Home Mark Stopha

A year’s salmon

Went dipnetting for sockeye salmon with my 2 college friends and one of their friends on the Kenai River this weekend.  I flew up to Kenai after driving the whale watch boat here on Friday, we dipnetted the afternoon tide on Saturday and the morning tide on Sunday and got all the fish each of us wanted.  It was the usual madhouse of 200-300 boats of every size and power, with boats drifting under power along the banks and then running back up the thalweg to get back in line to drift again, creating an egg beater with 2 to 3 foot waves at times.  But everyone seems a good neighbor and I’ve yet to see anyone yelling at each other in my 2 years of fishing there.  Some people you can tell are not as good at running boats as others, but they at least seem to try to stay out of other’s way.
I dressed the fish at the river at Keith’s Beaver Creek Cabins and Guide Service and then chilled them in ice and water for the trip to Anchorage with Todd and his parents.  I planned to just send the coolers down on air freight and was stunned to arrive at Alaska Airlines Airfreight on Sunday.  And find it closed.  In the middle of the summer.  Wow.  So we scrambled for fish boxes at Fred Meyers (sold out) and then to Walmart, where I bought 3.  I first each box with fish and gel packs and Todd dropped me at the airport. I then took fish out of each box at a vacant airport luggage scale until they were 50 lbs per box, and put the extra fish into the soft case cooler with gel pacs that I carried on. To round it off, I somehow lost my boarding ticket from Security to gate C4, walked all the way back with the back pack and heavy -ass soft cooler and did not see it, so went back to C4 and the agent issued me another ticket.  It ain’t easy bein’ me.

I ran whale watch boat on Monday till 9 pm, and then Sara helped me fillet, portion, vac pack, and freeze the fish about 3 hours.  We are set for salmon for the year.  I watched Keith a little closer this time when he was cleaning his fish on how he filleted and noticed I was better at it when I did it last night.  I also noticed how he bagged the portions as we cut them, which saves another rinse as the portions can get slimy if they are are sitting in a bucket all together.

Perfect Sockeye

Sara and I bought some sockeye from Len’s boat yesterday for some friends coming to town.  Even though I know what to expect, it’s still impressive to see perfect salmon.  Len’s fish are pressure bled and all kidney removed.  All I had to do was fillet the sides off then Sara helped me to portion and vac pack.  No further removal of viscera here and there or further rinsing.  I don’t trim fins or ribs.  We filleted, portioned and packaged the dozen or so fish in about an hour I would guess and these fish will still be good a year from now from the freezer.

Drowned Rats

Been pouring rain here the past few weeks. Which is a comfort after last year’s sunny weather and the potential for lots of visitors to think this would be a great place for them to move to. Bob and I took my new boat out to Pt. Retreat. Cozy cabin. Fast boat. Comfortable seats. We were both getting used to it in a hurry. It was pea soup fog that we thought we could idle out of but it took an hour or more of going round in circles, even with a GPS, and the scary fog horn and radio chat with the ferry before we busted out of it into Stephens Passage and on around to Chatham Strait. We fished with several other boats. Caught a big early coho, then a pink, within minutes of each other, but nothing else. Didn’t see any other fish caught but many of the boats were too far away to see. Warm, dry cabin in the pouring rain. We were already used to it and looking forward to more of warm and dry during deer season.

Tire Assistance

At 50, I marvel at how long I can do something and never hear of a simple trick to make a job easier. Take splitting wood for example. Yes, I know about the wood splitter, which I find tedious bending over and putting the wood back up for another split, etc. Boooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrinnnnggg. So I split away with a maul. Then searching something on woodsplitting one day on the net, I see a few sites about putting a tire on the chopping block to put the wood your splitting it. Wah freakin’ Lah. Keeps the wood from falling off each time you split, and when your done, you have all the wood neatly split inside the tire to deposit on the pile and put another round in. Seemed like it cut the time to split a round in half or less. No time spent idly bending over for the split pieces to split again, and all the good physical work of swinging the maul.

Boat Camping

Had plans to do stuff like clean the bottom of my boat this weekend, but when Sara said she wanted to go on a weekend trip on the Sea Lion, it was easy to drop everything and go.  As usual, she spent the early part of Friday planning and getting everything ready while I ran whale watch boat.  We left in the evening and ran down to Green Cove for the night.  Saw a deer on the beach there.  We could not go to our destination of Olivers Inlet until the next day as we had to wait till high tide.  
Next day we ran up to Olivers Inlet.  Sara got on the bow to look for rocks as we ran up the channel on the high tide.  Always a bit of a white knuckler through there but we got through with no problems.  Sara wanted to see some bears and about 2/3 of the way in I saw one on the west shore.  We idled up to where it was feeding on beach grass, and I killed the engine.  I tried to ease over the anchor and keep the chain quiet but either the noise spooked the bear , or it winded us, but in any case, it took off into the trees.  We heard some weird squealing sounds in the woods and couldn’t tell if it might be the bear or a raven – ravens can make all kinds of sounds.
We enjoyed the sunny day and later on the bear came back.  It may have been a sow as it had rub marks on its hind quarters where a male could have been hanging on, as it’s mating season.  A while after seeing the one bear on the west shore, another larger bear was lumbering down the east side of the channel.  I thought maybe a boar looking for a sow.  It walked all the way to the head of the bay and we never saw it again.
Another peaceful overnight on the boat and up and going at 3 am to catch the high tide out.  Back in Juneau before 6 am and now napping the rest of the day.

My Alaskan Life

Went up to Whittier to collect my boat from Cordova.  Put the truck on the ferry on Thursday night and friend Roy got it off.  No room on Friday, when I went up, due to the Haines Beer Fest.  I got off the ferry in Haines about 9 am and took off for Anchorage.  Saw ground squirrels in Canada near the border, then saw several single pairs of swans in small pot hole lakes along the way.  Saw a few moose in Canada, and several as I got into the Mat-Su borough on the other side.  Then a few caribou near Nelchina.  Every RV and ATV owner in Anchorage was heading the other way from me on Friday to the Summit Lake area as it was Memorial Day weekend and the Kenai was full of smoke from the wildfire there.  Arrived in Anchorage about 1 am on Saturday and slept in the back of my truck so as not to wake my inlaws.  Lots of mosquitoes in Anchorage, and lots of pollen just like here.  
I did some chores around their house and went to lunch with them and a friend (Homeless Bill).  That evening, I had dinner with a Peace Corps friend and her family – in all of Anchorage, a city of 300,000+, they bought a house right across from my inlaws house where Sara grew up.  That will be nice having someone to keep an eye on my inlaws.  
On Sunday, I headed to Whittier about 7 am to meet the 11 am ferry.  Had breakfast at the inn there overlooking the bay as I nursed a slight hangover.  The ferry arrived and I got to see my new boat.  Very nice.  As nice as I’d hoped.  I tied some lines from the boat to the to the trailer to more secure the boat to the trailer, then drove up to wait for the tunnel to open from our side.  I checked the trailer wheel hub and neither was hot.  Then we drove through the tunnel and I check them again and again, they were okay, so I took off for Anchorage.  The spare I’d brought with me was only a 12″ tire and this trailer was 14″ wheels so first stop was West Marine for a spare tire.  I spent about an hour there buying a new trailer light and getting the trailer lights to work, along with the spare tire.  Then, I was on my way about 3 pm.
On the north side of Anchorage as I was leaving the city, a kindly motorist came up alongside me on the highway and pointed to my trailer and indicated I had trouble.  I looked in my mirror and sure enough, I’d blown a wheel bearing.  Luckily, I’d watched a you tube on changing a bearing before I left, and had bought a whole hub assembly.  Only took about 30 minutes as I had all the proper tools for the job.  I traveled on to Eagle River and luckily found another spare hub kit at NAPA before they closed.  
I headed for Glenallen, where again I was mostly going against some of the weekend travelers heading home.  Most were still at their campsites so not much traffic.  Once I got to Glenallen, the traffic really thinned out from what wasn’t very much, and I would guess I passed less than 50 vehicles the rest of the 600 miles or so to Haines.  When it got pretty dark – about 1 am – I pulled into Snag Harbor campsite to sleep until the sun came back up as it was getting hard to see the bad parts of the road.  The highway from the Canadian border to Destruction Bay is the worst of it, and that’s where I was.  I got up a few hours later and continued on to Destruction Bay, where I needed more coffee but the cafe was not yet open, so I slept another hour or so until they opened, got my coffee and was off again.  Saw alot of bunnies on the way home after not seeing any on the way north, along with a couple pairs of grizzly bears along Kluane Lake, and porcupines here and there.  Made it to Haines about 11 am, and since the ferry wasn’t leaving till 9 pm and wouldn’t get to Juneau till almost 2 am, I flew home after catching up with Roy and Brenda in Haines.  
1600 mile round trip over a long weekend was lots of great scenery but not anything I want to do again soon.   Glad the weather was so nice.  My old 1986 F250 4 x 4 with 6.9 diesel ran great – didn’t burn a drop of oil and ran cool.  I even got 17 mpg during the middle of the trip there in the relatively flatter road.   Hopefully the boat runs as good as it looks on the trailer.  Roy is sending it down tonight on the ferry.  Good to have friends everywhere.