Todd and Renee came to town for a week, including 3 days out on the boat. We headed to Chatham Strait on day 1, and on the way, came across a group of about 14 humpback whales bubble net feeding. The whales were some distance away as we motored on our way, not headed in any particular direction when they dove. They surfaced literally a stone’s throw away from us. I put the boat hard over to starbard to move away from them, then immediately took the boat out of gear. This was an instinctual reaction from my years of work as a whale watch guide. The whales stayed at the surface, then swam right behind the stern of the boat, taking their time. It took awhile before they were 100 yards away and I could put the boat back in gear so we could be on our way.  These encounters never get old, and it’s more exciting with friends who’ve never witnessed this event before.

We put down the fishing gear once we rounded Point Retreat, and soon had a fish on. We caught fish the rest of the afternoon. Most were pinks on a yellow with red stripe hootchie. I had them switch to a chartreuse hootchie and we got a couple cohos, so I switched the other side to chartreuse, too.

About 4 pm, we headed to a very remote state parks cabin, which is my favorite. It has two bays separated by a sand bar, and the cabin is just off the sand bar.  Todd told me a funny story about “Minnesota Nice” on the way over. His step daughter was about 12 at the time, and they were at a cook out. There was one hamburger left, and as the guest, they asked Todd if he wanted it. He said sure, he’d take it if no one else wanted it, eager to please the cook and his offer. When he got his burger and returned to the table, his step daughter was beside herself. “You don’t say yes if someone asks you for the last hamburger. You say no first, and then let them negotiate with you and ask you four or five more times before you accept.”  That killed me.

After anchoring the boat, I filleted fish and Todd wrapped them, then they went in the freezer. Then we launched the punt to go to shore. After never failing me, the kicker would not start. It wouldn’t even fire. So I rowed Renee and Todd in one at a time with the gear.  When I got there, I later realized I’d not brought the spatula for making pancakes in the morning.

I fried the frames from coho salmon we’d filleted, and also fillet pieces of coho and pink salmon. Sara had packed a tomato and basil salad and some shrimp seviche to go with it, along with some potato chips I brought along. I realized that, along with the spatula, I’d forgot any spices for the salmon. This is the stuff Sara does not forget. I improvised and used crushed potato chips, which turned out fantastic. When we finished eating frames, I asked if I should cook the fillets, and Todd said I should. Those two ate those themselves, and I was happy to hear Renee say how much she liked the pink salmon and that it tasted mild like trout. So many here turn their nose up at pink salmon, but I know better. Pink salmon, taken out on the ocean and then bled and chilled like you’d take care of a king salmon, are fantastic table fare. And getting an unbiased affirmation like that made me smile. We had chocolate for dessert. We slept on camping pads in the cabin. I’d brought those to save space on the boat. Not the best, but okay for the night. Next time it will only be full size foam pads, and I’ll figure out a way to keep them on the boat roof and dry.

We got up at a leisurely time after a stiff night of sleep. Lots of coffee before I got to making pancakes. Then Todd asked if the boat had dragged anchor, and I realize it had. We’d set a crab pot behind it, and the boat was now even with the buoy. I jumped in the punt and rowed out, and reanchored the boat with a lot more scope this time. And I grabbed the spatula.

We ate pancakes cooked in olive oil and some venison summer sausage til it was all gone. Then packed up for another day of fishing.

We headed back to the Admiralty shore, and put the gear out at Naked Island about 11 am.  It didn’t seem that 15 minutes ever went by when we didn’t have a fish on. By 330 pm, we’d reached our limit of pinks and had a couple decent cohos, too. The kids called uncle. This is enough fish and we don’t need anymore to take home. I’d hoped the chartreuse hootchie would catch more cohos than pinks, but it did not. We headed to the Funter Bay dock to tie up for the day.

On the way, I decided to set a 2 hook halibut skate. It was my first time doing so. I set out a little anchor, then snapped on a ganion line with circle hook and octopus bait, then another hook and bait, then another anchor, and then fed out line til the anchors were both on bottom, and put on a buoy.  Next we set a crab pot filled with salmon  heads and bones amongst many other pots, and tied up to the dock.

I started filleting our catch, Todd portioned and rinsed it twice, put the fish into colanders to drain, then Renee wrapped the pieces in plastic wrap and we put them in the freezer, separating them with chunks of beach combed plastic trays so they froze properly.

Next I got dinner on, and Renee vac packed yesterday’s fish. Tonight dinner was moose brauts Jerry’s meats made from the moose I caught on the Yukon River in April, with lots of garnish choices, including onions and bell peppers I sauteed. I put those and some pickled rhubarb on mine, and some mustard. I have not found anything I don’t like pickled rhubarb on, and will need to can a bunch more to have enough for the year. The couple enjoyed the moose.

We retired early and we all were asleep quickly after a full day.

I got up first in the morning and got the coffee on. This was the first of 4 pots we’d drink today. Next, I started vac packing yesterday’s catch, and Todd soon joined me. We drank cup after cup of coffee. When the fish was done, we headed to check our gear. The dungy pot was full of juvenile king crab, which was great as Renee had never seen them. She took lots of photos for her 4th graders to see in the fall. We released all the crab, shook the bait from the bait jars, and headed for the halibut skate. There was nothing on the first hook, and the octopus was gone. Next came the anchor, with a big loop in the line. The second hook should have been next. Why the tangle?  Because there was a halibut on the second hook!  I got the fish to the side, conked it, and gaffed it on board.  Exciting to get my first halibut on a skate.

We headed back to town. The whales were in the same location as the way out. We watched the big group dive and surface several times, but they never “set” as they call it, coming up with their mouth’s wide open under the bubble net.

We got back to the harbor, and I got a good spot near the ramp. We offloaded the gear, carted it to the truck, and headed for the house.

Sara greeted us in a mask, with masks for us. She got Covid and so was keeping her distance. She had to cancel her coveted trip to Antiques Roadshow in Anchorage, as well as a ride on the train in Fairbanks to celebrate the centennial of the Alaska railroad. Pretty disappointing. None of us had any symptoms and I tested negative so far. Fingers crossed.

I bought a steam juicer at a garage sale a few years ago. When I picked it up to look at it, the owner raved about all the good things she’d made with it, so I handed her a tenner, and took a chance I’d actually use it. I did, and I love it. A practical, simple contraption for juicing. I think I’ve only used it for rhubarb, and Haines cherries may be next to try.

When we returned from my cousin Emily’s funeral back in NY state, the forecast was for a week of rain. I knew it was time to clear out some freezer space as Sara had to jockey around a bunch of things to make room for all the king salmon we had from this spring, and then I had to find it to pack up a box to take back with us.

As often happens, I think about things to do at home when I’m away. Firewood. Canning. Boat work. Stuff like that. So the day we got home, I dug through both freezers we have working to find (hopefully) all the rhubarb from the past years. The rhubarb patch in our yard, where I’d dug up plants and separated them at the bulb and replanted a few years ago, was now taking off, so I figure I’d use that rhubarb for fresh desserts. I’d already canned a case of pickled rhubarb after tasting some at a birthday party in Craig in the spring.

The following day, Sara left for Bristol Bay for a fish processor tour, so I got the juicer out and started making juice. The juicers are such a simple contraption, and if I’m doing it right, take very little work. The juicer is comprised of 3 pans that nestle into each other The bottom is the water bath pan that needs to be checked every once in awhile to be sure there’s water left. The top pan has holes in the bottom and is where the cut up rhubarb goes. The middle pan has a chimney of sorts in the middle, like a sponge cake pan, that allows steam to go up to the fruit in the top pan, and as the juice comes out of the fruit, it falls into the middle pan, which has a drain nipple on the outside with a clamp hose attached. As the juice collects in the middle pan, you put the end of the hose in a container and unclamp the hose to drain of the juice.

As the rhubarb in the top pan has the juice steamed out of it, it reduces to a pulp, and I just pile more new rhubarb on top as I’ve seen others do in stories and videos. I might try doing it in batches next time, letting all the juice come out of a batch in top colander, then dumping that and starting again. I’m not sure it matters much. The pulp goes in the compost so is recycled anyway.

The juicing part was easy. I got enough juice – about one and a half gallons – for 2 cases of half pints of jelly,  plus an extra gallon I canned raw in quart jars.

Unlike the juice making, the jelly making was a learning experience. I’ve not made jelly very often. Just from high bush cranberries, I think. And maybe some jelly from cherries or salmon berries I let sit in a colander before processing or freezing.

Jam is a lot more forgiving because the fruit pulp gives even runny jam some consistency. Unset jelly can be as fluid as the juice used to make it. The runny jelly is useful for a syrup over ice cream or in yogurt, but not much of a spread.

I first used regular pectin, which requires a good amount of sugar for it to work. Finding a specific rhubarb jelly recipe was somewhat difficult, so I tried to wing it on the amount of sugar and pectin. The jelly didn’t gel at all. Next I used Sure Gel no sugar / low sugar pectin, thinking maybe the amount of sugar I’d used was off. Some of the batches gelled a little, but not much. After the jars cooled, I them in the fridge overnight, but it didn’t help much. The jelly tasted great – fantastic, really – but just never gelled.

Yesterday, Kurt, Jeff, and I took the boat around Douglas to Auke Bay for the summer. We dropped a car for Sara at the airport and a car at Auke Bay for us to get home, then took the boat around the island from the downtown harbor. We tried for salmon and got a Dolly Varden, which made Kurt happy as he loves eating it. We tried several spots for halibut, and no fish. When I got home, Sara had left a message that she took a paid bump for her trip home, so would not be back til the evening.

I saw the jars of runny jelly in the fridge, and couldn’t take it. I would try again.

I removed all the reuseable Tattler lids and gaskets from the jars and poured all the jelly into a pot and put it on to boil. I went to Foodland, and they only had one jar of no sugar pectin – Ball brand. So I bought that figuring it was enough. It was not. When I read the directions, I realized I needed two jars. I didn’t want to drive all the way to the valley to find more, so I tried Rainbow Foods to see if they had pectin. Good choice. They did.

They had Pomona Pectin. I hadn’t used that since I was in Kodiak and Sand Point making salmon berry jam. I think I ordered it out of Mother Earth News. It’s a pectin that uses calcium and pectin to gel the jelly, not pectin and sugar. So the amount of sugar in the jelly is not critical. And the recipes allow for up to tripling a batch recipe, which regular pectin recipes frown on. I followed the directions, reading them over and over, and calculating and recalculating, for a triple batch.

Once I measured and got the triple batch going in one pot, I had a double batch of juice still left. And not quite enough pectin to do it. But the instructions say you can vary the amount of pectin used to vary the consistency of the gel, so I used what was left. I also followed the Tattler lid instructions exactly, including letting the jars sit for 5 minutes after coming out of the canner before retightening the rings, and letting the jars sit overnight before removing the rings and checking for lid seals. I’ve regularly had problems with their lids sealing, and mostly from my impatience, I think.

All came out perfect. The jelly gelled and tasted great. All the jars sealed after sitting overnight with tight rings. Success.

We are through about half the summer growing season, so likely will see a case or two more of pickled rhubarb go in the pantry, and then a bunch more into the freezer or given away.

I finished filling the woodshed today. A marathon day of splitting rounds, loading the truck with the split wood, moving it up to the shed, tossing the wood off, then stacking it in the shed. I didn’t plan to finish, really, but once I got close, I got the fever and couldn’t stop til it was done.

An old friend who is a prominent journalist in the state texted me out of the blue. Her sister in law said to give me a call. Did I have 15 minutes to talk about king salmon?  I said sure. But I might refer you to someone else who is an expert or more acquainted.

She called not much later, and started asking me questions about the king salmon situation. As we talked, she asked me how long I’d been associated with king salmon. It didn’t take long to think I’m 59 and I got here when I was 19 and started guiding and catching king salmon when I was 20……..so about 40 years!  That was sort of a wake up call, I guess. I’m damn near 60.

As we chatted, I realized I had been working with this fish in one way or another and kinda sorta did know something about the situation. More on a bigger societal picture than a scientific one. If anyone knew the specific problem, maybe we could fix it. We don’t, but “we” know it’s not “us” that’s the problem, so we start looking for someone to blame as we fight over the last fish.

By the end of the conversation, I felt pretty good about the perspectives I was able to give her, and she seemed happy for my responses. We’ll see how it comes out. I used to worry about how it would come across in the press when I was a state official. Now I’m just a guy with 4 decades of a little bit of experience associated in a lot of different ways with king salmon, and I like it that way.

I went out after the call and got the last of the wood in the truck and then into the shed. The hip that’s been killing me feels remarkably well today. I realize later exercise good. Sitting bad.  So now what am I gonna do.

The neighbor has some firewood that she needs bucked up, so I can start there.