Mark Stopha - Alaska Wild Salmon Company

Springtime in Alaska

It’s been an incredible second week of May here in Juneau town. In the 70’s during the day and light winds. It got to 80 a few days ago in Ketchikan and Craig. Meanwhile, it’s been snowing back in my hometown of Bolivar, NY.

I boated over to check the crab pots. Nothing but a couple small tanners in 4 pots!

I got a Lazyboy rocker recliner on Craiglist that was the exact same model we had in the house, and I packed this in to the cabin. The woodpile on the porch had fallen over, so I restacked it, ate some African food Andrew gave us for lunch, then took a sweet nap in the new recliner.

I planned to pick devils club buds today, but when I got down to the beach, I saw I was too late. The leaves had burst the bud sheaths and were past picking. But wait, I looked some more, and here and there were a few that were still good. So I spent some time and got a half a nut container of buds. I’d noticed lots of devils club along the road near the boat launch, so I headed back home and thought I’d try there.

In any other year, there would be whale watching and other tour boats galore out on the water. Now, just me and another local on the glassy water as there’s no cruiseships this summer due to the corona virus. Perhaps the first time there are no cruiseships or steamships coming to Juneau since before the gold rush in 1898.

There were some good stands of devils club by the boat ramp that still had pickable buds, and plenty of stands that were too far along. I picked down the road for a quarter mile or so and got maybe a couple quarts of buds.

Later, I drove up to look at the pasture where we get fiddleheads and nettles, expecting it to still be snow covered, and I was surprised to see it had all melted and there was even some green starting to show. So time to get up there.

Second Hand Crab Pots

Jeff and I have the same affliction. We both like look at other people’s stuff and buying other people’s stuff. With no garage sales and the thrift store closed due to the virus, we made a plan- to cruise the beaches where people set their crab pots and see if we could find any derelict pots ghost fishing. I’ve happened along pots a few times when I would just happen to be out at a minus tide. The pots are not hard to spot – buoys and the crab pot line are covered with mussels and seaweed. Sometimes you can’t even see the buoy, but the clump of seaweed growing on it doesn’t look quite natural.

As we launched the boat, I could hear a hooter up the hill. I thought I’d go try to find him when we got back. We’re in for a stretch of beautiful May weather – in the 60’s and sun for several days.

The first pot we found was a commercial dungy pot. It had been there so long most of the framing had dissolved so it was just a circle of stainless steel mesh. We cut out the escape rings for use on other pots, and took the line and buoys.

The next pot we found was a jackpot, really. It was clearly a commercial pot because it had a special tab required by law for these pots. The buoy was covered with algae, but not seaweed or shellfish, so I figured it was not too long lost – probably from the most recent commercial opening last fall. We could read the numbers on the buoy. When I looked them up, I was happy to see I knew the boat. It was the same boat that saved Bob and I several years ago when my skiff capsized at anchor while we were out deer hunting. Talk about karma.

Jeff and I continued our tour, and saw a big shiny black bear on the beach, then a sea lion, a humpback whale, but no more pots. Nobody was out and about except for a few local kayakers. Fishing is closed for king salmon and the cruiseship season is cancelled.

As soon as I got home, I called the crab boat skipper. Turns out he lives just out the road from us a couple miles, so delivered his pot to him. He wanted to give me the pot, but I refused- this was great partial payback for me.

Hooters. Again. Finally.

Finally got out hooter hunting after, if I remember right, I didn’t go at all last season. It seems like years are passing in 100 days now.

Bob and I went to a spot I hadn’t been since my Bolivar classmates came years ago. It was Bob’s first time hooter hunting. He’d harvested spruce grouse up north, but not these big grouse in Southeast Alaska.

We found a beach to anchor that was fairly protected from the 1 foot chop. The winds weren’t to come up today, so I thought it would be okay. When we beached the boat to offload our gear, there was a beautiful plastic boat dock cart that somehow floated to this remove beach. In great shape. We were already making money for the trip.

We couldn’t hear many birds hooting as I anchored the boat and rowed to shore in the punt. It was a beautiful day. Partly cloudy, dry, and on its way to about 50 degrees.

As soon as we got out of the white noise of breeze and waves on the shore and entered the big woods, we heard birds. We got to the first one after a short hike. We looked for this bird for 45 minutes or so. It wasn’t in the worst place I’d ever seen, but the bird was sitting somewhere up there that we just could not detect it. At least that’s what I hoped it was, and not that I have 56 year old eyes and Bob’s eyes are a decade older.

We finally gave up and side-hilled to the next bird, again a short hike on about the same elevation This bird, too, seemed to evade us. We looked and looked and I thought – is this how it’s gonna be all day? That we never see a bird? After 20 minutes or so, I finally spotted the bird. When Bob looked at it, he didn’t think it was a bird. Then it moved.

I forgot to stop to get my 12 gauge shotgun I’d stashed at another skiff I have stashed in the area, but as Bob had a .410 over .22 and his .44 pistol, and because there were two of us, I didn’t go back to get it as I felt we were okay for the birds and protection from bears. I got this bird with the .410, and we side-hilled again a short hike to the next bird.

This time, it took us 5 minutes or less to spot the bird. He was high up in the tree, right next to the trunk, and facing away from us. I positioned myself below the tree in case the bird flushed, so I could see where it landed, and on the third shot with the open sites, but hit the bird with the .22. The bird immediately glided towards the ground about 50 yards to the right of Bob. I couldn’t see where the bird landed, but Bob did, and he mentally noted some land marks to where we’d search. He got to the spot, and I joined him about 5 minutes later from my position. There were blueberry bushes under the trees and a couple little creeks and the open green of the forest floor. I was very doubtful we’d find the bird since it went so far. It could run on the ground, and I’ve seen wounded birds crawl under a deadfall or into a hole to hide. We kept looking. I went a little further away than Bob was looking and as I crested the side of a little creek- there it was. I couldn’t believe it. Bob came over and collected his bird and we were both relieved, and I especially happy that Bob got a bird. On my way back to get our packs, I found a 3 point with eye guard shed as a bonus.

We went downhill to the next bird hooting, again a short hike. We found an almost full set of deer bones on the way. The bird was in a tree located in a muddy little flat that had lots of skunk cabbage. There were several deer tracks in the mud. And a very recent brown bear track. We saw this bird even faster than Bob’s bird. I laid down and had my back against a log and shot. And missed. The bird flushed, and went to a nearby copse of tree tops, but we didn’t see exactly where. No feathers fell from it, and it looked like the bird was flying in good health. We hoped it would start hooting again, but it did not. We decided to call it a day and head back to the boat.

I’ve hunted the side of this ridge for 20+ years, but rarely, if ever, happen to get to this section during deer season. I’ve been here a few times hooter hunting. We came to a series of beaver ponds. We weren’t sure if the ponds were active or not. Then we saw some fresh beaver sign. The beavers were working on a big tree 2 to 3 feet – maybe more- in diameter. One side was about chipped to the middle, and on the other side the beavers had stripped the bark and started in. Almost look out of place in the wilderness where we were standing. Like it was man made.

We ambled our way along the ponds, and found our way down to the beach, right where we came in. The boat was just about to go dry, and we got there too late to skid it into the water. We figured we had 3 hours to wait til the tide went the rest of the way out and came back in. We pulled the birds out of our packs, and plucked and dressed while we sat in the beach grass in the evening sun. As we lauched the boat on the rising tide, two mink ran by, one chasing the other and chirping. Spring is in the air.

Ten years ago I would have thought two birds for the day wasn’t that much and how I need to get back and get more before the season ends. Now, it was just a perfect day in the woods. I had some expected leg cramps overnight, but other than that, I slept like a baby. Luckier than ever to live here and still be able to get around, stiff knees and all.

A little surprise in my deer

So, I just went into the garage this morning and noticed 3 of these grubs laying under the road kill deer I dressed for the food bank (see pic) and wondered- where did they come from??

Did some critter come in and leave them? No tracks in the blood or any sign of disturbance.

Something in the ceiling that was dislodged when I pulled the line up through the pulley? No sign of that.

Then I saw it – something in the deer’s nose sort of peeking out of a nostril. I got the grabber off my workbench and reached up and pulled it out and realized – they are coming out of the deer’s nose! The don’t seem alive when you touch them on the ground, but they are obviously are, as they are moving up and out of the nose.

First two words that came to mind were Nas Tee.

I looked them up on the web and of course, they are common – bot fly larvae.

So Why The Bot Fly?

I’ve never seen them on any deer I’ve ever harvested or cut up. I think I remember a different phase of the bot fly larvae under some caribou skin once, but never blacktailed deer. Could be their life cycle is such that the larvae only exit the nose during months of the year when we don’t normally harvest them.

Hunker Down Day in Douglas

Well, there’s now a statewide hunker down order. Which for me basically means to carry on and business as usual.

I got up early to check on the bagel dough I made last night. It looked ready enough to me. So I made it into a dozen bagels and put the dough in the fridge.

Then I found the smallest pair of cross country skis we had – some old hickory wood skis with 3 pin bindings that were Sara’s. I hoped these would work for skate skis for Sam. I removed the old bindings and mounted NNN bindings I just got in the mail for another pair of my skis so they’d fit Sam’s boots.

I made salmon berry jelly later in the morning from some juice I didn’t see when I made cherry and high bush cranberry jellies earlier in the week from other juices saved in the freezer.

Later in the afternoon, I made my first batch of sourdough bagels using starter from Laura. Wow, are they good and seem pretty hard to mess up. They just take a couple days to make and they aren’t gonna last long so I need to make several batches at a time and freeze the rest.

Then my daily cross country ski at Eagle Crest. The groomer was working the trail as we got there and it was fantastic. Unfortunately, the skis didn’t work for Sam as they acted like classic skis, even though I scraped off the old kick wax and put glide wax all the way down.

I got home and got a message from Sara that she’d be home from the legislature between 830 and 9 pm so I took out some ling cod from the freezer, planning to make deep fried.

Then the Juneau Police dispatcher called. Did I want to get a deer for the Salvation Army Foodbank? You bet I do. Where is it, I ask. She gives me the address, and it’s literally walking distance from the house. So I get knives and tarps and buckets together in the garage, and head out to find the deer.

It took me awhile to find it in the waning daylight, but there she was in the ditch. Still warm.

I put her on a tarp I keep in the car for this purpose and drove the 100 yards back to the house.

When I open the deer up to remove the innards, something looked out of place. Like there was something extra. And there was. A fetal buck and doe. Twins. And not far from being born.

Sara pulls up from a long, long day at the Capital, and when I tell her about the twins, she calls her former colleague at the high school who is a biology teacher to see if he wants them.

I pile the innards into a bucket, and save the heart and liver.

I pull the deer up by the neck on at rope through the pulley mounted in the ceiling that lives there for that purpose, and soon have the hide off and into another bucket. Then I yard the deer all the way to the ceiling so it should be out of the reach of any weasels or marten around the house. The temperature is perfect for hanging, and the deer will be fine there for days.

Back at the house, I put the heart and liver in a bowl of cold water and add salt to draw out the blood. Then I email Shane, the current Salvation Army major here with his wife, and tell him I’ve got a deer for the food bank. I tell him about the fetuses, and am sure to copy the former major Dana, who gets squeamish just by the word blood, and her husband Lance, who will be happy I did.

The deer meat could not have come at a better time with so many people suddenly out of work.

Jam, Sausage and the Flu

Finally got out to set some crab pots earlier in the week. I set them, spent the night at the cabin, and checked the next day. Just a couple tanner and a dungy but all the bait in the jars eaten up so must be lots of sand fleas down there. I rebaited and will let them soak a couple days. Not much going on at the island. No snow under the trees but about a foot in the open area of the trail to the cabin. Had a peaceful night reading old Alaska magazines and drinking coffee.

When I got home, I decided it was time to do some canning to get ready for next year. I pulled out 42 cups of blueberries – I bag them in 4 cup batches so I don’t have to measure when I take them out, and got to making jam. I didn’t use pectin and tried to duplicate the jam my nephew Eaton and I made last summer, but the jam was runny. I think I tried to make too big of a single batch instead of smaller batches. I let the jam sit a few days thinking I could just use a spoon instead of a knife to use it, but I finally couldn’t take it. I bought some pectin, poured all the runny jam into the pot, and put it to simmer. I then pulled off 8 cups at a time and added pectin, sugar, and lemon juice from a fix for runny jam I found online, and redid it all. Came out good this time. Jello-y but not too stiff. I noticed when I was in the store, the shelves were full, including toilet paper, as I’d heard things were low due to the mass panic over the coronavirus.

After the jam was done, I got to making something from the Stikine River geese and ducks in the freezer. I knew Sara had picked up some organic pork fat on her way through Seattle at a farmer’s market, so I decided to make breakfast sausage. I found the waterfowl has to be frozen well or it will come through the grinder pasty. When I saw that happening from some of it that was pretty well thawed, I stopped and put it back in the freezer till it was frozen but just barely pliable enough to cut through. The frozen fat ground beautifully. I made two 10 lbs batches, with 16 lbs of waterfowl and 4 lbs of pork fat. I first mixed the ground fat and fowl together. And no way to do it really than by hand, but it’s easy to tell when it’s well mixed since the fat is so white and stands out from the reddish bird meat. One batch was to be kind of an Italian blend with fennel and parsely and the other sage and thyme and . I measured the spices for each, and put them in a little food processor to mix them well. Like mixing the fat, the spices have to be well worked throughout the meat by hand. The meat was so cold I had to pause a few times to let my hands warm. After both batches were done I made a little patty from each batch and fried it to test the recipe. It’ll work.

Sara wanted me to get some frozen vegetables in case something happened to supply of fresh vegetables. I’ve got enough canned salmon, deer, jam, high bush cranberry ketchup, fiddleheads to last a year, along with some canned shellfish and kelp relish from Sara’s sister. That’s not counting any of the moose, ling cod, salmon, deer, blue berries, cherries and cranberries still in the freezer. We’ve got rice and flour and sugar and other staples here and there. I’m not worried about any food supply. But seems like lots of people are. When I went for the vegetables, Costco was mobbed. Long lines at all the registers. And this is mid-day on a Thursday. Not a Friday night.

During President Obama’s term, somebody got someone to start a rumor that gun ammunition was going to be restricted or outlawed or something, and suddenly – and then for a long time – it was hard to get .22 ammo. Stores were putting limits on how much you could buy. And the tighter the limits, the more the demand, even if you wouldn’t shoot that much ammo in your lifetime. The power of the NRA.

Under President Trump? It’s toilet paper! Our Costco here is actually limiting the amount of TP per customer because people are going crazy buying 20 cases at a time, according to one of the checkout people. The media has people in such a panic they are worried that somehow what- TP is going to be outlawed? And, unlike .22 ammo, there are alternatives. Tissues. Paper towels. We used Newsweek Magazine pages in the Peace Corps. The power of NPR.

The panic is complete. I’ve got .22 ammo and toilet paper currently in stock. If I was a prepper, I’d have my gun loaded next to the door and my TP in a safe underground. Luckily I’m not, so the guns stay in the safe, and I look forward to helping my neighbors if they run out of ammo or need a roll.