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

I went to Costa’s diner for my weekly installation of
news and views of owner Collette, a Juneau original.
If you get to Juneau, get to Costas. It’s right next
to the only stop light downtown.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t there. The place was
packed, but I got my coffee, wrote down my order on a
sticky note, and found a stool at the counter after
awhile in front of the window that looks out on
mainstreet.

I could see my truck parked. A raven flew and landed
on the tailgate. I have a canopy but no back window
in the canopy as I have a lift gate for getting half
totes of fish into my truck. The raven tried to look
unassuming, and kept checking that the coast was
clear. He then hopped down inside the bed, which has
always got some array of fish boxes and assorted other
stuff.

Every so often, I’d see the raven pop his head up to
look out the back to make sure the coast was clear,
and then go on with whatever he was getting in to.
The only thing I could think of was that he was
tearing open gel pacs.

Someone finally walked by, and that was all it took.
He hopped up on the tailgate as a lady approached on
the sidewalk, and when the raven realized she was
going to pass by the truck, he flew off.

When I got back to the truck, I saw he’d opened up the
pizza box I’d thrown there for recycling day, and had
cleaned up any morsels of tomatoes and cheese on the
box bottom – any eats are good eats this time of the
year for the raven. Free entertainment is always
good.

My breakfast arrived, and was down in no time – the
dreaded Mexican Breakfast Lasagna – and then off to work.

–
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

Spring is finally here. With snow down south, we’re
basking in ever longer days and highs in the mid to
upper 40s. Ranger Dug and I went out with the crab
rings to try our luck in the channel in front of town.
It’s pretty cool to be able to fish right in front of
a capital city of a state.

We caught maybe 6 or 8 dungeness and tanner crab
fishing for an hour or two. The rings are made of
rebar, about 6 foot diameter, with netting across the
rebar ring. You put some bait in the middle (we
usually use salmon scraps from my processor), and toss
the ring over with a line attached to it with a buoy
at the other end. We set about 5 rings out and then
put some water on, drink a cup of coffe, and check
them. If we do well, we throw the ring right back
where it was. If nothing, we move it deeper or
shallower to see if we can find where the crab are.
We caught lots of tanner crab that were just a hair
under the legal sized, showing the effect of the crab
fishery a month earlier that got most of the legal
sized ones. Those just undersized should be large
enough later this summer after their next molt.

After things slowed down on the Douglas Island side of
the channel, we moved to the mainland side, near the
mouth of Sheep Creek. As we were setting the rings –
I drive and try to watch our depth and Dug throws out
the rings at intervals, we happened to pass a black,
algae-laden bouy that looked like a crab pot that was
abandoned/lost. After we set the last ring, the wind
blew us back up the channel. Dug saw the black buoy
again and alerted me so we thought we’d check it.

When we brought it up, it was a dungeness pot just
loaded with huge dungeness crab and one or two
tanners. The pot was “ghost fishing”, as the prior
user did not put the required “bio twine” on the latch
strap for the pot. That strap keeps the pot lid
closed, but the strap is supposed to have a
biodegradeable piece of twine so that if the pot is
lost – like this one was – the twine will eventually
degrade and break and allow the crab to get out of the
pot. A pot without this strap just keeps fishing and
once the crab are in the pot they cannot get out. As
the crab in the pot die, they attract more crab, etc.
Not a good thing.

So, we brought back in the pot, notified the state
that we had the pot and that they could take it or
we’d, of course, keep it, and then made a lot of
friends happy distributing our bounty.

–
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