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

We went on a 4 week vacation back east this year for a nephew’s graduation and family reunion. In between, I renewed a friendship with a best friend from high school who likes to fish as much as I do. He’s pick me up at 3 am to go bass fishing with plastic frogs in the dark on Conesus Lake near Rochester. He caught at least 2 to my 1, as I was always missing the strike. But so much fun. We had 3 big fish feeds for the family from our catch.

Of course, he had a real job at Kodak, so couldn’t fish every day, plus my niece and nephews want to go, too. So I bought a canoe on Craigslist with a flat stern to put my outboard on. When I went to the lake, a water official said I needed to register the boat. So, I called the DMV for NY state. The person told me I had to go back to the people who sold me the boat (they were on vacation so not home) to get a bill of sale. The boat came with their house, so they would not be the registered owner, anyway. The DMV person said there was no other way. Wow. Government work in action. We figured out a work around on our own with no further problem.

We used the canoe on Hemlock and Canadice lakes. These lakes are a dream. Boats are limited to 17 feet and outboards to 10 hp. There are no homes or private land on these western finger lakes. Trees go right up to the ridge line, and nothing else. No water skiers or big bass boats. We didn’t catch lots of fish, but got lots of solitude. And so close to Rochester.

As I talked with my high school buddy, I realized the big change in fishing. Growing up, it was about going to the river or lake, getting out of doors, and the reward was taking home any catch to eat. Now fishing is about winning something in a tournament. I’m glad I grew up before I caught that bug.

We had dinner a couple times with a high school classmate in Rush. He and his wife had a huge garden overflowing with squash and berries. We left with armfuls of produce each time. One evening they took us through a tour of the local farmland, where there were gobs of deer, including the biggest buck I’d ever seen in person.

Back in Geneseo, we went to one of their celebration days, where we watched our niece and nephew play in a steel band directed by lifetime friends of their dad. Wow, were they good. I’m hoping to get some of them up here for folk fest.

We also went to Pittsburgh where my sister sells fish we send down at a farmer’s market. It was her turn to cook lunch for the customers, so Sara and I did that. I cooked whole keta fillets basted with olive oil, soy sauce and a few spices and Sara served. We served 65 meals in 4 hours. Best fish many said they ever had. Even the wife of a hall of fame Steeler’s running back is a fan. Lots of fun.

Back in Geneseo, we cooked up several meals of bass, grouse, salmon, halibut and blacktail deer. The kids and grownups were tentative at first, but one taste and the fish and meats were almost instantly gone. Glad to have people that still enjoy wild food.

I took the Pittsburgh niece and 2 of the nephews to a fishing day at a private pond. I told them on the way in to be sure to see who was catching fish and to see how they did it and ask how they did it. For at least an hour, they were using the wrong bait but finally followed my advice, interacted with the others catching, and started catching fish after fish.

We bought lots of sweet corn and tomatoes while in upstate NY, as both were coming into season. Lots of roadside markets at farms with produce outside and a box to put the money in – glad there are still places that work on the honor system.

Camp wood – little bundles of split firewood – was also for sale everywhere. Never remember that being the case, but apparently lots of people looking for it by the number of places selling it along the back roads.

Sara and I went to a couple auctions and garage sales. One lot I was bidding on I looked over and realized Sara was bidding too! Not sure how much we bid up the price before I realized it. The auctioneer said you never bring friends or family with you to an auction!

I got to spend time with my Dad, which was the reason we stayed so long. I took him on a day trip down to Bolivar to see some of his old friends, and fun to catch up with them. One worked at a gas storage field near Olean. They pump gas from the Marchellus wells down into the ground into an old gas well that is really an old ocean bed. They use the old well like as storage, moving it later as needed to market.

The Family Reunion was great. I saw an old photo album of my mother’s I’d never seen. Mom and her girlfriends had a lot of fun when she was single, traveling to places in the east, going to beaches, dances, etc. Some 130 Eaton Family showed up. The days had been mostly in the 90s and some days 100, but it cooled off to the 80s for that day nicely.

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

Caught 3 king salmon this weekend. One I should have entered in the local spring king salmon derby, as it would have placed in the top 10. It was in the high 20 lbs whole. Saw a sow and cub on the Admiralty beach on Sunday, and 2 teenage cubs or adolescents last night, too. I went over to the cabin last night so I could fish this morning. Fished 330 am to 6 am but no luck. It was high tide and I think it’s better to fish there around low tide.
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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com

I went to an island south of Juneau to do a site assessment for a potential shellfish farm. The jobsite leaders set out a grid on a beach at low tide, identified a transect to sample, then myself and others on the trip began digging at the sample sites, putting clams we found in a bag for later identification and measurement. Three students from UAS joined us, and they were excellent workers and travel mates.

The next day, I traveled with the crew north to see an oyster farm. When we arrived at the site, the farmer’s name somehow rang a bell. It then hit me that this might be the brother in law of a friend who lives a thousand miles west of Juneau’s wife’s first husband. And in true Alaskan fashion – it was. We had another great day learning the oyster trade with them. The oysters are held in square mesh boxes, stacked 8 boxes high, and hung from a floating raft, where the oysters can eat plankton. A small winch on rollers moved on an I beam that extended from the floathouse dock out over the water. The raft with the oyster boxes was moved in position so that the winch could pick them. The farmer lifted the boxes with the winch, then moved the winch back to the floathouse dock. We then dismantled the units box by box, pouring the oysters in each into a sorter. The sorter was simply a piece of large drain pipe with the sides replaced by varying
sizes of wire mesh, tilted downhill. The pipe turned by a small motor with a belt, and when oysters were poured down the tube, they would tumble until the mesh was large enough one to fall through into a tub. Ones too large for any of the mesh went all the way to the bottom into a tub. Similar sized oysters were loaded into the boxes, which will provide better growth then mixed sizing in a box. The whole unit is cleaned, put back together and dropped back onto the raft, and then another box cluster pulled. The work was physical labor but not arduous.

I drove back to where I was staying, arriving about 7 pm. After dinner we had an offer to hop on a boat trolling with fishing poles for king salmon in front of the residence. On the next pass – bang! – a nice king hit the hootchie and flasher combo. They handed the rod to me as the out-of-towner, and we landed the fish. We ate part of it the next evening, and the rest of it back here in Juneau.

On the last day, I worked with the local fish hatchery staff. I first took a tour of the facility, and went over the adult fish sales situation with the manager. Then I assisted the crew in transferring king salmon smolts from their hatchery freshwater ponds to saltwater net pens.

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