First July 7 in about 8 years that I have not been on the outer coast trolling for king salmon. I did jump on with some friends this morning to sport fish for kings near Juneau, but no luck. Pretty late in the run, and we mostly saw chum salmon being caught.

No word yet what’s happening with the fishery. When I came over the Juneau bride today at 930 am to go out and pack up some fish shipments, there was a line of gillnetters as far as you could see down the channel, steaming out to start fishing at noon today, past the 5 cruiseships docked or anchored off of downtown Juneau.

Sockeye seem slow coming in this year, but plenty of chum salmon. Sounds like the Stikine has more sockeye in than up here.

–
Mark Stopha and Sara Hannan
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
Wild Salmon and Salmon Pet Treats
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
907-463-3115
www.GoodSalmon.com

My 2nd cousin Amy is here from Portland. We went over
and pulled our crab pot, and it was loaded. We took
13 dungeness crab out, and tossed back about 5 hawgs
that had just molted, and so the meat would not taste
good.

Saw no whales, and I’ve not seen many around where
I’ve been. Fishing is rather slow here, as the
sockeye are slow in coming in.

Juneau is extra lush this year. Everything is growing
like crazy, and it seems like it will overtake the roads.

–
Mark Stopha and Sara Hannan
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
Wild Salmon and Salmon Pet Treats
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
907-463-3115
www.GoodSalmon.com

My fishing partner and his group of fisherman came in
with their catch today. My partner’s daughter and her
husband and his wife were all there helping. Their
nephew was helping to offload king salmon from a boat.
He tossed the first fish into the fish tote, and a
unified gasp and chorus of condemnation of his act
ensued. Undaunted, he did it again! He happened to
look up, and I pointed at him and said “Don’t do that
again.” He seemed to see that if a non-family member
was telling him this, that he might want to think
about what he’s doing. At that, the partner’s
son-in-law descended the dock ladder to the boat, and
showed him how to properly handle the fish. He got
it.

That’s when you know you’re in with the right group of
people. We all want to do things right, whether we
can make some money or not. Most fish are handled as
the boy did without a second thought, but not here.

I sat on the dock in the sunshine and enjoyed the
action. I’d hoped to get some sockeye for my orders,
but the fishing group only caught enough to fill their
hungry markets with their first delivery of the year.
I was thrilled to get the keta salmon I did get –
pressure bled and beautiful fish. We’re sending those
to our friends in Knoxville for their fish market, and
others to my sister in Pittsburgh. Even though I had
orders for lots of other fish, those will have to wait
till next week. One boat needed a deckhand for the
next opening, and I was thrilled when they asked me.
I can’t wait for next week. And on a seiner converted
to gillnetter, no less. Lots of room. Fishing season
is here, and all the headaches of bureaucrats from the
winter and continuing through today fade to
insignificance when I get to participate in a
meaningful endeavor.

–
Mark Stopha and Sara Hannan
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
Wild Salmon and Salmon Pet Treats
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
907-463-3115
www.GoodSalmon.com

So, I’m stuck somewhere between a business and a day
off. I went down in the boat I’d planned to buy fish
from in the round and then dress them on board, except
our DEC says I can’t do that. So, I was heading down
the channel to see if I could help a fellow fishing
business with anything. First off, I found Tim, who I
fished with last year, and thought great, I’ll get on
his boat and get cleaning. However, he was just
pulling in his net when I got there, and said he had
hung his net either in the prop or the rudder, and so
had to head to town to fix it.

I tried hailing my other fish partner, and
discovered my radio didn’t work. So I headed up the
inlet until I ran out of boats, looking for the boat
of my friend. I went up one shore, then crossed the
inlet and down the other.

When I found him, he said fishing was slow, and there
was not much I could do. I headed back to where I’d
met Tim, and anchored the boat to see if I could fix
the radio, which I could not. It would broadcast but
not receive. So, back, to the dock, then to the
house for the spare radio, and back down to the
fishing area. I anchored again in the same area,
announced I was looking to buy dressed, bled chum and
sockeye salmon, and waited. Dead silence on the
radio. Not one taker. So, I thought maybe someone
would come by later, to I started fixing things on the
boat.

I had not started the noisy 2 stroke pump for a year,
and the last time I ran it the gas had a lot of water
in it. I filled it with fresh gas, tried to prime it,
pulled and pulled, but it would not start. I took off
the primer bulb, and started into the diaphram below
until I got to a gasket that was glued in so I
stopped. I replaced the diaphram and the bubble, and
that was all it took. The bubble started priming the
fuel system, and it started up.

Next, to fix the kill switch on the honda hydraulic
pump. I pulled off the switch, shined up the kill
contact, replaced it – and now that was worked too.

It went on like this the rest of the afternoon. Get
after one thing after another. I listened to the
radio, saw a mature and immature bald eagle lock
talons on mid air and wind mill round and round almost
all the way to the water before parting and flying
their separate ways. Took a nap, and had countless
cups of coffee. When I saw my fishing partner heading
to anchor up about 8:30 I realized no one was going
to sell to me today. I headed to the anchorage, and
was pleased to hear one of the fishing partners needed
me to help out next week – sweet! So I don’t have to
worry about fish next week. He said he needed help
“gillnetting”, which I’m no help, but we’ll figure it
out.

Not sure if I can get what I need from the possey as
they have their own markets to fill, but I’m sure my
local delivery customers will understand – they always
do. As long as the fish is good, they’ll wait. So,
I got back after $100 of fuel burned and no fish, but
any day out on the water with no big mishaps is a good
day, and I sure enjoyed getting out of town.

–
Mark Stopha and Sara Hannan
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
Wild Salmon and Salmon Pet Treats
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
907-463-3115
www.GoodSalmon.com

Flew down to Wrangell on Tuesday to buy fish from my
brother in law. Although it was a expensive airfare,
I’m always apprehensive buying for the first time from
someone – even my brother in law. Turns out his fish
were real good. I gave him one pointer about
“milking” the blood from the belly walls, and that was
it. My neice said “all that extra work, just to make
the fish look nice?”. She’s only 14, but still- she’s
definitely out of the Will..

After we offloaded the fish at the crane, my neice
came up and helped me load all the fish into the fish
boxes so I could ship them up to my processor in
Juneau. After so many years on the boat, and even
through the make-up and braces, she’s all Craig,
Alaska, and is an experienced deck hand in handling
fish.

Wrangell was bustling with energy. They have a new
boat travel lift going in, and a public cold storage
under construction. Like other towns in the region,
they see a bright future in commercial fishing.
Unlike Juneau, which is letting it’s fleet go with the
highest harbor fees in the state and services that are
poor and getting worse. Our town is putting it’s
marbles in the state governement and ever growing
industrial cruiseship tourism, and letting their
commercial fleet leave. Pretty sad, but I’ve accepted
that that is the way it is. Only 21 percent of people
even bothered to vote in our recent election on
Tuesday – and that in a government town.

After getting all the fish to the airport, I returned
the truck borrowed from a friend, and hung-out at the
welding shop of our friend Dave Svensend, who is a
renowned boat builder in Alaska. Born and raised in
Wrangell, he was happy to live in a place where
everyone knows everyone, and no where in town is
longer than a 5 minute drive away. His 12 year old
grandson was busy putting together engine parts for a
skiff Dave promised he could drive when he was 12
years old. The promise was 2 years ago, and now Dave
is happy to help him put the boat together and get it
out. Great seeing a kid who has no worries about
picking up a wrench and putting things together.
It’ll be alot more useful than the GameBoy knowledge
is same-age peers are gaining elsewhere in America….

The fish arrived right on time in Juneau and I got
them all delivered or shipped out and now back to my
real job, which is both a relief and a burden.

–
Mark Stopha and Sara Hannan
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
Wild Salmon and Salmon Pet Treats
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
907-463-3115
www.GoodSalmon.com

We’re under an overcast sky of uncertainty here this
season. King salmon prices are at all time high
prices. Interest in our king salmon has always been
high until now, as our prices seem to have exceeded
the price tolerance of our customers, even though our
pricing is still less than what’s out there on the
market. So, we’ve retreated from putting fish in the
freezer, and now are just delivering fresh fish and
only buying what we need for delivery.

If it were not for the high salmon prices, however,
there might be few fish available at all, as fuel
prices are so high that the high fish prices are the
only way many fishermen can afford to go fishing this
time of year, when they’re only catching one salmon
species. When the coho salmon show up, then the
poundage of salmon caught per gallon of fuel burned
will go down, but prices will likely decline somewhat
as well.

My state regulators have shut down much of our
anticipated business plan. As a troller, I dressed
(i.e., gilled and gutted) all my fish on board my boat
and iced them, as this is the way to achieve top
quality. All my fish then went through a licensed
fish processor as required by law. When I sold my
boat, I planned to buy fish right out of the water in
the round from boats, dress and ice them aboard my
tender vessel as I did my troller, and deliver them to
the same processor for butchering and packaging.
This is the same process of moving fish from the water
to the processor as occurred aboard my own boat, but
the state says since it’s not me that caught the fish,
I cannot dress the fish aboard my tender unless I get
a processing license, even though all my fish will go
through a processor again. A processing license
requires an investment of hundreds of thousands of
dollars to buy a vessel and equipment to meet the
license requirments. This would mean I’d have to run
lots and lots of fish through just to pay the overhead
– if, and only if I already had markets lined up for
millions of pounds of fish. Of course, this also
means I would not be able to care for each fish as I
do now, and therefore, I’d be a high volume,
commodity-grade operation like the rest of the
processors in the state, and therefore lose the niche
I have now.

I went through every appeal process, and was denied,
but not based on any sort of science, just politics,
and the ease of saying “no” rather than trying to work
with a tiny, high-quality producing operator like me
that actually lives and operates here in the state.
I’ve written the governor, but with an 89% approval
rating and a gas line trying to get built, I can
understand why a solitary fish buyer cannot be on her
agenda right now.

So, I’ve thrown in my lot with another catcher boat
who is essentially in the same boat as I was – he
needs more high quality salmon to meet his market
demand, but can’t get them due to the same state
regulations.

The state is just pushing more fish into the
“commodity” grade by their inflexibility – and this is
the fish that is on an exponential growth curve of
growth for reprocessing in China. And many of the
companies shipping our salmon and jobs to China for
reprossessing are companies that were awarded
marketing grants from the federal government – i.e.,
US taxpayers are now paying to move our fish and jobs
to China. The more fish that goes to China, the more
jobs we lose here, and the bigger potential for some
sort of contamination when the fish returns to our
markets from China, as we’ve seen recently with pet
and human foods, as well as toothpaste. Just think
what that will do to the Alaskan seafood industry if
our seafood returns to the US for sale is found to be
contaminated – it could be a panic. Maybe if we can
stick around long enough, that could actually drive
more people to buy from us, but neither I nor my
partner can meet our market demand, so we’ll be right
back where we are now.

I’m going to deckhand with him, and buy his pink
salmon and as much of the sockeye as he can spare (not
much) and no king salmon, as there are never enough of
those as long as the price is right. I taught him my
handling techniques, and so it will be an easy
transition working for him as we’ll both be on the
same page of quality first, volume second book of
salmon harvest.

We’ll do the best I can, and who knows, maybe find a
new path. I’m back at a fulltime job with the state
health survey lab, but am allowed to continue fishing
during my off days, so we’ll see how durable this
tired body of 43 years holds up during a couple months
of 7 days a week, 16 hour days. Funny thing is, I can
hardly wait……

–
Mark Stopha and Sara Hannan
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
Wild Salmon and Salmon Pet Treats
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
907-463-3115
www.GoodSalmon.com