July 11: Homepack fury

Fishing remains strong and we continue to split the crews. David's crew is managing the night tides (without any help from us) and my crew is managing the day tides, with occasional help from David's crew. These photos are from July 11.

Here is Rohan using the ranger to tow in the Bathtub with the tide's last several hundred pounds of salmon. AJ is ready to address problems as they inevitably occur on the trip. We are so glad to have the ranger back!

After dragging or pushing (depending on whether we can use the ranger) the Bathtub across the mud to the sand, we have to remember to anchor it (an easy thing to forget when the boat is not moving). Anchoring requires a little thought. In this photo, AJ is pulling the anchor up higher on the beach. This is because the next time the Bathtub will be used is when the night crew takes it out on the flood. They will probably be out there as soon as it floats (so if we forgot to anchor it, it would still be OK because they would be there to tend it). But we work hard not to rely on luck. Maybe the night crew would decide not to go out till later or would just be delayed. In that case, we'd still want them to be able to get to the Tub easily. With an onshore wind, as the tide comes in, it just nudges the boat higher and higher up the beach. But with an offshore wind, though, as soon as it floats, it will head to deeper water. If the anchor is placed deeper, that makes the boat out of reach as soon as it floats. When the next use is later in the ebb, though, it is important to anchor it out as deeply as possible (but still shallow enough to jump out and walk to shore without getting wet) so that it will still be floating when the crew returns to it, maybe an hour or two later. There are also lateral considerations in where to anchor. The nets are about 300' apart. The anchor line is about 50' and the boat, another 20'. When the tide comes in, the nets all swing north and that swing can travel quite a distance - 50' at the anchor and even further at the belly of the net. When the tide goes out, everything swings south to the same extent. We try to anchor in the middle between them so that if there is no wind, boats and nets will just swing together and as long as the boat is anchored at least 100' from the net on either side, there is no problem. But if the wind is blowing, even if the anchor is not interfering with the net, the boat, at the end of its 50' anchor line, may be. By the time we leave here, I'd say we're ready for our graduate degrees in anchoring.

The previous photo also shows Rohan pulling the ranger higher up the beach to wash it off, and Roger, in the distance, riding on the Gehl with Brad, picking up some homepack fish we pulled out to fillet later in the day.

As they got closer, I could get a better shot. With Roger's interest in equipment, I thought that he might especially enjoy this particular chore. Brad said that as Roger was riding, he said, "This is like being a garbage man!"

Despite the continuing strong catches, I must accept that at some point, the fish will all have arrived. Before that time, we must finish our homepack. I mean to take home most of the kings (I've made a commitment this year to do a better job of sharing), and about 200 sockeye. Most of the crew is taking between 25 lbs and 50 lbs of fillet. In the past couple of days, we've filleted 60 or 70 salmon for homepack. Instead of asking the crew to help me fillet 200 sockeye, maybe we'll head and gut them, cut off their tails, and seal them whole. That way there is less risk of freezer burn and it will probably cut the processing time in half.

Here we are, starting the filleting process with way more salmon in the not-yet-filleted pile than in the ready-to-pre-freeze pile. AJ has been piling them up and Rohan is wasting no time in starting to fillet. We are working in a conex provided by AGS. It's a great facility, with running water and everything! The waste goes into a garbage can and later goes into the grinder.

Jeff wasn't able to come with us this time because he wouldn't get back in time to go out with the night crew, but Roger, Rohan, AJ, and I were a processing force. This photo shows our progress, with Roger honing his new knife skills.

After filleting the last of the salmon and cleaning out the conex, I turned around and saw this. The full moon rising over the Naknek River. If I can just keep looking, even though I'm tired and my back is sore, I can turn around and see something like this.

Several years ago, when David, Harry, and I came up in November to see if we could prevent the crew cabin from falling over the cliff (we could do nothing but it didn't fall anyway), David and I went out and got insulated Carhartt overalls. They are amazing and kept me warm that November when the -20 degrees weather was freezing my nose hairs, and in the 9 degrees freezer when I went to join the sealing/freezing crew.

When the salmon are all piled together, it freezes slowly. So we spread them out to help them freeze faster; much better for quality. But it takes a few hours to freeze and we worry about our beautiful vacuum sealed fillets finding their way into the boxes of others who are in and out of the freezer. So when we decide to leave them unattended, as we did on this day, we try to be the last ones to use the freezer (that is, we leave around midnight) and the first ones back (in by 9 or 9:30 the next morning).

We worry less about the kings walking off - partly because they are harder to fit into luggage and because... what would someone do with it when they get it home? Me, I plan to give a few to my son's school for their graduation dinner, and I think we're planning on having a salmon bake this year, and I'll make lox. Yum!