After several days of near or actual 70 degree weather, clouds moved in yesterday, and the temperature dropped right now. I thought this would be the day king salmon fishing picked up.

My buddy Jeff picked me up on the way to the boat rame with his 14′ lund and brand new 20 hp 4 stroke outboard. As we launched the boat, I told Jeff I thought this would be our day (after several days of being skunked). We motored the short distance from the ramp to the fishing hole, and dropped our lines. I cut a small “plug”, and put it on one of my old commercial trolling hooks.

After days of sun, we had light rain and no wind. Perfect salmon fishing weather. We fished for about an hour before the low tide until and hour and half past. As we fished through an area called “the pocket” in about 20 feet or less of water, a nice fish hit my herring twirling from my hook.

I’ve learned not to “horse” kings in – probably from my days as a fishing guide, where you really couldn’t do that when you fish from shore. A smooth drag and limber rod and patience were what you needed. So, it seemed to take me forever to get the fish in. And of course with Jeff wearing his bright red float coat and holding the net, we drew a crowd of boats. As the battle continued, I heard remarks like “maybe he’s got a marlin on there” and “must be a derby winner” from the boats, as even regular conversation carries so far over water – adding more and more pressure on both Jeff and I. Many a fish has been lost at the net, and Jeff knew that as well as I. I couldn’t even remember if I’d changed the line on the reel in this century.

We finally got it in, and both of us let out a collective sigh. I was all for fishing, as the action had warmed me up inside my ill-fitting raingear. But Jeff wanted to quit and get the fish weighed for our local derby, as of course he was cold from all the standing and waiting. I knew the fish was not a contender, but happy to oblige. We got it weighed, then back to Jeff’s house, where I butchered the fish and handed it out to the neighborhood. As I was on the way home with a few steaks for us, I got a call from my moose hunting partners, so dropped off fish for my wife’s dinner, then took some out to my friends and cooked dinner.

It’s been about 10 years since I had king fever, fishing most everyday before my job as a state salmon manager, near our house with a fishing rod from our skiff. I think I have it again. Getting the fish on, I think, is the most exciting part. Then it’s a sweat to see if you’ll land it. And a relief if it finally gets to the net. But that initial hook up, especially if you are actually holding on to the rod rather than having our pole in the rod holder, is the rush. And you don’t realize until you don’t fish for a long period how the sea, the sea birds, seals, and other fishermen helps to calm the nerves and just relax.

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

We had so much snow this winter, after it filled my skiff, the weight broke the trailer axle. So, I ordered a new one, and got it on on Friday, after running back out to NAPA to be sure I was putting it together correctly. No directions came with it at all, and it was not at all like the axle I was replacing.

I finally get the boat launched, and the big motor starts right up and off we go. I thought I’d start the 3 hp outboard I bought for trolling and which has never run right after the first couple of hours I ran it. I changed out and flushed all the fuel, and it started right up at the house. When I got it to fire, it would start, and then die. Start and die. Just like it always did. So, I decided just to get on with my trip to our cabin, and the big motor started doing the same thing. It would start right up, but die when I gave it throttle. (and no, they both didn’t come from the same gas tank). This went on for 15 minutes, and I finally thought I better try to choke the big outboard in and out to limp it back to the dock. It finally decided to go, and I bypassed the dock, made a U turn, and waited for it to die again. It never did, so off to the cabin.

I met a troller friend who has a cabin on the same island. I asked if he was busy, then saw what I thought was a broken foot cast. Turns out he has diabetes, and it’s causing all kinds of havoc – amputated toes, blistered feet, etc. Made me again feel lucky for all I have.

Got in to the cabin, and started reading old Southeaster magazines about life in Southeast Alaska. Reading stories about Pelican and other places made me want to get going on buying another boat so I can get back out to these places.

I awoke this morning to hooters (blue grouse) booming from the tree tops on Admiralty. I knew the skiff wasn’t anchored much above high tide, so I thought I better just get down there to it, and decided not to go hunting alone. The boat was barely floating, and so lucky I got there when I did before the tide turned. Another scorcher day.

When I got home, I changed out the fuel filter on the big motor, and put brand new fuel in the little motor. My friend Jeff and I went hunting around low tide. To my delight, the little motor started and ran like a sewing machine for 2 hours. Then it died. It started right up again, then died. Start and die. Just like before. It is definitely going into our next garage sale.

Must have been over 70 degrees out there today, which made for poor king salmon fishing. We didn’t see any fish caught in all the boats or from all the people casting from shore. Weather is going to change in the next day or two, and that will likely move some fish on in.
–
Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
907-463-3115
www.GoodSalmon.com

The days are getting longer and longer. Now nearing 18 hours of sun I’d guess. It’s been about zero degrees, but the wind is nasty and makes for bitter cold.

The snow is drifting up now not unlike a desert. The fine grains that I see going across the road look like sand, not snow flakes. The landscape looks like an ocean with 2 foot waves frozen in a picture.

I’ve been reading a book about the explorer Nansen, who tried for the North Pole in the late 1800’s. They went for years on their trek, with no cell phone, no GPS, no fiberglass or steel boat, and only a rudimentary early steam engine to supplement sail power. They made all their own stuff as they went, from Kayaks to skiis to sleeping bags to tents. They shot polar bears, and used the hides for shelter and sleeping. Who knows how to treat a hide these days for those kind of wares? Or who knows how to use a sextant to find latitude/longitude? Who even knows what a sextant is? I can’t imagine taking off on a trip like that today with all our modern products, and these guys did it routinely. It makes you wonder who would be left living in the event of a catostrophic event.

Life up here on the north slope is certainly the height of artificial. Few spend much time in the unheated out of doors, with most quick dashes from a warm building to the always idling vehicles. Some days I wish I could take off on a day long cross country ski excursion, but that would be frowned upon as unsafe – which of course it would be since I’m as soft as the next text messager.
–
Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
907-463-3115
www.GoodSalmon.com

It’s April 30 here, but still 24 below and a brisk breeze of 9 mph tonight. That may not seem like much wind, but it is when it’s this cold, and immediately hits any exposed skin.

The days are so much longer and sunny now, though, that it’s much easier to take and doesn’t seem as cold as it should.

I’ve been fretting for over a year about buying a boat down on Prince of Wales, and I’m finally going down to look at it when I get back to Juneau. This will involve a flight from Juneau to Ketchikan, a ferry ride of 3 hours from Ketchikan to Hollis on Prince of Wales, then a several hour drive to Whale Pass…unless the road isn’t open, by which we’ll then have to try to take a boat over from Coffman Cove.

We’re finally at least breaking even in our fish business. We’ve been fishing with another family near Juneau, selling their fish into our markets while they continue selling into theirs. We have virtually no competition amongst ourselves – in fact, if someone approaches me who would be better served by my quasi-partner, then I send those folks to him, and vice versa.

However, it seems this is not enough anymore. Having trolled those 5 years, only after I quit did I realize how important it was to be out in a boat, anchored up in some small cove, cooking some deer stew on the stove and listening to the weather. Or maybe riding out a gale. Solitude and the ocean are two things you can’t find in many other places. Even fishing the gillnet fishery with my friend is just not the same. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s the other boats nearby. Maybe it’s the gear and how we’re fishing a net instead of hook and line. Who knows.

So, I may turn back to trolling. This time, I’m going in with my eyes wide open for a change. We have ready markets for all our fish, and hopefully have run into every administrative wall and know how to deal with the regulatory BS. Hopefully, we’ll continue breaking even and hopefully have a real boat gain, albeit a much smaller one than the fabulous Dutch Master, which is still fishing near Pelican last time I knew. We’ll see when I get there if it’s everything it seems on paper and in photos, or if live-and-in-person ends up not being what I want.

After losing so much, like everyone else, in the stock market, I’m ready to invest likely as losing an investment, but one that at least I can touch and enjoy.

Springtime here, and still -40 at night. Daytime it has been up into the high minus 20’s. The weather is clear and sunny, though, and the sun certainly makes things at least seem warmer. Just stood out in -40 for a nearly two hours helping to fuel, and glad I brought up my pac mits this time, as the hands and the face are the two things that get cold first. Feet will too if you don’t have bunny boots.

After a winter here, I have the wardrobe down now for keeping warm. I layer long johns, fleece pants, t-shirt, turtlneck, fleece jacket that zips up like a turtleneck, then put my uninsulated coveralls on, then my arctic jacket. I have a hat face mask that was open from the top of the eye brows to my nose. I sewed up the hat at the bridge of my nose to make into a gangster mask, and that makes the hat alot warmer. Then I put ski goggles on and my hard hat with hearing protection muffs down over my ears, and my pac mittens and bunny boots with one pair of heavy socks. So far, that is doing the trick to keep me warm.

We’re on the east side of the Colville River now, near were the fault line ends on the west side and the river drops into the delta flats. We’re up to about 12 hours of daylight now, and still gaining daylight in a hurry.

Still very little sign of life around. I’ve seen one raven in camp at times. I did see a red fox and some ptarmagin on the drive in from the ice strip we flew into at Sag River on Tuesday.

The two week work hitches seem to be going by faster and faster, but the single week home also goes by faster and faster. Juneau is still getting snow, and so tough on my wife trying just to get in and out of the garage and up and down the driveway and steps without me there to shovel. I fill up our wood bin, which is a fish tote on its side, everytime I leave, but with the long winter, the wood doesn’t last the whole two weeks now, so that’s another chore she has to do to carry the wood in from the woodpile.

Lots of excitement in Juneau. One legislator went to work for the Obama administration. His senate seat is open, and my wife, among 13 others, has put her application in for his seat. If she can get to the interview stage with the governor, I don’t see how she wouldn’t get the seat, even though she is seen by many as a long shot. We shall see.

On the fish front, as usual, we have run out or soon will of most everything, which makes us happy but not our customers who would like more but will have to wait till summer.

It’s been an exciting new experience working winter drilling here in the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska. The first site was west of the Colville River. I worked there for the first part of this two week hitch, and some of the days were fantastic scenes of blood-red sun over a desert of snow that looks like rolling sand dunes. I saw a couple of caribou working their way around the foothills, pawing at the ground and feeding on the tundra below. Hard way to make a living. I heard there were 3 caribou, and that a wolverine killed one and was feeding on it not far from the road. I did not see it when I drove down to the support camp a few miles away, and so it may have been covered by snow from some of the wind storms.

In a quick decision, it was decided to demobilize the drilling rig and camp, and move it about 75 miles to the other side of the Colville river to look for gas there. The drill site was a flurry of heavy equipment and loaders taking apart the various components of the rig, loading them on large rolligon and steiger snow trucks, and shipping them across the fields. The rolligons are incredible vehicles. They have sort of cylindrical balloons for “wheels”. A roller sits on top of the balloon, and is driven by the drive train of the truck. This causes the balloon to roll. There are about a dozen of these balloons, which act as wheels, but so well displace the massive weights of the cargo that they don’t even leave tracks in the snow I don’t think. I guess they must in drifted snow, but I don’t think they do in hard pack, wind driven snow like there is here. They don’t even have to legally stay on the ice roads, they tread so lightly on the
snow. The steiger rigs are essentially 18 wheelers, with the wheels replaced by a rubber track. Sort of a mini-bulldozer track at each wheel.

We’ve had heavy winds the past day, so travel has slowed or stopped altogether. I was moved yesterday to a staging camp near the new rig site, and am helping out with monitoring fuel transfers, cleaning up any minor drips on the ice pad, and watching out for compliance with oil spill regulaitons, such as keeping a drip pan under vehicles, drums of oil, etc. to catch any leaks.

As often happens up here, one of the first people I met was a fuel tanker driver I was helping to fuel. Turns out he lived in a small city in Michigan on Lake Huron, just up the road from my uncle, who lives in a tiny farm town. I think he was quite surprised that I knew where he lived. Another of my co-workers here fishes in Bristol Bay, and knows a good friend of mine from Juneau who I have been emailing regularly with my latest hot boat buy prospects.

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Very busy day here. I’ve decided it looks like a truck stop here, with all sorts of 18 wheeler-type rigs parked all over the ice pad, a place to shower, go the bathroom, and a diner car.

Helped offload groceries flown in today. One load came in on what is essentially a flying boxcar. Haven’t seen one of these in 25 years. The last time was during the very first job I had in Alaska in August of 1983, Chena Marina, Fairbanks. The first week I was in Fairbanks, a newly-met friend asked if I wanted to go and work a slime-line cleaning salmon for $5.50/hr. It was the highest hourly wage I’d ever made – by far. I’ve still got friends from that first job. In fact, I had dinner in Anchorage on the way through to the slope a week ago, and my wife is good friends with another – they are both teacher union politicos.

The plot just thickens here. One guy working at this pad had all kinds of dirt on some current and former legislators – all first hand knowledge. Another had family along the Allegany River, downstream into Pennsylvania from where I grew up.

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Bottom dropped out of the temperature last night. This morning it’s 30 below with little wind. Did my largest fuel transfer yet last night of 20,000 gallons. These take several hours, and it was trying to say the least to stand out in the cold. We warm up when need be. No one is getting frost bite to transfer fuel.

Turns out both of the fuelers were from Juneau – the younger one a former student of my wife. Another beautiful sunset as we fueled last night, here near the end of the Brooks Range foothills where the Colville River opens up to the Arctic Plain.

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