June 20: My birthday and the summer solstice

[A note about the previous post - I retrieved the camera from the skiff and added photos to it.] What a surprise we got when we went out this morning at about 10 am - lots of fish! It was still windy - a southeast (not my favorite, but at least it's a wind). At first, the salmon were only in my net, so of course, I took that personally, being my birthday and all. But then they made it to the other nets and we delivered 3484 lbs of fish caught on the flood to the tender. Eventually, they made it to the drifters' nets and then I felt like it was my birthday present to all of us. Competitive as I can be (not my most attractive quality), my very favorite is when everyone's nets are full.

We stayed out all tide and started delivering to the beach truck after the turn of the tide (the tender had to leave because of running out of water) for a tide's total of 5816 lbs. That means we broke 13K lbs during free week!! That is very unusual.

After we get under the net, we get the net up on the roller on the port side of the boat and between the fairleads on the starboard side. We start the power pack to run the hydraulics to turn the roller and help the fish into the boat. Here they come.

And here they are, waiting to come in. This photo was taken during the flood when the tide is running in the direction that the camera is looking, pushing everything in that direction as well. This photo shows the corkline down current from the leadline. Left to its own devices, the leadline flows down current from the corkline, but we pull it backwards (we call that a "cross pick"), making a basket to catch salmon (or anything else) that may be floating along with the current.

One of the jobs of the crew on the roller is to pay attention to what's coming. Sometimes, it's a salmon, hanging by just a tooth, so we need to lean way over the roller or to the side and try to roll them into the net. Sometimes, it's a fish that already dropped out of someone's net... some time ago. Those, we really don't want to pull over the roller. In the worst case, it can be squished on the roller (euwww). And the next worse is that is slaps down on the deck or we just have to be in the same enclosed space with it, trying to get it out of the net and out of our boat. So then we're really motivated to get it out of the net before it gets into the boat. Leaning over that roller take much care and attention because it's very easy to hit the handle to turn the roller backward and push the net out of the boat. When I've done that, already overbalanced to the outside of the boat, it would be a funny picture if it weren't so dangerous. I've felt just about my entire IQ inhabit my legs to somehow make them just enough heavier than my torso to tip me back into the boat. Tipping out of the boat into the net, head first, would be quite a dangerous outcome. The first part of the solution would be to get my head up out of the water, but it wouldn't be obvious how to do that without creating injury to the rest of me on the roller. Each year, we learn about new ways to be careful about - and when we're lucky (and we usually are), we don't have to pay too much tuition to learn it.

It's kind of hard for me to get photos during the heavy part of the season because I feel like we have no time for anything except getting the fish out of the nets and then delivered and back to the nets. Honestly, I have been irritated in the past when other people have wanted to stop the show for the 45 seconds needed to take a photo - but they are right. That 45 seconds almost certainly will not make the difference of being able to deliver before the water is too low or get the net out of the water before the time is up, or getting the fish out of the net before they are lying in the mud, but it would produce an excellent explanation of our process. So I am trying to broaden my perspective... just a little bit, 45 seconds at a time. In addition, it is easier for the new crew to learn how to pick fish if my hands are full of a camera. Otherwise, I might just take a fish out of their hands. That will definitely happen as we get into the heavy part of the season, but for now, it's better for them to have the experience to learn how the fish can become tangled, and disentangled.

Luka may have taken this photo since I was probably piloting. We are on our way to the tender. (We are always so happy when we see the beautiful shape of that seiner heading our way). We've gone through the nets, filled the bags and Rohan is taking a minute or two to relax. He's sitting right where the net passes through the skiff when we're going through it, with the fairleads poking up out of the gunwale on either side of him. He had good reason to rest. It was very choppy on my birthday and the Ambi is really hard to manage in that kind of wind with only three people. The bow is so high, the wind catches it and treats it like a sail, pushing us until the lines running across the skiff hold us broadside to the wind and close the leadline and corkline together. This tendency is exaggerated by the cross pick and crossing the leadline and corkline makes it harder to square the boat. It's a fight with the natural tendency of the net in strong weather. With only three people, one must stay with the hydraulic controls and the other two try to pick fish while holding the net open for the other person. It's demanding. This whole enterprise is demanding. In general, nature is demanding. But none of us seem to mind answering those demands. The fact that the nets are anchored means that we always work against the elements which is what makes setnetting hard work. We pull against the current; we pull against the wind.

And this is a bag (brailer) of fish. These bags will hold a little more than 1000 lbs, filled. But we try to stop at 700 or 800 lbs because it's a little easier on the fish on the bottom.

This is Luka, holding the pelican and waiting for the crane to hook onto the pelican and lift up the bag of fish. (It looks like the middle of Luka's body is airbrushed or in the clouds, but it's just some fish slime on the camera lens.)

And this is Rohan waiting for the crane with our second bag.

This photo gives a lot of information. The bag has been lifted off our boat and onto the tender. They've already weighed it and one of the kids on the Jacqueline W is swinging it over the mouth of the hold. When it reaches it, the crane operator will drop it a few feet so it stops on the edge of the mouth, waiting for the handles to be released so the bag will turn upside down, emptying its contents into the hold. In the foreground is the scale with the yellow hook hanging from the second crane. Once the load is dropped, they will lower the second crane so Rohan can hook it up to the waiting pelican. They hand us the pelicans first because between the wind and two rocking boats that are also knocking into each other and jerking on their lines with the waves, it is way too easy to clock someone with that heavy scale. That can do some damage. It took us a while to learn not to grab the scale by the hook because weight on the hook closes it, and it is difficult to open until you have developed the touch. So we just grab for the shackle and let the pelican be the thing that puts weight on the hook.

In the background, you can see the Bathtub crew waiting to deliver. Josh is to the right, at the stern of the boat. Jeff is standing in front of the roller, and you may think that Roger is in a witness protection program, the way his identifying features are obscured by the shackle on the second crane, but no - it was just a product of three rocking boats.

I had great plans for a birthday dinner tonight, thinking it would have been an easy tide that we would finish quickly and have dinner before going out for the last tide of free week. My plan was teriyaki salmon, couscous salad with chunks of vegetables, Greek salad, and chocolate chip orange cake. But between the large showing of salmon, the strong wind that tosses us around the inside of the boat, and a few days of not using time in from the boat to sleep... well, we all thought sleep might be better than trying to create a birthday dinner in my sleep. As a result, I got to have a two day birthday - lots of fish on the first day that showed me what a great crew we already have and that we really need David and Sarah, and then a second full of a different kind of joy, to be reported (and in the process, relived) shortly.

We went back out for the flood of the next tide at about midnight. I must have turned off my alarm, because I woke to a knocking at the door and found Roger, ready for the tide and wondering where I was. Yikes! Luckily, I sleep in my fishing clothes so it was just a matter of jumping into my life jacket, waders, rainpants, wader boots, glove liners, gloves, and raincoat. And grabbing the bag with our permits and licenses, camera and phone. Really, it's a long list to navigate in the first minute of being awake, but we got out there, only a few minutes late.

By the time we got though the nets, it was darned dark and seeing the Jacqueline coming toward us, ablaze with her lights - she looked like an angel to us. We had decided that if we had a slow showing on the flood, we would pull at high water and skip the flounder scoop on the ebb. But on the other hand, if this is the run, shouldn't we fish every minute we can? We delivered about 1000 lbs between both boats to the Jacqueline W. This photo was taken after we delivered from the Ambi. We backed off to try to get a photo of the Bathtub delivering. Between the dark night and the rocking of our boat and the independent rocking of the Jacqueline, this was the best I could do.

We still weren't sure whether to pull the nets early. When it gets dark, we usually get very few fish in the net - except for flounders. But sometimes, if there are a lot of fish out there, we'll see them at night too. So we decided that if a net had at least 10 salmon, we would keep fishing it. The inside site was the last one that we took out of the water, for a total of 185 more lbs on the ebb that tide. We later heard that all we missed were bucket loads of flounders. Happy when we call it right.

We got in by about 3 am and I don't think anyone had trouble getting to sleep. We decided to get up and get to town by 10-ish. In the busyness of the day, we had forgotten to get the kings we stowed in the bed of the truck into town and into the freezer. That was an urgent need. We may have just frozen them in the round. I generally think that's the best way to bring salmon home because the meat is so well preserved (the skin makes a great vacuum seal). But that turns our Seattle kitchens into meat processing plants and about half of what we ship down will end up as (very messy, stinky) garbage, whereas here, it really is a fish processing plant and the discarded fish parts feeds the rest of the ecosystem. Since they hadn't made it to the freezer immediately, we decided to fillet and vacuum seal them - the more demanding solution, but better in many regards. Additionally, we knew that the parts for the the Evinrude 25 had arrived. Josh, with Roger and Jeff, planned to tackle its repairs, meaning we could get the Graying in the water soon. That skiff is very handy for going through a net in very low water, delivering to the beach in just a few inches of water, and running the crew in at the end of a tide. It's getting to the time of the season that we will miss it if we don't have it.

Some people have asked about the Pebble Mine issue. My friend Sonja is doing a much better job than I am of keeping tabs on what is happening and what we can do about it. I learned from her that it's time to send in comments. Last year in early June the EPA came to Naknek as part of their study of the impact of a mine in the shores of Lake Iliamna. I attended the meeting and took furious notes, reporting it in a detailed blog post. If you are interested in hearing what the EPA had to report and how the area residents feel about it, check out that post. I hope this link will take you there. http://naknekseafood.blogspot.com/2012/06/june-6-pebble-mine-meeting.html . If it doesn't, check back in the 2012 postings, June 6.