Mark Stopha - Alaska Wild Salmon Company

Back to fishing

Got in a couple days of hand trolling the past two days. Had my best days for coho hand trolling in my second year, two days in a row. My friend Gordy had his best day yesterday, too, fishing south of me, and he’s been hand trolling a long time.

And wow, is my back sore from cleaning because my cleaning trough is too low. Got to take tomorrow off at least. Now that I don’t need the money, my health takes priority over fish checks, and my back needs to be in good shape to go elk hunting with Roy in about a month.

The fish were coming about as fast as I want to have them come yesterday for awhile. I had to quit pulling fish and just clean, and in doing so, realized I should let the lines load up with fish like that all the time as the fish on the hooks attract other fish to hooks without a fish. I had four fish on each side – with the only hooks not with a fish were fouled and maybe one of the hootchie hooks was bare. Of course, fish could have got on and off with all the soak time as I was cleaning the other fish.

Coho dock price from my buyer is $3.50/lb, so the pay checks are somewhat stunning just for catching the coho with cannon manual downriggers rigged for trolling.

Of course, I lost the first fish of the day and the last. Both hogs. And I think each time – there goes 35 bucks.

Still refining my little troll show. Realized I can just take out one of the benches behind the captain seats and put the cooler there, instead of having it in the way all the time, so that’s one of the next projects. I must get some welding done for better mounting of the downriggers, too.

I started off just fishing flashers and hootchies as that’s what I’d been catching coho on sport fishing. I put in an orange spoon here and there as well. When I saw the coho start to hit the spoons, I swapped the flashers to spoons, except for some 4 inch flashers I got from Cabelas to try. They seem to work okay at times, and create no drag on the wire like the bigger flashers do.

Yesterday a humpback whale surfaced right next to me, then started cutting in front of me. I yelled to him or her, and she seemed to hear me and dove across my bow at a safe distance.

God on our side

We have the sister of one of my best friends who I met at graduate school who passed away too young in December, along with her husband, in town. They are both Methodist pastors from Mississippi. And they seem to have put God on our side, if God chooses sides. When we got to the harbor to take a trip to Haines with Larry on Wednesday, we got the parking spot right next to the ramp we had to descend with our day packs of food and clothes. Yesterday, the fishing was as hot as I’ve seen it. We had several instances where we had coho on both rods, and we did not lose any fish that got hooked. On the way home, we saw a group of orcas – 2 cows, a bull and an itsy bitsy calf and shared the viewing with just one other boat. We got to watch them as they cruised up the shoreline towards Pt Retreat Lighthouse. We had fresh salmon for dinner. While I was butchering the catch, I called to the new neighbor kids to ask their dad if they wanted a fish for dinner. He and the kids then came over, and the youngest picked out their fish from the cleaned fish in the tub. It was our first time meeting the dad and we’re glad to have such personable new neighbors like our good friends who moved were. And nice to have more kid chatter in the neighborhood.

Whales and Salmon

Took Andrea, Christopher and Odessa whale watching and sea lion watching today after leaving for the cabin yesterday afternoon, catching a coho, and spending the night at the cabin. After the watching, we put the gear out for coho fishing. We caught 4 or 5 coho in an hour or two. The kids are a well oiled machine now. I butchered the fish, and the kids rinsed and bagged and vac packed while I ran to find a new fridge as our old fridge acted up again. We had white king salmon for dinner with corn Andrea brought, and then I took off the doors to the new fridge to get it into the house, swapped the way the door opened at Sara’s request, then plugged in the new fridge. We had rhubarb crisp for dessert while the new fridge was cooling.

I wish I was 13 years old again

I’ve had 13 year old boy (Christopher) and girl (Odessa) twins here for the week. We went fishing the day they got in, caught a coho, had it for dinner, and they were hooked on fishing. Are we going fishing tomorrow is the question each evening. We stayed at our cabin a few days, and the day it was too windy to fish, we picked berries. Most years, the island is covered in blueberries and blue huckleberries, with red huckleberries here and there. This year, red huckleberries are the only game in town, and we picked for a couple hours til we had enough for a batch of jam. We caught 4 big coho the next day and butchered and vac packed those back at the house. We also caught some huge dungeness crab – my first decent catch of the season – and had those for dinner. These kids are lucky.

The next 3 days we went to Chatham Strait. There’s a new ADNR cabin there I’d rented from Mon to Wed. We got an early start as the kids wanted to get fishing. We arrived at my spot at about high tide at 8 am or so. I put the first rod out, and as I was rigging the second rod, we got a coho on. Odessa reeled it in, and I put that rod back out. As I was getting the second rod ready to go, the first rod hit again. This happened at least a third time. The rest of the fish were shaker kings, though, so we were still on the first coho when I finally got the second rod out. The kids got to fighting over who was driving and who was fishing as we got on fish after fish. We caught a dozen cohos and a nice white king, over the next several hours. By early afternoon, I’d filled one of the coolers with dressed coho and ice, and we were ready to go find our cabin across the strait. I texted their mom. Time to get a freezer, which she did the next day.

We found the cabin and got ourselves settled in. The kids love salmon so we had fried salmon and venison pepper pieces for dinner with instant potatoes and beach asparagus. It was supposed to blow the next day, so we were sort of expecting a cabin day on Tuesday. We did try to fish for about 30 minutes, but it was too rough, so back to the cabin. Odessa was tormenting her brother, and then me, and I put my rain gear on and went looking for some berries to pick. The weather picked up as predicted, and I had to move the boat twice over the next 12 hours. The kids made dinner with bagels and cream cheese and jarred smoked salmon.

Today, we slept in and packed up as the winds laid down. We headed back to our fishing hole, and the crossing was a little lumpy. Both kids were a little sea sick, so I said we’ll just fish the drag from one end to the other and pick up and go and they agreed to that. We got 3 more nice coho, and headed for home.

The kids are constantly bickering over 13 year old things, but the twins sure do make a good work team. I filleted and sectioned the fish, Odessa rinsed the pieces, Christopher put the fish into bags, and when I was done butchering, I started vac packing. When Odessa was done with the rinsing, she took over vac packing. They are good workers. And good fishing companions. Mom gets here tomorrow for the next three days then they will all leave together.

Mark’s Alaska Blog

Back to the good.

We had to call off the scout boat trip to an island cabin because the weather is just too marginal, so we’re going to camp at a local camp ground. And we’re gonna get wet. Again. Real wet.

There was a lull between lows and I already had the boat hooked up to the truck from when I drove out the road today to check on the weather, so I ran down the road to the boat launch and headed to a spot in sight of the ramp. I caught a small coho in the first 15 minutes and thought – I’m in to them. Then the wind slowly rebounded as forecast, and I didn’t get another strike for an hour. Porpoises were slashing around me. They didn’t look like Dall’s porpoise, but were the color of harbor porpoises. Only they looked a little big for harbor porpoises, so not sure what they were. I pulled up the line once and the flasher and hootchie were gone and I wondered if one of the porpoises cut it.

I put on new gear as the wind continued to increase. I got a larger bright coho on this time. When I got it to the surface there were other big coho with it. I thought. Now I’m really into them. When I conked the fish with the gaff, I knocked it off the leader. As it floated away, I gaffed it right in the middle of the body and brought it aboard. I staggered in the chop to got more new gear on, but thought- I can’t fish too well in this wind, so I turned toward the dock and fished into the cove til I was out of the wind. Then I cleaned the fish and pulled my gear in. Fish for dinner tonight, and some for the freezer. Felt good to be fishing. Like it almost always does.

Family in Town

My sister, her husband, and their grown daughter and son were here last week. Fishing was pretty good. Everyone caught fish. Everyone went fishing but didn’t want to go everyday. Which was great for me, because of course I did want to go and so got to go almost every day and I got a lot of fishing in.

We started the week as crew for my friend Larry’s landing craft. We spent the day traveling to Tenakee and back. We saw whales bubble net feeding down near Tenakee and Larry was more than happy to stop and watch awhile. Everyone who wanted to drive for awhile was welcome to do so with Larry by their side for conversation and instruction. I sent the crew ashore in Tenakee to explore the town while Larry and I offloaded. Everyone in Tenakee is happy to see Larry coming to town with their freight.

We spent most of the rest of the week out fishing. We got enough coho and pinks from our boat, and bought some sockeye from Chris, to fill a couple smaller fish boxes for the parents for the winter. I took some of the crew up to Little Island to see the sea lions. We cooked what we normally do – salmon and halibut and venison – and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

Nephew Matthew stayed on for an extra week before leaving for graduate school in Hawaii. We hand trolled out in Chatham and caught a few fish every day. Matthew was content driving while I ran the gear and cleaned the fish. It is purely a pleasure to be able to just fish with someone else at the wheel. Matthew was a natural at driving, avoiding kelp and other boats, and always asking if he had a question.

He’s had quite a life in in his 20 something years, having lived in Canada, Vietnam, Haiti, and most recently South Korea. As a result, we hadn’t ever spent much time together and so slow days hand trolling were a perfect setting to catch up.