June 27: Catching up and just plain catching

We had several days of waiting to fish, and then the openings poured in. The first one was on June 24, a 7 hour, mid day opening.

David's crew has had a tough time of it (though you would never know it from their demeanor!) One of these early first openings, they discovered that they had lost a shackle that attached the outside buoy of one of their sites to the anchor line. What a surprise when you're getting ready to set! Thank goodness for redundancy: these buoys have attachment points at the bottom (for the anchor line) and the top (for the corkline) and we always attach on both ends at the end of the tide. That's why we still had a buoy. Whew. And things like that are why I think it's so important to get out to the fishing grounds about 20 minutes before it's time to set, and while the boats and buoys are still dry. It gives us a chance to check things, like shackles.

June 24: We began to get some fish on the 24th. About 2600 lbs for the day tide. That is so much more encouraging than the very few fish we were getting the week before - during this season that many thought would be very early. I was worrying that we were missing them because of the color or size of our web. That's fishing... anxiety. (Though if I had it to do over, I might choose 5" mesh size instead of the 5 1/16" we are using...) We started being willing to feel hopeful about the season with this opener - it seemed like it was the first time we might have seen fish piled into a brailer.

We had another opening just the next tide, from 11 PM till 8 AM.

The weather has been beautiful, giving us an inspiring work environment. Here is David's crew, still the Bathtub crew, waiting for the water so they can set out on this night tide.

Here is the Ambi crew on the same night. I don't know anywhere that has more beautiful sunsets than here. After we set "my" site - we headed in to the "inside" site. We have given them numbers: the site closest to town is #1 (also for historical family reasons, my site), #2 is fished by the Hakinnens, then #3 and #4. Inside the Hakinnen's site is the "inside" site. That one used to be my mom's.

At each opening, the Ambi crew sets #1 and then (depending on the depth of the water) either pushes or motors the boat over to the inside site to set it. Here they are pushing in the sunset (while I am the photographer). David's crew sets #3 and then rushes over to set #4, also an outside site.

If the fish are running, we stay out and go through the nets all night long. This wasn't a heavy tide (less than 1000 lbs), so we went in after clearing the nets on the flood, slept for a few hours during high water, and came back out to pick through the nets and pick them up at the end of the tide. When the Bathtub crew came out, they were in for another equipment surprise. The anchor on the outside end of #4 pulled up. They found that the end had drifted over to #3. So they spent the early part of the next tide figuring out where to place the anchor, and putting a new one down.

June 25: We had another opener the next tide, fairly slow - again, about 1000 lbs. But with late hitters. Because of how slowly the tide moved on the last opener, we thought we could take the risk of leaving the inside site set. Big mistake! We were about 80% sure it would be dry at opening time. But that 80% began to erode as I watched the very fast tide come screaming in, from a -1' run out to a 23' high tide, over 6 hours. I think it's rising at a rate of 4' per hour. So rather than risk the ticket and the loss of the gear, Roger and I got on the ranger and reset the inside site, so it was fishing much higher up the beach, where we were sure it would be dry at opening time. But that is a very difficult thing to do because while we're dragging the net, the net is picking up just as much mud as it can, so we end up dragging a good portion of the beach along with us. We were exhausted by the time the tide started.

The fish slowed down after the initial push, so we went in and got a couple hours of sleep before coming out to finish off the ebb. I don't see as many sunrises here as I do sunsets, but the sunrises are also spectacular. This is Pedersen Point, the cannery down the beach from us by about a mile, shrouded in morning fog. We ended up with about 3000 lbs for that tide... and at the end of it, because we were coming into a short tide, we decided to pull the inside site back out to where we usually fish it, in deeper water. Once again, I thought the outboard would be able to out-pull the mud, especially since the net was still in the water. Wrong. From now on, I know we will not take our chances with where the tide will be. If in doubt, pick it up. Period.

June 26: A very exciting day: Roy finished getting the new outboard on the New Boat and David brought it down. Just in time!! There are some small issues with it - it seems to cut out at high throttle. I talked with Roy about it and we suspect that the problem is the prop. The outboard people sent the wrong prop and Roy, being the problem-solving genius that he is, figured out a way to make the Yamaha 115 prop work while we're waiting for the replacement. But it's not perfect, so that might be causing the problem. Here is Sarah getting used to driving the New Boat.

It is also biology day. Here we are looking down the throat of a bullhead. A very ugly fish with spikes all over the place. The only way I know to hold a bullhead is by the lip. If you squint, you can see the face of a baby flounder inside the bullhead's gullet. Interesting and cool in a sort of gross way.

The now New Boat crew also had their day of biology. Here are Jake and Sarah attempting to make a very large flounder a part of the crew.

And this was the day that kings started to come in. We don't get many and I love having them at home, so we never sell them. I always attend the graduation at the school Alex graduated from in Massachusetts and this year, I want to bring salmon for graduation dinner. Here are Roger, Rohan, and AJ with one of the salmon we'll bring.

It has been pointed out that since I'm the one with the camera, the photos on the blog are mostly of my crew. So we're trying to remedy that with this post. The New Boat crew is getting ready to fish.

And here they are at the end of the tide. They've finished going through their nets and have anchored up until the next tide, waiting until the water drops just a bit more before wading in. We ended up with about 1200 lbs for that afternoon tide.

June 27: We got another two openers for the next two tides. Here is the Ambi crew walking out into the sunset... to set.

David and I were both inspired by the sunset that we were setting in. Here, David got a shot of Jeff's silhouette, in a pretty darned nice work environment. This makes 7 tides in a row, catching 2-5 hours a sleep over the low tides or the high tides, depending on how the fish are running. We were happily surprised by 7000 lbs of salmon in the morning tide. But the fishing tends to drop off over night and it did this night as well, so we went in for a couple hours of sleep before coming out for a relatively slow ebb.

We had planned to head back out at 2 this afternoon, sleeping for a few hours through the low tide when the nets would be dry. But my brother called to give us a heads up about the fish he was seeing out there. So I scrambled the crew as we got out there about 15 minutes earlier than planned... and ended up delivering more than 20,000 lbs for the tide.

Here is the New Boat crew, really needing to deliver some salmon. We were so extremely grateful and feeling so lucky about the circumstances of this tide: we got the working New Boat just in time for it (even though we also love the Bathtub), and the weather was beautiful and gentle today. Those two things make it so much easier. It was a strange tide. Usually, we get most of our fish on the first pick through, and then we just try to scratch up a few more for the rest of the opening. But this time, the run got heavier and heavier until the water started to leave us.

Here is a full brailer. In the Ambi, we brailer the fish as we go along, but it's not as easy to do that in the New Boat or the Bathtub. All those fish in the photo above will need to find their way into brailers like these to be delivered. We delivered about 30 bags like these today.

On the Ambi, Roger, Rohan, AJ and I made it through our first site and our inside site... and then we had to deliver, probably with about 3000 lbs on board. This photo shows AJ steadying the load as Brad is lifting it off to put it in slush ice. We immediately went back ... and found even more fish in the nets than the first time. So after going through just one of the nets, we went to deliver... probably another 3000 - 3500 lbs. By this point, the tide has turned and I could tell that the wall of fish was building. The water was slow coming in, from a hold up tide of about 7' to a low high tide of about 17'. Not much movement there. But it ran out from that 17' to a 1' low.

David's crew had already split into two boats: the New Boat and the Bathtub, so they could deliver while continuing to pick what they could see was a rapidly (re)filling net. They came in to deliver as we were finishing our delivery. I too was concerned about not being able to get through both nets, so I split AJ and Rohan off into the Grayling to start in the middle of the inside site, working toward the inside end, while we started in the middle and worked toward the outside end. Rohan and AJ made great time. We helped them finish up and went to deliver... another 3000 lbs or so, but the trucks had no more capacity and had to just leave our brailers on the beach until more trucks could come. While we were pitching the fish from the Grayling to the Ambi, we tore the post on the power roller for the Ambi, taking it out of commission. Horrors! Luckily, we have Roger and his welder!!! (I think he'll be able to get us back together before our next opener from 1 PM to 8:30 PM June 28.) The New Boat and the Bathtub were both trying to deliver, but the tide had gone out too far and Brad was no longer able to reach them with his Gehl. So the crew pushed in the Bathtub (it slides well!) but decided not to deliver from the New Boat yet (it doesn't slide) and took those fish back out on the mud flats where the boat was needed to continue to go through the nets and then pick them up.

Rohan stayed with the David's crew to help them with their delivery efforts and I took Roger and AJ to try to fly through the first site. More fish yet, but they were not as thick. The water was only about thigh deep. I had started to worry greatly about the inside site, so after finished the pick on the first site, I ran them as far in as I could toward the inside site with instructions to roundhaul it into the Grayling. That means to detach it at one end, and just pull the net, fish, and all into a big pile in the middle of the boat. I hoped it wouldn't be much fish, because picking them is a real challenge when they're all piled on top of each other, but it's better than having fish in the mud. Meanwhile, I headed back to the first site alone and without a power roller... and roundhauled that site all by myself!!! As I said to the crew, I expect the medal and the cake to arrive any day now.

We asked Rohan to go in ahead of the crew to start dinner (chicken curry - yum!!) while we picked through the roundhauls and David towed the Bathtub behind the ranger making many trip to bring the salmon off the flats and store them on the beach in brailers, waiting to deliver them. The very hard-working beach gang, somewhat beleaguered by too much work for too few people and unending mechanical problems (they too are lucky to have Roy), were very kind and helpful (they pulled out our stuck boom truck) when they got back to us to pick up the 10 brailers of fish that were waiting to be delivered.

We have a tide off in the morning (which is what is enabling me to catch up on the blog). Most of us are probably secretly relieved. For me, it means I can sleep too. The crew (who has been sleeping a little more than I have because I've had a few demands from my Seattle work) will take the morning in town to shower and do laundry. Those are low priorities for me. At the end, we had a bit more than 23,000 lbs for this tide. That's a big one.