A true pioneer of salmon trolling passed away today. Hard to believe. And I was quoted in the article since I put down an observation about John in my blog a few years ago. John Claussen was a true pioneer, and still lived in the remote village of Pelican. More can be read about him in trolling books like Pacific Fisherman. Here’s an online memorial from today’s Alaska Dispatch:

Alaska fishing legend dies
Craig Medred | Dec 27, 2010

For more than 60 years, John Howard Clausen survived everything the wilds of Alaska and the Gulf of Alaska seas could throw at him, only to fall victim to a bizarre accident fueled — some suspect — by pre-Christmas excitement. Clausen was backing an oversized all-terrain vehicle up to an floatplane in Pelican two days before Christmas to unload to gifts for friends when the vehicle went off a dock. The 89-year-old longtime commercial fisherman was trapped in the ATV’s enclosed cab. By the time a diver got to him 38 feet underwater 18 minutes later, he was dead.

The pilot of the plane had offered to unload, but Clausen was a man used to doing things for himself, even in his later years.

“He said, ‘No, I’ll get it,'” friend Karen Stepanenko said by telephone from Pelican Monday. “He was just so excited and in a hurry.”

Nearly all of Pelican, which has lost so much in recent years, spent the Christmas holiday grieving. Almost since the founding of the small community built on a boardwalk along Lisianski Inlet near the northern end of the Alaska Panhandle, Clausen had been a community mainstay.

When an Alaska Coastal Airlines plane went down in the Chichagof Island mountains south and east of Pelican in 1954, Clausen was the first to rush to the aid of the survivors of the crash. “A fisherman identified as John Clausen left on foot for the wreck scene soon after daybreak from Pelican, carrying only a gun,” wrote one of the newspapers of the day.

Clausen actually had more than a gun with him. One of the survivors of the crash, noted Alaska Native elder Charlie Joseph Sr., in his autobiography remembered the cookies and comfort Clausen gave the injured man and his wife.

“Fisherman” would be Clausen’s perpetual identity, though he was more than that. As with most who succeed at life in rural Alaska, he was a capable jack-of-all trades. He built his own offshore boat for trolling salmon and helped pioneer the salmon troll fishery on the Fairweather Grounds off the northern entrance to the Alaska Panhandle. The area was destined to become famous for the king and coho salmon supplied to high-end Pacific Northwest restaurants, the tough-minded people who worked there, and the treachery of its seas.

Clausen somehow survived it all.

“John is a mountain of muscle and sinew and bone,” fellow troller Mark Stopha of Juneau wrote on his blog only three years ago. “I saw him climbing up the ladders to attend to his tattle tales and trolling pole tag lines in the morning. Not that unusual in most circumstances, but John, I believe, is well into his 80s. A quiet, reserved man, he’s a living legend and commercial fishing pioneer and still lives with his lovely wife in Pelican, Alaska.”
ATT

Clausen would move his wife, Betty, to the Sitka Pioneers Home not long after, but he himself couldn’t leave his beloved Pelican — a community that had fallen on tough times.

Once a major Southeast fishing port, Pelican was built around a company — Pelican Cold Storage. The community was, in fact, named for the F/V Pelican, the ship that came north with the materials to build the first cold storage in 1938.

By the end of the 1980s, the year-round population of Pelican was up over 200 people with twice that many or more collecting there in summer. Then the Alaska fisheries began to change. The halibut derbies that had resulted in short fisheries with big catches that fueled the cold storage were restructured to guarantee fishermen more time to fish and a steadier supply of flatfish.

Suddenly, both halibut and salmon fisheries became all about “ocean-fresh” product, and ocean-fresh was more easily delivered from Sitka, south along the coast from Pelican. Sitka has a runway servicing jet aircraft. Pelican doesn’t even have an airstrip. As markets changed, the cold storage struggled. In 2004, the Juneau Empire, the newspaper in Alaska’s capital city 70 miles to the east, headlined “Pelican, Alaska: A company town without a company.”

Eventually, the cold storage closed. The city now owns it and is trying to get it restarted.

Pelican, Stepanenko said, “is still a going place,” but it just can’t seem to catch a break. The latest tragedy only adds to the suffering.

Someone tried to grab the ATV just before it went off the dock, Stepanenko said, but it got away with Clausen still trapped inside.

“It lurched off the dock and struck the pontoon of a Dehaviland Beaver (floatplane) where the ATV hesitated before entering the water and sunk with Clausen in the cab,” troopers said.

An obituary in the Juneau Empire described Clausen as “a square-headed ol’ Norwegian, as stubborn as he was, well, stubborn.”

His friends said he would not have objected to the description. “John always assumed he’d live forever, and now no one will ever be able to convince him otherwise. It’s just like him to win an argument,” the obit added. “A memorial will likely be held in early February, weather permitting. A small Viking longship full of afterlife necessities will be cast aflame into the sunset in his honor.”

Contact Craig Medred at craig(at)alaskadispatch.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
–
Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

Traveled to my brother in laws to help him set marten traps. We spent a day getting ready, which entails fueling his fishing vessel (where we’d live), big aluminum boat with twin outboards (vessel can carry 4 wheelers and go to shore) and 14 foot skiff (for setting traps from the boat in bays with no road access). We traveled in the fishing boat, towing the other two boats behind.

Weather was kind of snotty – rain and wind and in the high 30’s. There was little snow at sea level.

We got to our anchorage about 5 hours out of town. After setting shrimp pots, the next job was to bait the trap “boxes”. These consist of a 16″ long piece of 8′ PVC pipe. The top of the tube has a piece of wood wired to it. The underside of the wood is where we wire a bag of blood-shot deer scraps. The other end of the tube has 4 inch slits cut opposite each other. These hold a 120 conibear trap. We got each trap ready to set by squeezing together the springs and then securing the safety latches, making setting in the field easier.

We put together enough boxes to set for several days. When we got to our anchorage, we set the main anchor on the 46′ fishing vessel, plus 3 extra halibut anchors – just in case. Turns out this was a wise move.

Then, we took the aluminum boat to shore, and offloaded 4-wheelers and trailer. We use the 4 wheelers on logging roads. These enable us to reach the high country. Marten like steep sided, old-growth timber. Even though the area was substantially logged, marten are still around, apparently living in uncut areas and “hunting” in the adjacent cut areas. We did set in areas cut from ocean to ridge top – which were numerous. Many times we’d travel a long way between sets when traveling through these areas

Some of our sets were at the same place as last year, as we’d see our nails on the tree. Each box is set by merely hanging it on a tree by a 16 penny finishing nail. We then leaned a pole up to the bottom of the trap. The marten tries to get to the bait in the top of the tube, and is caught in the trap.

Last year, we set 2 boxes at almost every site. This year, we went with just one, since we rarely caught marten in both boxes at a set. There were numerous humpback whales feeding in the ocean near our trapline, and we could hear them when we shut off the 4 wheelers and were setting along the water, even at high altitude.

The weather was mostly dry and partly cloudy or mostly clear during the day. The first few days were in the 30’s, but then it warmed up and the last few days in the 50’s — at the start of Dec. It felt like summer. Nights were another matter. The winds and rain came almost every night, and we were glad to have the extra anchors out.

Some beavers were flooding the road on our first line. We would pull part of the dam down each day to drain the pond on the road a bit, but the beavers always repaired it each night. We never saw the beavers, and didn’t bother to set for them this trip as the road was still barely passable through their pond.

After setting the first line by road, we then traveled a ways in the boats to another bay, and set a line by small skiff in that bay. We returned to our earlier anchorage due to forecast winds. Seems no bay is “out of the wind” there, but this was the best we were going to find.

We checked the shrimp pots, and had enough for one dinner of shrimp tails, and a second of peeled shrimp in a boxed fettuchini mix. Other meals were moose burger patties and moose and egg breakfasts. The days are short this time of year, with dark by 4 pm. On nights we didn’t need to make up more trap boxes, we read magazines and books, listened to XM radio when reception was good, and watched DVD movies.

We set about 100 traps over the week, and checked some of our initial sets, taking a few marten. We headed back to Craig and I returned to Juneau about 10 days after we started. Safely setting traps is a 2 person job with loading and offloading equipment, etc. My brother in law can check them by himself now if necessary, and will take his nephew if possible, as the pre-teen loves anything to do with hunting, fishing or trapping.

Although this area is a hot spot for deer during Nov and maybe earlier in the fall, we did not see a single deer – and only one or two sets of fresh tracks – for the second straight year during my time there in Dec. I try to make the trip a trapping/hunting trip, but the deer obviously move out of there by this time.

I had a hat made from the 2 marten and 1 mink I trapped near Juneau last year, and it served me well on the 4 wheeler and skiff – you need a good hat in the winter, especially when you are making your own wind chill.

Getting home from one of these trips always seems like jet lag. I slept most of the first day home, probably because it was my first good night of sleep in my own bed in a couple weeks – just like coming home from the slope. Now on to more deer hunting and maybe trapping here until the call comes to resume work up north.
–
Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

Yesterday, we went back to the same place that we got the big buck. Got about an inch of snow overnight, and with the ground frozen before the snow, the traction was still great.

We left with the snow falling and flat calm seas for the half hour or so boat ride down to the place we’d anchor off the boat. Took a thermos of coffee share on the ride down. The tide was also perfect, with high tide at 1:30 pm and a big 18 footer.

We decided to walk north on the beach to where we came down with the big buck, since it would avoid the blowdowns near the beach where we went up the hill on Monday, and it would allow us to hunt into the wind if we went up the hill then headed south towards the boat hunting.

We saw tracks here and there on the way up. Not as many good places to call with good vision as we saw on Sunday. On about our third stop to call, we had a pretty good 360 view – at least as good as we’d seen – so we stopped to call. I put Matt uphill from my about 25 yards and in sight.

I saw him looking through his scope after about the third series of bleats. Then he looked at me and motioned he had a deer coming. I saw him pointing slightly down while facing uphill, so I knew the deer had to be close and slightly below him in a little depression 20 yards in front of us. Even at that close range, I could not see the deer.

I kept calling softly and watching Matt, with a finger in my ear on the side the gun blast would come from. Minutes passed and still no shot. Finally, the deer had turned and started walking away, and Matt got a little excited, then got up from where he was and shot. Then I saw him quickly walk in the direction of the deer, which I had seen bound away. A few seconds later, he said the deer was down, and I grabbed his pack and walked over to the deer.

Matt said the doe had never seen him, but was focused on my call. The deer just didn’t give him a great shot through the brush. We dressed the deer and hung it in a tree and put a waypoint on the GPS and continued hunting.

We did not see any more deer during the day, and seemed not to have found as good of spots to hunt as we had on Sunday. A great thing to know for future hunts at this site. Saw tracks here and there, but no more deer in the great visibility that the snow adds.

We got home as light was fading about 3 pm, and hung the deer in the garage next to the other 2. I went to bed early, and was up at 5 am this morning. Got the big buck skinned, and we plan to butcher today.
–
Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

Went deer hunting the past 3 days by boat. Been tied to home here since Oct. as Sara had her hip replaced. She’s having a quite miraculous recovery, and already back to work part time and swimming. Then our friend Paul Bowen came to town to have his knee replaced, and he had some complications not related to surgery. So, I’ve been nursing family and only day hunted behind the house.

A friend who recently started hunting wanted to go, and that was all I needed to plan a trip. I hunted on Friday, and conditions are pretty nice. Although there’s no snow, the ground is frozen and so footing is as good as it gets. It’s a little noisy sometime, but otherwise the cold, dry days have been wonderful to hunt. You can hike all day in 28 degree weather.

My first day I knew would be a little short, as I was skiffing from Douglas Island over to our cabin. Plus our days are short already. So, I stuck mostly to the lowlands. I saw alot of buck rubs, but no deer the first day. Still, I thought to myself it was one of the best days I’d spent hunting as the conditions were so nice. I did see a sawhet(?) or pygmy owl, which is a rare sight.

Next day I went back to Douglas Island to pick up my friend, who was going to hunt Sat and Sun with me. We got back to our hunting spot about 930 am, and started up the hill. It was another dry, crisp day, and perfect for hiking. We got to the big muskeg at the base of the ridge, and decided to rest and call for while. On my 3rd or 4th series of bleat calls, “BANG”. I looked over and saw he’d shot at a deer, and soon signaled the deer was down. I never saw the deer nor maybe would have if I were alone, and I am more and more seeing that 4 eyes are better than 2. His was a button buck, and he was thrilled to get his second deer ever.

We dressed the deer and hung it from a tree to cool and keep away from the eagles and ravens. We went a short ways up the ridge, then side-hilled a ways, then back down to the base. We came into a small valley there with lots of brush, and a place that seems to be a deery place. We separated somewhat, and soon it was clear he had headed off course and not back to his hanging deer.

I got back to his deer, and then was blasting on my call as loud as I could. I was getting nervous the boat would be left dry on the out-going tide, and then we’d be stuck there till the evening as our skiff is too heavy to push down the beach, or get up on log rollers. When he finally came back from down hill, he said he’d not heard me calling. This was interesting in that he wasn’t that far away, and so maybe deer don’t hear the call when they aren’t too far away.

He also said he’d seen a big buck, but the deer was locked onto him and had him handcuffed. He didn’t have time to chamber a shell before the buck took off, and it didn’t come back when he tried calling. So, 1 buck in the tree and another big one seen – a great day by our standards.

The next morning I thought we’d better check the weather forecast just in case. I needed to be back on Tuesday to get Paul discharged and on the plane so couldn’t miss it. The forecast was for 20 kt north winds, increasing later in the day. We decided then we’d better do the dishes and plan to return to town today instead of staying another night.

When we got to the beach to hunt, the only place safe to put the boat was already being hunted by another cabin-owner. So, we decided to look for another place or go home. We decided to try finding safe anchorage along Douglas Island and hunting there. I’d hunted little on that side of the island, and knew it would be good for me to hunt other places since we hunt the hill across from our cabin mainly for convenience.

We found what we hoped was a good anchorage, anchored out the boat, then headed into the woods. The first 100 yards or so was a train wreck of blow downs and past logging. When we got past that, we found some nice areas of open areas and forest stands and nice buck rubs.

After calling in several spots, we were about half way up to the ridge, and decided to try again. I sent Matt uphill from me, and I called to the downhill. After the third series, I saw a deer slinking in the brush over to me, and stopped calling. When it came out across from me on the edge of the brush, I could see it was a nice buck. It stopped with it’s vitals directly behind a tree, and locked on to me. I had a good rest, and the crosshairs right between his eyes. It would need to be a precise shot, or I’d miss altogether. I looked at what body was visible, and it would have been only a crippling shot. So, I hoped the deer would just inch forward and give me a clear shot at his neck.

After a minute or 2 of not twitching even an ear, and me continuing to hold on his nose, the buck faced forward. My eye had started to blur, and the buck was in the darkness of the brush edge in an already darkened spruces stand. I couldn’t make a shot, and the deer walked off. Calling would not bring it back. That deer came all the way in and left without making a sound on the crunchy, dry forest floor.

I walked down to where he’d stood to see if I could see him again, but no luck. I walked back to Matt and told him of the big buck, which he’d not seen, and we were both excited to see something.

We worked our way up to the base of the ridge, calling in a few spots as we went up. When we got to the base of the ridge, there was a big expanse of open canopy with blowdowns everywhere. I had Matt posted at one end and me at the other, and started calling. After the third series, I thought I saw something flicker about 30 yards to my right, but could not see anything behind the blowdown.

I made a fourth soft call, and up comes a monster buck like you see on Genesee Beer signs. It was 20 yards away, and stopped when it saw me. I aimed and pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. After a split second assessment, I realized the safety was still on. I flicked it off, and dropped the big buck. He looked like the king of the hill, with a hugely swollen neck and even had porcupine quills in his snout. Never, ever heard of that.

After the shot, I called to Matt, and simply said “Monster”. He came over, and his jaw dropped as I sat next to the Chief. Now how to get it back to the beach. I had several options – drag it, carry it, or butcher it on the spot. I wanted to take the whole animal out, so first tried to rig it for dragging. About 10 feet of that told me it wasn’t going to happen. We were 6/10 of a mile uphill in the Tongass and had to go over blowdowns and through the puckerbrush.

Next, I tried making a pack out of the deer. I couldn’t quite get it right as my brother in law had shown me. The front hocks wouldn’t lock into the back leg tendon for some reason.

Next we tried to tie the deer to my Bull Pac frame. After securing it, I had Matt help me up, and found I could walk with the deer on my back. So down the hill we headed.

I had to stop numerous times to rest and drink water. If I fell, it was a comical scene because I couldn’t get up. Matt would have to help again. When we finally reached sight of the beach, I had Matt go on and see that the boat was still floating so we wouldn’t be tided. I finally made it out to the beach, dropped the pack and deer, and staggered down the beach to the boat. Luckily, it was still floating. We brought the boat over to where I’d dropped the pack, retrieved the deer, and headed for town The PBR’s Matt brought never tasted so good.
–
Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

Sara is having hip surgery on Thurs, so I’ve been trying to get out deer hunting since I returned from Prudhoe as it might be awhile before I can go again.  The weather here has been pouring rain and wind.  I finally took off on Monday about mid-day to hunt Tue and maybe Wed.

It rained all day and till about midnight on Monday.  Tue was nice, with a higher ceiling, some blue sky and no rain or wind.  I drank my coffee, cleaned the dishes, and headed out of the cabin.  When I got to my spot on Admiralty, I anchored the boat off shore.  Once in the woods, I thought I’d better try my deer call before I headed up the hill.  My call was a home made job with a flagging tape reed.  When I first tried, the call was garbled, so I adjusted the tension on the reed.  I tried several tensions until I got a tone that would work.  I shouldered my pack, took about 10 steps, and saw a flash of white.  I’d called in a deer while practicing.

I saw the deer go on the opposite side of the small creek that drains some beaver ponds, but didn’t see it go up the hill.  I noticed from the wind direction it shouldn’t have winded me, so I softly called, and tried changing positions from side to side and squatting to see if I could see if the deer had just run a few bounds then held to see what I was.

As I was scanning the small flat between the creek and the start of the hill, I locked on to the deer standing stone still, broadside, looking at me.  I dropped to one knee for a prone shot.  I cranked up the scope from 3 to 9.  I was having a hard time holding on him, but uncharacteristically told myself to calm down, breath slowly, and just get a good bead on him, since the deer didn’t look like it was going anywhere.  I got my breath, a steady enough aim, and knocked it down for good with one shot.

As I might be coming back this same way on my way out, I thought I’d better take the deer out by the beach to dress it since I’d have a better view if a bear showed up later. I dressed the deer, pulled back in the skiff, put the deer in with the belly down to drain, re-set the skiff, then back up the hill.

I didn’t see any more deer that day. I did find sign of a large buck at the base of the ridge – a 2 foot rub on a large alder that still showed the saw dust. Would like to see that deer some time.

When I got out of the woods, I debated whether to go home or back to the cabin and come in tomorrow. The weather was nice, and I thought Sara would have less to worry about if I came in yesterday, so that’s what I did.

I pawned the heart off on Ranger Dug, who is in from Bethel. Ron told me to save the liver for our mechanic, which I also did. Lungs will go for trapping bait.

Might be my only deer this year, so glad to get out and a good story to go with it.
–
Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK  99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

Winter has set in here in on the Beaufort Sea in a hurry. Two days ago the weather was in the higher 30’s and open water. Just the fresh water ponds were starting to freeze. Yesterday, we went inside at 9 am and there was just a little ice starting on the shore. When we left again at 945, the bay had mostly iced in with a few open areas – just that quick. It’s not hard ice yet, but never saw ice form that fast.

Today the sow and 2 polar bear cubs we saw here last year appear to have come back again – at least from the size of the cubs, it seems they’re the same animals. First ones I’ve seen all season.

Daylight is fading fast, and with the westerlys gusting around 30, the windchill was reading below zero on our weather station thermometer today. I went from thinking we’d be running boats till the end of Oct to wondering if we’d make it now to the end of Sept