Went to the cabin after work on Thurs and picked berries on Friday.  Even got lost on our little island, and came out on the Douglas side after wandering through some new country and even saw a deer.  It was blowing on the beach, and I decided I’d better stay another day and hope for calmer seas.  I picked a few chicken of the woods mushrooms to try, and spent the evening picking leaves and stems from the berries. The mushrooms were okay – not fantastic, but edible.  Then the floodgates opened on Friday night – man, did it rain.  Flat calm this morning on the ride back, but now just pouring again.  Fixed Sara’s lawn mower, listened to the Mississippi State – Auburn game (State won), and packed fish today.  One whale watching trip tomorrow as the season winds down. 

–
Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

Went to pick more berries this weekend. Initially thought I’d just try to find a few red huckleberries at our cabin island, as I had always just noticed a bush here and there with no concentration. What I learned this weekend was that the berries ARE there, they are just cryptic. Due to their small size, they can be difficult to see – even thought they are red. Once I found one bush, there were more around, and if I bent low and looked under, I could see the berries. Some of the taller ones where just drooping with berries. I guess I picked close to 2 gallons or so.

Fished on the way over and back but caught nothing. Ron caught a coho on the way over, and set 2 crab pots, but had no crab when he checked them this morning. Lots of boats out for Sept. 1, it seemed. I didn’t see anyone land a fish. Rain and a little light wind.

Finally fixed my truck after struggling for a week. Changed out the master cylinder, proportioning valve, and rear brakes (which needed changing) and finally thought it was the power booster, which I’d changed less than 2 years ago. Then I thought to check the vacuum pump, and that was it. No suction. Of course, the part comes without the pulley, no one in town had a pulley, and my mechanic did not have the correct puller. I found a puller and pulley setter – separate tools, of course, and $30 each – replaced the pulley, and the brakes finally worked. What a load off my mind. It had me thinking day and night what the problem could be, and glad that’s over.

–
Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

Another week of hit and miss auto repair. The brakes started acting up, and the brake pedal was very hard, and it felt like only one pair of brakes were working. Changed the master cylinder. Then the proportioning valve. Neither fixed the problem. Finally pulled the rear hubs and saw that one side had been somehow grinding as shavings everywhere. On the other, a broken retracting spring. So I thought finally, here’s the issue. Changed out both sides of the brakes, put the truck back together….and still brakes not right. So now I’m sure it’s the power booster, which I’d changed only a year ago, I think. Then I thought – maybe it’s not getting vacuum. So I pulled off the hose to the booster, and put my finger on the hose end as Kurt started the truck, and no suction.

So, I find a store with the vacuum pump, get it home, and see I have to get the pulley off, but need a puller. I call Ishmael, or “foreign auto” mechanic (I use him for Toyota work), and he says to bring them over. He doesn’t have the right puller, so then to Napa, then to Valley Auto, then AIH, and finally to O’Riely’s, and they have the puller and the presser. Each tool cost $30! I buy them both, and when I start to use the puller, I have to put one side on one way and the other upside down, but that does the trick. The puller grabs as the bolt screws down, and the pulley comes right off. I press it on with the other tool without incident. The pump itself is an easy install once the pulley is on. I start the truck, feel the brake pedal depress as it should, and feel more relief than satisfaction, I think. I spent about $100 and time in parts I didn’t need. But, I saw a newer F350 in the valley for sale in the Super Bear parking lot. The sign
said “$30,000 Firm”. So an extra hundred bucks was no big deal, and like money well-spent for the education.
-e
Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

Ron and I worked in Haines on Monday, visiting a couple islands in the Chilkat River with Scott from the regional aquaculture assn. and Mark from the local ADFG office.  We were assessing the potential for construction of spawning channels in the river islands, creating new spawning habitat for chum salmon, mostly.  The first island had more high bush cranberries than I’ve ever seen.  It was a canopy of cottonwood trees with a solid undergrowth of cranberries.   It even smelled like cranberry under there. The berries weren’t ripe yet, so it might be worth a trip back up in a month to pick some.  Only problem is that by that time, the island could be crawling with brown bears getting the late season chum salmon.  At least I got an idea of where to look for cranberries here.

Ron and I each butchered our own catch.  The new fillet knife I bought made short, beautiful work of the sockeye sides, which I took to a local processor to smoke.  Ron and I gave many of our fish away to the wife of a friend who is in jail, and another who is ill.  The wife loaded us up with jam, sprucetip syrup, smoked fish and fish burgers from earlier drops of fish to her.   Ron and I dropped the outboard we bought for a friend when we were in Haines and shipped it to her in Yakutat at air cargo.    I also changed out the proportioning valve on the truck last night and we’ll bleed it today and hope that was the problem after the master cylinder was not.  Busy day.

–
Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

Lots and lots of sockeye in the river this week.  Ron and I came back up to Haines to subsistence fish.  This time in the river, as last time we fished in the saltwater.  We tried the new 50 ‘ net I made from one of Len’s old commercial nets.  I had to choke up the depth to work in the river.  It wasn’t pretty or perfect, but it worked.    We pressure bled the fish at Roys, dressed and iced them in coolers for the ferry ride home.  It quit raining as soon as we got to the river on Sat afternoon, and we caught 30 in 3 hours.  We went again today and got our remaining 20 in 3 drifts under blue skies and a glorious day with no one else on our stretch of the river on either day.

–
Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK  99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

I attended the memorial service for my fishing mentor Eric McDowell today.  Eric gave me a job at his consulting firm when I feared I might never have a professional job in Juneau again.  He then helped me find my boat the Dutch Master, rig it to fish, and then went fishing with me to teach me how to troll.  Everything from troubleshooting engine problems to proper leader length to hootchie and spoon colors.

I later deck handed for Eric on his new boat, caring for his catch with his other deckhand, Mark, and then buying the fish at the end of the trip.  The king salmon we are selling now are the last delivery of kings Eric made.

At 69, he was a young 69.   What a service.  Eric had so many parts to his life I hardly knew anyone there, and I thought I new him pretty well.  From basketball to AA to his
consulting firm to fishing to Alaskan singer and song writer he amassed a wealth of friends.  Although he was somewhat of a big wheel as far as his business went, his friends were mostly average Joes he met or helped or was helped by along the way.  His speakers reflected that.  Not one politician or societal leader spoke.  And the speakers all knew him in a different way, from fellow AA sponsor to business partner to basketball team mate to foster brother to son.  So the time I spent with him and knowledge he passed on seemed all the sweeter, knowing him in perhaps a way few next to his son did.

So, life goes on for the rest of us.  Funny, I put on my suit coat today.  And in the pocket was the program for my mom’s funeral 10 years ago, almost to the day.  So having not worn my suit coat for a decade means I had a pretty good decade.  And seeing my friend off today will keep me moving down the road to
do the things I like to do, it seems.

–
Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK  99801
www.GoodSalmon.com