I traveled to Valdez for my state job to visit the hatchery there Wed-Fri.  What an economic impact the hatchery has on the place.  Valdez is akin to the Kenai Peninsula for Anchoragites.  The boat harbor was full of primarily sport boats.  Halibut, coho and pink salmon are the primary harvest species, with most of the coho and pink due to the hatchery.  I think over 150 thousand coho are harvested by sport anglers there a year, making it among the largest coho sport fisheries in the state.

The primary force behind the hatchery remains there today, although he said he’s about to retire.  He started the place in 1980.  I asked him why he did it, and he said it dated back to the late 50’s listening as a boy to fishermen in the region talking about doing something to make more salmon at a time when salmon stocks were low.  He was born and raised in Valdez, and it’s always great to talk to someone like that in Alaska.  A real treasure trove of local knowledge and perspective in a state of largely from-somewhere-elsers.

The man’s son was also heavily involved in the hatchery.  As they had the fish culture aspects honed for the hatchery, he was working on enhancing the value of the return.  The hatchery association built a small processing facility for themselves and fishermen who wanted to sell their own catch, rather than sell all the catch to a processor.  In some instances, a local processor might not be buying an off-salmon-season species like shrimp, so the facility opened up new opportunity to keep business local.  The son also enlightened us to the fact that if the hatchery can earn more money from value-added processing of the hatchery’s cost-recovery catch, then they don’t have to harvest as many fish for cost recovery – leaving more to the commercial fleet- and can employ more people in adding value to their product.  We watched as they processed salmon roe into caviar with a skilled crew of 6 who knew what they were doing.

The family running the bed and breakfast we stayed at knew a friend of ours living in Juneau.  His daughter and theirs were friends in school when he lived there in the 1980’s.

I delivered fish to may salmon customers on Sat.  I was relieved to see I didn’t have to run the whale watching boat as they didn’t need a relief captain and I’d said I could work on Sat.  The fishing family I work for said they’d like me to deliver to move some fish, and I had 4 hours worth of deliverying as it turned out.

I took my friend Bob and his visiting nephew fishing for coho on Sat evening.  It was warm and nearly flat calm with a red evening sky.  We managed 2 bright fish and let the nephew catch both of them – I think his first fish ever.  A whale was working close by as well, so the nephew got the full monty.  I offered Bob both fish but he insisted I take one, so I filleted that with my new knife when I got home.  I also tried using a small airpump used for exercise balls to pressure bleed the fish.  It worked okay but not great.

Sunday I worked hazardous household wasted day.  What a b-buster.  I was again the TV consolidator, stacking tv’s and computer monitors in a 20′ van, which we filled almost by lunch, and then went to stacking some on pallets, which another guy who is alot better at doing that than I am did.

After that, I packed a box of fish to ship out, and grabbed 2 small totes of beautiful sockeye frames to vac pak for winter.  I really have come to enjoy those, and glad these weren’t ground up or given away for bait.  I got home, butchered the frames by cutting off the tail and trimming any rib bones left, then vac packing all.  The “real” vac packer sure works nice.

I’m stiff all over today and back at my real job.

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

Picked 4 large coffee cans of blueberries at the cabin.  Only to find out that many of the berries I pick are “huckleberries” and not blue berries.  I only thought huckleberries came in red, and now I find it’s what I’ve been picking all along.  Learn something new everyday.

Fished before I went to pick and the next day on the way home.  Was not getting anything on a flasher and hootchie- the standard coho gear – so switched to what I learned in Wrangell.  Had one big strike and a big fish on the line, and when I set the hook, I pulled it right out of its mouth.

Ran 3 whale watching tours today.  Easiest job in the world.  Learned a new spot to see harbor seals hauled out, and a new spot to see monster Stellar sea lions hauled out.  Again, learn something new every day.

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Ron and I went to Roy’s to fish for sockeye in Haines this weekend. We took the gillnets we cut out of the commercial gillnet Len gave me. Pouring rain here when we left on the ferry, and by the time we got to Haines, nice and partly sunny. Roy met us at the launch ramp, which was right next to the ferry terminal, with his boat, and we transferred the net and gear.

We caught 26 sockeye and a few pinks the first day. We returned to Roy’s house to pressure bleed and clean the fish, then put them on ice for further processing in Juneau. On the second day, we only caught 8 and several pinks. On the way home from fishing, we passed through a side street in Haines. When we got to an intersection on the corner of which lived Roy’s friend Jim, there was a big pile of grizzly bear crap right in the middle of the road.

I bought my first real fillet knife, and was eager to try it out when I got home. These are long, wide knives with scalloping just above the edge, and with a rounded tip. What a difference. The knife glided through the fish, with no sawing necessary. I had my 16 fish done in about 10 minutes. I then cut each fillet in half, and rinsed about six pieces at a time, put them in a draining basket, and then vacuum packed all of them.

I also discovered something this year I learned from Ron – eating the meat left on the backbone after filleting. I’d never done this. It didn’t look like that much flesh. But it is, and it’s delicious. Just put the side on a hot grill, and when one side is done, turn it over and turn of the grill and allow the other side to finish. Wow, is it good. So, I vacuum packed all the frames, too.

Made jam with my blueberries last night. I finally figured out a recipe for low sugar blueberry jam that works. Like most things in life, it took reading the directions. For a case of 12 half pints, I used 15 cups of whole berries, which I chopped in the food processor. Then added 2.25 cups of water and 3 packages of No/Low sugar Sure Jell. When it still boils as you stir, boil one minute more, take off the heat, and add 1.5 cups of sugar. 10 minutes in the boiling bath canner and you are done. The jam set up like a champ. Been a long time since I made it right. The downtown grocery is going out of business and had the sure jell at 66% off, so need to go buy a few cases as I don’t believe pectin gets stale.
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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

Set a mooring anchor on Sat with Kurt. I used an old bell-shaped piece of concrete that had been a foundation poured around an old fence post I pulled out years ago. I’ve been hitting my leg on in most any night I went by it on my way to steps to the upstairs of our garage where the freezer is. Kurt helped me take it over to Horse Is on Sat, and then we fished for awhile, and I dropped him back on Douglas.

I went back over and started picking blueberries. For whatever reason, the combination of a dry, cool April and then a cold wet May and June made for a bumper crop. I picked for a few hours Sat, then did some reading. I got up at 430 am on Sunday to move the mooring anchor in position at low tide, then attached the pulley for the easy out, so now I can put my boat on the clothes line from the mooring anchor up to two trees and pull the boat out to deeper water when I arrive. While I was down there, the teen age brown bear I’ve seen several times this summer was sauntering down the beach over on the Admiralty shore.

I picked berries for another 4 hours or so at the cabin, and got about 3 gallons total. The ravens were squawking the whole time somewhere up in the trees or the air in the woods. Not sure why. I fished on the way home for coho salmon, but no luck.

When I got home, Sara helped me clean the berries. The blueberries are full of inchworms, which come out after you pick the berries and/or put the berries in water. We put the berries across a screen on a wood frame, and hosed the inch worms and pine needles through, and then picked any leaves and stems by hand. Hope to put up several cases of jam.
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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

One of Sara’s star students, Hanni, and her husband, Jesse, were in town. Hanni grew up here with her 2 brothers. When all the kids graduated and left town, so did the parents. So her brother wanted to have his wedding here to show his bride where he grew up.

A local restaurant, the Silver Bow, was supposed to cater the wedding. Somehow, it didn’t “get on the schedule”, so her brother was now faced with 30 people coming to town and no wedding dinner. Sara and Hanni then sprung into action, and catered the wedding themselves. From the talk after the wedding, it went over great, and the Texas inlaws were very happy. Hanni may have black and blue marks from patting herself on the back for the great job they did. Not only did they do the dinner, Hanni and Jesse did all the flowers, as that’s what Hanni does for a living as a “designer”. These, and many other things you can do for a living in California were the the subjects that Hanni tried to teach me in her week here with us.

We delivered fish to Juneau folks this week and whale watching trips on the weekends. The whale watching gig has got to be the easiest job in the world. How hard is it to find a whale. Not very.

Bara called from Mali today. He calls regularly now since coming to Juneau and the US. I think it may have changed his life. He certainly gained a great understanding of those who come over to work for him now as volunteer consultants.

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