Anchored in Takanis Bay last night, where the mosquitoes and noseeums were having a convention. We had no bug dope, mosquito coils or Buhach, so it was a sweaty sleep with the sleeping bag pulled tight with just an airhole to breathe.

Moved to Cape Cross today. Fish are much larger and pretty good numbers. Overcast and light winds.

Really enjoying fishing with crew. On my own boat, I was mechanic, gear tyer, gear hauler, fish cleaner, fish icer, and chief cook and dishwasher. Now, I’m just the fish cleaner and do the dishes (hope my wife doesn’t find out I know how to do the dishes….).
We caught about as many kings today as my best day ever with my own boat, and I was almost bored.

63 K, 60 C.

Mark Stopha
F/V Dutch Master
Alaska Wild Salmon Co
4455 N Douglas Hwy
Juneau, Alaska 99801
907-463-3115

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Sunny day with a breeze in the afternoon. Yesterday, fishing was steady, and today we’ve had episodes of lotsof fish in between periods of few fish. The skipper found the spoon that’s what the king salmon want – a number 7 superior chrome/brass spoon. May be our biggest day yet, as we have 2/3 of yesterdays catch already and it’s only 3 pm.

Turned out to be our second best day, with 60 K and 47 C.

Mark Stopha
F/V Dutch Master
Alaska Wild Salmon Co
4455 N Douglas Hwy
Juneau, Alaska 99801
907-463-3115

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Seeing what I think are shorttail(?) albatross behind the boat, and some birds that look like gulls that are soot covered. Will have to look these up when I get home. Pretty fair seas for ocean fishing, with overcast skies but no rain. The mosquitoes found us in the anchorage last night, and were driving me nuts buzzing in my ear. Scratch fishing for kings and cohos. Finally seeing a few pinks. Other places I’ve fished are usually lousy with them this time of year.

Fishing the furthest from shore I’ve ever been fishing – about 10 miles or so. Fishing about the same as Monday.

Mark Stopha
F/V Dutch Master
Alaska Wild Salmon Co
4455 N Douglas Hwy
Juneau, Alaska 99801
907-463-3115

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Lumpy seas and all hands woozy for half the day. Had to build a fish cleaning tray, as the boat has a backbreaking cleaning board with nothing to hold the fish (like a cleaning tray), so you spend most of your energy wrestling the fish, just trying to keep it still. This is a fiberglass boat, and unlike a wood boat, there isn’t a lot of scrap plywood and dimensional lumber aboard. Luckily, I found a couple 2 x 6 pieces and scraps of 1 x 4 and made a workable tray, with an immediate attitude improvement. Day 1: 35 king, 89 coho, 9 ling, 1
rockkfish.

Mark Stopha
F/V Dutch Master
Alaska Wild Salmon Co
4455 N Douglas Hwy
Juneau, Alaska 99801
907-463-3115

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Much calmer seas and catching and cleaning systems soothed out and I’m in a much better state after seeing my makeshift cleaning tray works just fine. Caught 10 kings right of the first pull of gear, then scratch fishing the rest of the morning.
Like an idiot, I hung my stinky socks in the foc’sle like I used to on my boat. Only, I’m not fishing alone anymore, and come to find out, my foc’sle mates were gagging on the stench, so no more sock drying there.
Seems like the fish have less feed than they do today.

I was having a hard time figuring out how to pressure bleed the small cohos, and even on some big fish you just can’t find the artery. I found a solution to that this morning, so yet another tiny step forward in improving fish quality.

Late in the day we heard 2 of the skippers coding partners giving their catch numbers. Trollers never want anyone to know when they’re doing well, and want to know where the fish are when they’re not. Coding partners make up a code for how many they’ve caught. One partner said he had a basketball court, and the other guy said he had 4 shy of a soccer field. We didn’t have that code sheet so we don’t know how many they had. Our code is in colors.

Day 2: 50 king, 70 coho, 1 ling.
Mark Stopha
F/V Dutch Master
Alaska Wild Salmon Co
4455 N Douglas Hwy
Juneau, Alaska 99801
907-463-3115

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It’s 2 days before the 7/1 summer troll king salmon opening, and a joy to be at sea again. We just rounded Pt Retreat, and part of a train of trollers, with their distinguishing tall poles held upright in the fair seas, headed for Icy Strait and then through the Inian Island passes to Cross Sound and the big ocean. We left the harbor about 5 am and will run all day to arrive by our appointment at 6 pm to fill the hold with ice at the fish plant in Pelican.

On our way down Lisianski Strait, about an hour from Pelican, we all felt a thud and thought it was a log. Turns out it was the pulley that operates our hydraulics and wash down pump falling off the power takeoff of the engine.

Upon arrival, the local mechanic/welder/machinist took a look and went to work rebuilding the unit. What looked like a major repair and possibly lost fishing time now looked like a local fix. Meantime, my former boat, the Dutch Master, was also under repair. After all the problems I had with the transmission last season, the new owner was again having similar problems and was busy trying to get the boat repaired in time for the big opening the day after tomorrow.

Mark Stopha
F/V Dutch Master
Alaska Wild Salmon Co
4455 N Douglas Hwy
Juneau, Alaska 99801
907-463-3115

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