July 14 2016: Is this turning into a scratch season?

Such an odd season! Usually when I talk about scratch fishing, I'm thinking 100 lbs a tide. We've been getting a couple thousand pounds a tide but it takes a whole lot of those tides to make a season. Usually we get a few pretty big tides - thinking about seasons past, a few 20,000 lb tides will boost the season's total really quickly. Then a few more between 10,000 - 15,000, even more in the 2000 - 5000 range and many in the few hundred range. And we've got a season. But this year, we haven't had any of those 20,000 lbs tides yet. We haven't had so many fish that we've had to eat our Clif Bars as we pick... or that we have had to eat our Clif Bars or we'd just run out of gas.

Recently, we've had to race the flood to pick through at least once before the tide turns, but that's at least partly because the floods have been small. We haven't had enough water to get to the nets until shortly before the tide turns. The nets have been full - once or twice, even plugged. But then it has died off and the ebb has been slow. Our ability to handle those busy floods, though, has given me much confidence about our ability to handle a 20,000 lb tide should one come our way.

Everyone remains well, optimistic, and hard-working. We've had a few days of scorching hot weather which has interfered with people's ability to sleep during the day between tides. But still, we are all out there and rising to whatever the tide asks of us.

I am sometimes embarrassed by how mechanically inclined I am not. And I know that this isn't really any big achievement... but I noticed that the fitting that goes into the Yamaha outboard was broken (making it harder to stay connected). So Sarah got another on a trip into town and I replaced it! I think I'll ask Jeff how he cleaned the water out of the fuel system of the Yamaha earlier... and maybe even how he fixed the power pack that took water into the exhaust. He just said that he opened it up and let it evaporate. I know that the second "it" is water, but what is the first "it?"

I think the most trying thing about this season is to not become complacent in our grind. We have fished 26 tides since July 1 - and every tide since July 8. It is easy to begin to think that because we had a light tide yesterday, we'll have a light one today. It doesn't work that way - at least not until the end of the season, if then. In fact, for the next three days, we might be in for some of those big tides. The test fishery at Port Moller had some very big catches seven or eight days ago, and the genetic testing they did on those fish suggest that a good percentage of those salmon were headed for us. So the next few days may just wear us out in the best way for fishermen.

As of today, the cumulative escapement into the Naknek is 1.2 million and into the Kvichak it's 3.2 million. So both rivers have what they need for the future... and despite the fishing effort, daily escapement remains high. 76,000 escaped into the Naknek today and 114,000 into the Kvichak. We go again tonight at 10:45 PM probably till about 3 AM.