We went hunting on Admiralty on what turned out to be one in 5 decent days. In the 40’s and beautiful weather, really. We saw quite a bit of sign but no deer. Most of the leaves are down now on the blueberry bushes and nearly all on the devil’s club, so much easier to see.

I’d patched the little plastic punt I use to put the skiff out deep enough so it’s not dry on low tide. I’d patched it, but the patching all fell off. I rowed in from the skiff, and hard to believe I didn’t just sink, as I could barely pull the boat up the beach. I finally found some dope that works on plastic, and patched the boat on Sunday, finishing today. We were gonna hunt on Sunday, but it was pouring rain and windy and with only one deer so far this year, we found it easy not to go.
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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

Kurt and I hunted South Douglas Island today. We left at sunrise, anchored the boat as I’d told him the tides were “perfect”, and headed up the spine to get up to the higher country. As usual, what looks like an “easy” hike never is so easy once you’re in the woods. The spine was actually several knobs with valleys in between, so it was up and down. We did get into lots of sign, but never saw a deer.

We decided to head down early in the afternoon. We knew we’d come out on one side of the point or the other, so were not all that concerned about where we came down. We made a steady walk down, but I did call here and there were I had a good area to see.

When we were fairly close to the bottom, I blew the call, and we both heard some animal take off in a hurry on the other side of a little valley. At first I thought the call scared it away. Then I see a head coming from the other side, down the gulley, and up our side. At first I couldn’t figure out what it was. The blueberry bushes are much higher on Douglas than where I hunt on Admiralty.

A lot of things went through my head – is it a dog? A wolverine? A squirrel (but knew it was too big for a squirrel. Finally, the deer broke out of the blueberry bushes and came right up the trail towards Kurt. When it was right next to me (maybe ten feet away, but not looking over at me, but up at Kurt), Kurt fired as I had my fingers in my ears.

We dressed the deer, tied it to Kurt’s pack, and had what we thought was a short pack to the beach. But the steepness of the hill fooled us. It was much further than it looked, and down some pretty steep areas, but nothing too bad.

When we got to the beach, we put the packs in the beach fringe in the woods so the eagles wouldn’t get at the deer, Kurt left his gun, and we started for the skiff. We planned to skiff around the point and get the gear and go home.

We were quite a ways from the skiff, so another long trek. By the time we got there the last thing I thought would happen, happened. The boat was tided. We tried to put some beach logs under to roll it, but it wouldn’t move. So, we knew after awhile we were there till somewhere around 8 pm.

Neither of us was up for the long walk back to the packs. We huddled in under the boat canvas thinking we could still go around with the full moon, but by the time the boat floated, we both knew it would not be safe to go out in the dark in the ocean and try to retrieve the packs.

So, we’ll try in the morning.
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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

I’m back from hunting yesterday. Hunted across from the cabin. I went in about right across from the spit where we put the boat. In the first muskeg I came to, not far up the beach, I was just setting up to call when I saw a white tail hopping away. I called but it did not come back. Later in the day, slightly up from the base of the ridge, I was side hilling, stumbled and broke a branch on the ground, and about 20 yards in front of me a deer took off like a rocket down the hill. Beautiful day as it was today. I ran the beach up to piling point hoping for an easy one but did not see any. Hunters were out at Bear Creek and another between Bear C. and Piling Pt.
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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

Went to Admiralty with friend Bob B. deer hunting on Sat. A beautiful day in the low 50’s, overcast, and little rain. We did not see any deer, but I did see I am out of shape.

Started my new job last week. Back to being a fishery biologist. Got everything I could ask for – higher start up pay based on experience, 4 day work week, office that looks down Gastineau Channel, and working with a group of friendlies.

First thing I said to Sara and her sister when they picked me up from my last hitch on the North Slope was “I don’t miss it already”. It was an “Alaskan Experience” working up there, and I’d be hard pressed to remember 3+ years where I learned so much on the job about equipment and tools, not to mention the industry that drives Alaska both economically and politically. Best thing I could have heard from my boss he said as we left together on the plane “If your new job doesn’t work out, call me.” Pretty comforting to know I still have a job if I need it.

I picked up my butchered and vacuum packed Chilkat sockeye salmon from my processor. It was the nicest fish I think I’ve seen. Not a drop of blood from the pressure bleeding. That will be good in the freezer for 2 years anyway.
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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

Got home from the slope Thurs night and off on the ferry to Haines Friday to net fish for sockeye in the Chilkat River with Ron. His brother Roy lives in Haines, and we use his net and boat and beds.

We arrived Friday evening, and got up on Saturday morning to blue skies and mild temperatures. The river was high due to all the rain in recent weeks, and chocolate brown. We had to launch a hundred yards from the normal launch area, in the flooded road. The outboard didn’t want to fire, either. We tried the usual – check the gas can, squeeze the bulb, make sure the kill switch is off – and still it would not fire. Next, I pulled the cowling and pulled the top spark plug, which looked fine. I replaced it, and pulled the wires on the other two plugs, pulled the middle plug, and put in next to the engine block to check for spark. When Ron cranked the engine, the engine started on the top plug alone – for what reason, I don’t know. He killed the engine, I replaced the middle plug and wires, and we were off.

That stretch of the Chilkat River valley is one of the most spectacular places in Alaska. Mountains rise from nearly sea level not far from the river, with snow and circe glaciers in the mountain tops. The vegetation up the mountainside was beginning fall colors of various shades of red and orange. It’s almost too spectacular to be real. I told Ron I was glad the fishing was fair and the net small so we could catch only a few fish each drift and spend the whole day on the river.

We got to the river, and set what was left of Roy’s 50′ net. About 10 feet on either end was ripped and missing. We caught 2 sockeye our first 2 drifts, and a single fish on the third. We got nothing the next drift, and only one or two more fish in later drifts, so we headed down stream, past Klukwan, to a spot we had luck in last year. We caught 5 the first pass.

I ran the net and Ron drove the boat. After I hauled the net, Ron would run back up to the start of the drift while I pulled fish from the net, broke a gill to bleed them, and put them on a stringer. The stringer went over the side when we set again, as the fish will continue bleeding, rather than have the blood coagulate, if they are in running water. Plus, the water keeps them cool.

You can put about 5 fish on the stringer, and after that the weight of the fish starts to rip their lower jaw. If the jaw rips through, the fish comes off and is lost. So, after bleeding 4 or 5 fish, I would pull them off and put them in our cooler, which had a couple bags of ice. We continued fishing until the cooler was full, and we had full stringers on both sides of the boat.

At the boat haul out, I made sure all the fish had the dorsal fins removed, according to the rules. We then loaded Roy’s boat, did some minor repair to his boat trailer, and then it was back to Roys to pressure bleed, dress, and ice the fish. I had a home pressure bleeding kit. I first cut off the heads, pressure bled the fish, and then dressed them. Ron then rinsed them off and put them on ice.

Roy came in from his Fairbanks moose hunt while we dressed fish. He did not get a moose, but enjoyed good weather and did see some moose. He, Ron and I ordered pizza for dinner, and watched the Michigan-Notre Dame football game, where 3 TD’s were scored in the last 2 minutes, with Michigan pulling it out in the end.

We boarded the ferry with our coolers full of fish on Sunday morning to another bluebird day. It was the 10th anniversary of 9/11, and we reflected on what our country had become as a result of the terrorism. Our nation’s waging of war justified by “God Bless America” after every presidential speech. Raised Catholic, I don’t remember anything in church that encouraged the killing of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis during our invasion of their country. Or the thousands of 19 to 25 year old US soldiers dead in Iraq and Afghanistan. Or the anti-Muslim fervor across the country. One hand holds the cross and the other the drone bomb launch lever.

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

I met Ken Dryden today at my fish processor. His daughter and my fish supplier’s son are married, and he was up here with his wife on vacation….to pouring rain for a week, even by Juneau standards. I told him I grew up between Buffalo and Ithaca, and we talked about where I grew up in Bolivar and the time frame. He talked about how Dave Bing was at Syracuse, Bob Lanier at St. Bonaventure, and Calvin Murphy at Niagara during that era, and that all 3 might now be in the hall of fame. Then I talked to him about going up to the Georgian Bay and how much I liked it there in Canada and how Frank Ganette was from my hometown and he knew of him since he went to college at Cornell (and his wife is from Ithaca). He then said he’d just been through Olean, and stayed there on his way down to Pittsburgh and back…actually it was Cuba he stayed – I told him that was right over the hill from Bolivar. Pretty dry conversation for talking to a hall of fame hockey
player, but Alaska does that to you.
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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com