
markets from China, as we’ve seen recently with pet
and human foods, as well as toothpaste. Just think
what that will do to the Alaskan seafood industry if
our seafood returns to the US for sale is found to be
contaminated – it could be a panic. Maybe if we can
stick around long enough, that could actually drive
more people to buy from us, but neither I nor my
partner can meet our market demand, so we’ll be right
back where we are now.

I’m going to deckhand with him, and buy his pink
salmon and as much of the sockeye as he can spare (not
much) and no king salmon, as there are never enough of
those as long as the price is right. I taught him my
handling techniques, and so it will be an easy
transition working for him as we’ll both be on the
same page of quality first, volume second book of
salmon harvest.

We’ll do the best I can, and who knows, maybe find a
new path. I’m back at a fulltime job with the state
health survey lab, but am allowed to continue fishing
during my off days, so we’ll see how durable this
tired body of 43 years holds up during a couple months
of 7 days a week, 16 hour days. Funny thing is, I can
hardly wait……

–
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 pulled the crab pot this morning, and had 20 king crab in my dungeness pot. Little female crab, and the season is closed anyway, so they were just taking up the pot. So, tossed them all back, rebaited with fish heads, then returned home.

Tonight, I’m watching a black bear across the Gastineau Channel, up on the mountainside behind the high school. The jet black bears really stick out against the drab brown grass and alders. As soon as things green up, we don’t get to see them much.

Listening to the radio tonight about the Utah Jazz game. Hard to believe Carlos Boozer, now an NBA star, came from this isolated town. I think the only people not surprised at how well he’s now doing are the people here who watched him grow up, and saw his improvement and potential every year.

Went to Sitka and got a hundred king salmon from the
last 2 days of the winter troll season. After years
of pushing totes of fish up and down our docks in
Juneau, it was such a pleasure to load the fish once –
from the boat to the totes on my truck – and drive up
the ramp and onto the ferry and off to my procesor
when we returned to Juneau.

Juneau has no drive down access at any of it’s
harbors, even though the commercial fishing industry
brings in millions upon millions of dollars a year.
Hard as it is to believe, it’s easier to get on the
ferry and travel to Sitka to get fish than it is to
load them right here in Juneau.

Sitka was bustling with activity. Trollers were
coming in with fish, getting historically high prices
for their catch, and spring was in the air. Good to
see the commercial fishing sector in an upbeat mood.
Boats there looked alot better cared for than when I
was looking for a boat 6 years ago, when salmon prices
were bottoming out.

The king salmon were the largest average weight I’d
ever seen. After caring for the fish at my processor
here in Juneau, I delivered to our local customers,
and we bought a fish for ourself. Boy howdy, are
those winter king salmon great – full of oil and fat,
not to mention it’s been 6 or 8 months since we last
had fresh king. Seemed like all my customers felt the
same way, and glad I was able to find good fish in
Sitka.

Had to cancel a second trip to Sitka this week. The
spring fishing is restricted to near shore areas, my
truck broke down, and the weather is crap. So, we’ll
try again next week.

–
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

For some reason, I thought about a trip to Sitka to
buy king salmon from the last 2 days of the winter
king season. Prices had falled from the highs of over
$8 at the dock, so I thought maybe I could go buy a
few fish and get some king salmon as we’ve been out
for months.

Turned out the ferry schedule was perfect. I work at
my other job Wed-Sun. The ferry left Mon at 8 am, and
returned on Wed at 945 am, so I’d be back in time for
work at 1 pm (I work swing shift). I got out of work
on Sun. evening at 8 pm, and then had to get all my
totes out and santized and on the truck. Sara helped
me to take the cap off the truck first, then I loaded
up the totes. Then to find the fish tickets and my
licenses, etc so I could buy fish.

I’d called my friend Paul in Petersburg, and another
friend Chris in Juneau for some ideas on who might be
fishing over here that I or they would know. Paul
gave me a friend here in Sitka, and his friend Dave
gave me the name of his friend, Jim, who had plenty of
fish to sell. Chris reminded me to call Hank, an
oldtimer who everyone knows and loves. Hank gave me
the name of a troller who started trolling the same
year I did, and who was trolling out of Sitka. I
called him, and he had a dozen or so fish to sell.
So, I knew I would get a few fish, at least, and the
ferry was not so expensive that I’d be losing alot of
money if I couldn’t get any fish, as my buddy Bob now
works here, and Sitka is a good place to go just about
anytime. You can’t drive to Sitka (or anywhere else,
for that matter) from Juneau, so the ferry is the only
option to take your vehicle.

Got on the ferry about 7 am. The fast ferry is a
catamaran and can make it to Sitka in 4 hours. Once
in Sitka, I went to the first processor I could find,
and they agreed to sell me ice, although the manager
was a little wary, asking me questions about what I
was doing. I just told the truth, that I was here to
buy fish, and I think when he saw I wasn’t taking tons
of ice, he wasn’t as worried about me taking fish that
may have come to his plant.

I picked up the dozen fish from the first boat, and
then 2 boats from Juneau showed up with plenty of big
beautiful king salmon. They had about 60 fish between
them, and the average weight was over 17 lbs dressed –
the largest avg. weight kings I’d ever seen from
trollers. I wasn’t thrilled with some of their cohos
I purchased last year, and told them so. It must have
got through, because the fish were absolutely
gorgeous, and they did not even know I was coming, so
I was really happy to see the quality that was as good
as I can produce when fishing myself.

We offloaded both boats, and I spent a good chunk of
the rest of the day rearranging the totes on my truck
to maximize space usage and, as I had to stack totes
on top of the other, to make it so the totes on top
would be wedged forward and not want to slip off. My
3/4 truck is straining under the totes, and some
expressed concern about the load, but it doesn’t
concern me yet because I know I’ve had it loaded down
with firewood more than it is now.

The two boats I bought from recently moved their boats
from Juneau to Hoonah, because the harbor fees in
Hoonah are $745 / year, and in Juneau are now up to
$1,850 / year.

I ran for the city assembly last year to bring this
issue forward, but nothing has changed, and more and
more boats are leaving town. It’s kind of sad when I
have to come all the way to Sitka to buy fish because
the boats aren’t coming back to Juneau anymore, but we
were all happy to see Sitka get the fish tax dollars,
rather than Juneau, where the commercial fleet has no
political support. It may just take time for the
citizenry to see what’s happening, but it may be that
the commercial fleet dwindles to a shadow of it’s
former self, because the industry is “invisible” in
that most of it’s activity takes place out on the
water, away from sight in town, and because most folks
in town are state workers not associated with the
industry. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I
can’t do much about it, and so am just looking to keep
my business going by doing whatever it takes.

Life can be short up here. Especially when someone
goes down or falls out of a boat. There’s not many
people to see something happen, and the water is so
cold you don’t have much of a chance.

An eagle scout, scoutmaster, (and my lawyer) dropped
his kid off last night from their skiff on their
beach, and then he headed back to the boat launch to
take his boat out. That was at 5 pm last night, and
the last time anyone saw him. His skiff was found at
6:30 pm, out in the bay, with the motor still running.
Front page on the news paper today
w(www.juneauempire.com).

The whole town was in shock. In a town not
particularly interested in their commercial fishing
industry, he was one of the leading lawyers and
supporters for the industry in Juneau and the region.

No one expected a good outcome. I even went out to
the harbor where he was supposed to trailer his boat
to see if there was anything I could do. I watched as
the Coast Guard boats searched the area till about 11
am.

I had a load of frozen salmon in my truck to take to
another processor. Just as I was about to pass the
office of a mutual friend of myself and the missing
man, the news came over the radio – Bruce Weyhrach was
found alive. He’d swam to an island and collapsed. A
local dog search and rescue team found him,
hypothermic but alive. He’s gonna make it. I was
more shocked when he was found alive than when I saw
he was missing. A freakin’ miracle.

–
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 took my skiff over to our cabin at Horse Island
yesterday afternoon. After 2 months of wrangling with
the state over regulatory issues, much of that stress
drained away when I rounded the corner to the boat
launch, and saw the mountains with snow through the
clear sunshine of the late afternoon. I’d collected
many issues of old Alaska magazines by listening to
our buy-sell-trade show. A lady had tried selling
them for a time, and then said the magic word “free”
and I was there asap. The old Alaska magazine were
stories written by ordinary Alaskans living all over
the state – from teachers to fishermen to trappers to
hunters. Not like today’s version, which is
essentially a tourist guide to the state.

I post-holed through the snow into the cabin with all
those magazines on my back and a few in a bucket in
one hand, food in the other. I stopped often to rest.
I was lucky Ron had been there a few days earlier, as
I at least had footprints to mark the covered trail,
which is easy to lose.

I spent the evening and next morning listening to the
bad news in Virginia and reading the life of Alaska
for which I came here for, but which I feel I was a
little late for. I’m sure people decades from now
will yearn for these “good old days” as well. Seeing
the freedom the early entrepreneurs had free of much
of the unneccsary and overbearing government
regulation we have today in fish handling made me know
those days are gone.

Today, I decided to take the long way around the
island, walking away from the boat first to the front
beach and then walking around the end of the island
back to the boat. This was much better, since it’s in
the big timber and there was no snow. As I rounded
the corner to the back of the island, a sound of
spring stopped me in my tracks: a hooter calling out
from Admiralty Island. These are the blue grouse that
inhabit our rainforest. The males begin staking out
territories and calling females by getting up into the
tree tops and “hooting”, which sounds like blowing in
a bottle. We usually hunt these birds during this
time of the year, but with all the snow, I don’t know
this year. We’ll have to see if we are able to resist
the sound of the hooters – snow or no snow.

On the way back to Douglas Island, I spied two
humpback whales. A cow and calf, I think. Another
sign of spring.

–
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