As we fished (it was freezing! Did I mention that it snowed last week? It's July, even if it is Alaska) the orange gave way to blue and the gray clouds became pink and red. 
We got back in by about 5, so we get to sleep a pretty long time - back in the boats by 10:45.
This morning's tide was slow - 1295 lbs. I've heard that more are coming. I've also heard that a storm is coming - they do tend to come together.
We did try the gigantic Bathtub pull on yesterday afternoon's tide. It went smoothly. We used the Killer Ranger to pull the Bathtub (filled with 4500 lbs of salmon) to within reach of the line (the Killer Ranger can do that because the mud out beyond about 800' is not as slick as the mud closer in to the beach, so the ranger has something to bite into to get traction). We had a line in the tote on the back of the ranger, so Trina minded that as it played out running from the Bathtub to the pulley. We fed it through the pulley and I crawled under the truck to find something sturdy to tie to. Shifted it into low range, four wheel drive, first gear and took off slowly. It didn't even seem to strain - just pulled that Bathtub in. The same mud that gives the rangers problems pulling things makes things easy to pull. The mud is so wet and sloppy, it's almost like traveling across water - a slippery surface to travel on (for a boat, anyway). So the Bathtub delivery method should work. Yay. I spoke with Mark about the Friendly Ranger's broken tire and he thinks he has one that will work, so that repair should happen more quickly than I feared. It's odd to think about happening to notice that a ranger is missing from the beach, but when I glanced over earlier today, I saw that the Friendly Ranger was gone. That's (probably) a sign of progress.
And speaking of repairs - Bob fixed the power roller on the Bathtub this tide. I had saved my old powerpack from the Ambi for parts, and they were what he needed to get the powerpack in the Bathtub working again. Yay!!!
Back in from the ebb of the morning's tide at about 3 PM with 3836 more lbs of salmon heading from our nets to a hungry world. It is blowing hard from the east (offshore) - they say 25 MPH. The white caps are curling in the wrong direction. We pulled two of the outside sites a little early - the tide was expected to run out quickly and with the strong offshore wind, I expected it to just about evaporate from under us. But it went out really slowly. Now our big question is whether to fish the outside sites tonight - we go again at 11 PM to 5 PM tomorrow, two tides, and we've been hearing about gale force winds. On the other hand, I looked up the weather and it's saying east winds 10 to 25 MPH with gusts to 40 MPH. I don't see gale warnings posted or small craft advisories. If we can, reasonably, we'll fish the outside sites. In any case, we already have the inside site out and will be fishing that. With an east wind, we don't even feel it in the shallows because the cliff blocks it, so delivery to the beach and fishing the inside is easy. If the wind shifts so it's coming onshore, then that's a different story.
The problem is that unlike the drifters, when we make a commitment to fish, we can't really change our minds. It's like getting your arm caught in a wringer washer (does anyone else remember those? I grew up on them). You can't just yank it back - it takes a procedure to get it back. On the drift boats, if they don't like the weather, they just pick up the set and don't put the net back out. For us, if we don't like the weather and we've already put out the net, it's really hard to retrieve it and the best thing we can do for ourselves is try to keep up with whatever the weather brings. On the other hand, if we decide not to fish at first, and then change our minds, it's too late because those deep water sets are so hard to manage. Especially in the dark when it's windy.
So we'll wait to see what the conditions are like tonight and decide then. And hope like heck that we decide right.
1.1 million sockeye have gone up the Naknek River to spawn, and 1.5 have gone up the Kvichak. Our total catch so far is 169,704 lbs, 1068 from tying our 4th best season. This may be the tide that gets us past that milestone. But for now, a nap.
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