Alaskan Expedition: You get back what you put in

July 09, 2013

I am making Tuesday a day of rest from fishing to allow the hands to heal. Salmon have very sharp teeth and gill rakers and upon landing one, you are frantically trying to control something that doesn’t want to be out of the water. Eight pounds of muscle that has swam the ocean and fought rushing water for more than 100 miles to reach the end of a hook. You thrust an unused hand into the gills and squeeze tight hoping to pin the fish to the ground, remove a razor sharp hook and put it onto a stringer. After that you cut or pullout the gills to bleed the fish. Fish and repeat as needed until you’ve reached your daily limit. The repetitive casting and handling of monofilament line under pressure and the icy cold water, again and again. The hands dry out, crack, and are cut with great frequency. So to rest, I am doing laundry and smoking salmon. Rinsing the brine from the fillets and I realize that it isn’t a total break from fishing.

Checking the electric smoker every hour wasn’t too bad but the mosquitoes were under the carport where the smoker is kept. I was unhappy with the skins sticking to the grate and I forgot to add water to the drip pan. A bit of cooking spray and water for batch number two. The status will be checked tomorrow as it is well past 11:00pm for batch one.

Red "Spoon Meat" and an ale...more then 10 cups put up for salmon spread

July 10-13, 2013

Wednesday, three of the four trays are batch two and the uppermost tray is the tail sections that needed more time. I lowered the temperature to 110 degrees for 12 hours and refilled the smoker with alder chips. Nice and slow will get me sleep as it is 2:30am.

After waking and the day's first duty is out of the way, I was back to the smoker. It sure slowed down the process and looks like it could go another day. I cranked it up to 120 and will recheck every hour because those tails look to be about finished. I put a bit more brown sugar on the last few pieces, the bellies. Some people say the bellies are the best, akin to bacon lover’s because they are mostly fat…I’ll see about that.

Thursday should complete the smoking and all that is left are bellies. In the afternoon, I ran down to the Klutina to try my luck. I fished for 30 minutes before my first legally caught fish. I released the next three foul hooked then put three more on the stringer. The next two reds were in the 18” so I released them and they never looked back, “they don’t have necks, silly!” Pleasantly the next two completed my daily limit and one monster buck measured 28”. I caught and released another small red while the last few bled out. I filleted the bunch and after getting home, vacuum sealed six packages. I have over 49 Sockeye caught and processed to date with about 40 packages fresh and eight smoked. Is that enough for the year?

Friday morning Jon and Krista got back from Valdez with report of no Halibut. My Sockeye bellies were done so I put them on the table. We all tore into them and received our weekly RDA of Omega-3 oil. Fatty they are but it is only a beneficial fat. I vacuum sealed the smoked salmon and Jon gave me 20 Alaskan Shrimp. I shelled them and put them in the freezer for Lisa. She and Oma get to Alaska on Sunday, July 21^st. I had a bit of lunch and headed back to the Klutina for an afternoon of fishing. My spot from yesterday was occupied by an older gent using a spinning rod upside down. He had two reds on his stringer but they must have been thick because he was fishing ten feet from shore and these fish are concentrated no more than four feet. Once he departed I began catching fish in that spot. It took an enjoyable three hours to catch six smallish reds. I fouled about three others and released four others that were cut up, infected, and in a state of decay. I kept the bright fresh looking fish. To celebrate I enjoyed baked salmon and an Alaskan Brewery Black IPA.

On Saturday I had good intentions of making an early trip to the Klutina to beat the weekend crowd but it was changed into an early afternoon trip. Jon had flown out yesterday to get his annual mechanical inspection for his Super Cub, his dad is an inspector, and returned around 10:00am. We had coffee and talked about his chore list conflicting with hunting plans. It looks like I’ll be getting dropped via his plane, in his hunting locales and try for moose, sheep and perhaps a grizzly. Jon will check every few days, as it is only a twenty minute flight from his house, and he’ll stay behind for the chores. I’ll admit that I have found a great guy to befriend. Jon is caring, understanding and very giving person.