July 13 2016: Fishing continues up and down

We've been listening every morning at 9 AM for the announcement that will tell us whether we are allowed to continue fishing or whether we must pull our gear. This morning's announcement told us that the setnetters will be open until further notice. This is because the Naknek River has reached its escapement goal (1.06 million salmon) and so has the Kvichak River (2.85 million). ADFG clarified, however, that the 48 hour waiting period for transfers between districts is still in effect and will continue to be in effect until either July 17 or when the Naknek escapement exceeds 1.4 million and the Kvichak escapement exceeds 4 million.

The 48 hour waiting period means that if someone is fishing in Egegik, but wants to start fishing in Naknek/Kvichak, they can notify ADFG of their intention to change districts, but then they must take their nets out of the water for 48 hours until the transfer goes into effect. This prevents people from hopping between districts and lets the ADFG have a much better idea of how strong the fishing effort will be.

We had a moderate day tide, but Patrick was able to see a lot of activity in the nets as the evening tide came in. We got out on them as soon as we could and raced to make it through all four nets before the tide turned, again fishing out of all three boats. We ended up with something in the neighborhood of 10,000 lbs. We don't know exactly because a couple of totes went to custom processing for Naknek Seafood's customers and there's a delay in getting the weights on those.

As soon as we realized how many fish we'd have on the flood, we asked for a tender. The beach trucks just can't keep up. We were so happy when we saw the Jade V coming toward us. Here is our first delivery to the Jade. They use their cranes to lift the brailers out of the skiff. The brailers are hooked up so that it's possible to release the handles and lift the bag by the tail, turning the bag upside down and dropping the fish into the hold.

It was my turn for a tide off, so after the flood, I went in and let the rest of the crew finish up the tide. That gave me a little time to try to catch up on the blog and finally use a tripod to get a photo of the gorgeous moonset we've been watching for the past several nights.