Katmai National Park

Every now and again when you are out fishing you have to stop and smell the roses, so to speak.  So when I got the chance to fly out to Katmai National Park this past summer while I was gillnetting in Bristol Bay, I jumped at it.  From King Salmon, Katmai is only a 20 minute float plane ride away.  You can fly out there for the day, stay the night in an (overpriced) lodge or you can camp.  Camp with all those bear, are you crazy?  Don't worry, there is an electric fence around the camp ground.  Besides, with all this delicious salmon around you think these bears want to nibble on you?  Granted, it is unsettling to be so close to so many bears.  Grizzly bears, none the less.   This sure wouldn't happen in other parts around Alaska.  But out at Brook's Falls, in the heart of Katmai, food is in such abundance, these bears are happily satiated on sockeye salmon.   Which is also the reason you see so many together in such a small area.  Lets take a look.

Brook's Falls, Katmai National Park, Alaska

Bears waiting for sockeye salmon

They wade in the water, catching salmon, occasionally

Look at this old guy.  See how little his ears look?  He's BIG!

Grandpa bear

Someone got lucky!

Yummy wild Alaskan salmon

Gut salmon?

Dur...I thought I saw one..

I got one!  I got one!!

Waiting

Hold my calls Roy, I'm busy

Scenes from the 2013 season

watchin' corks

steering station

Fishermen's bible aka tidebood

the fleet heading to the Copper River Flats, Cordova

Fog. This is actually a color photo!

Who me? Otter in the Harbor

Sunset Copper River Flats

Sitting on anchor

My photos made it into Pacific Fishing Magazine!

This is the issue my photos are in.

Sunset in Egegik

We crammed about 30 folks into the wheel house!

YIPEE! HUGE NEWS!

Anglo American pulls out of  Pebble Mine!  What does that mean?  Basically, Anglo American,  the company with the deep pockets is bailing out of the project because the proposed mine is "too risky".   Ya think?  You think putting the world's largest open pit mine at the headwaters of the world's largest wild salmon run is too risky?  I'm glad they finally see it my way.  And the way of 654,000 other folks who signed the EPA comment petition to protect the Bristol Bay Watershed. (http://www.savebristolbay.org/blog/sportsmen-to-epa-stop-pebble). 

Anyway, you can read all about it right here: http://www.adn.com/2013/09/16/3077905/anglo-american-pulls-out-of-alaskas.html or here: http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/20130916/anglo-american-withdraws-pebble-mine-project.

Looks like if enough of us little folk speak loud enough, we can make a difference!  Good job everyone who helped make a stink about all this!  Lets just hope this is the beginning of the end. And what would I have to say to Pebble Mine?  Just what the skipper of the Bristol Bay gillnetter Licka-D-Split would say, "Don't let the door hit you where the good lord split you".

My ass took a beating in Bristol Bay

Literally.  I've never been so beat up before in my life.  But 5 weeks aboard the Fischer and my ass was black and blue.  And I wasn't the only one who got beat up by Bristol Bay, fellow crew member Steve took his fair share.  Hell, even the boat took an ass beating.

If memory serves, the boat was the first to get it.  We had been fishing free week in Egegik, that week where you don't have to drop a card to change districts, you can freely fish any river system you want.  After a hard days work fishing, the line to deliver at the tender was super long so we dropped the pick to wait it out.  Skipper figured we might as well have a little dinner, then go deliver.  We were on anchor all of 3.2 seconds when our buddy Clayton buzzed by.  Clayton, being Clayton, ran right past us, on step, going some 30 knots and close enough that we probably could have hi-fived him. 

I was standing in the galley, making up the coffee for the next morning.  All the sudden, I heard a loud crash noise, the boat lurched forward and I flew back against the galley door.  Got the door handle right in the shoulder blade.  After bouncing off the door handle, I fell so quickly against the step leading to the door, I didn't even have time to catch myself.  I sat there a split second, totally stunned and wondered what the hell just happened.  I looked at the skipper.  What the hell was that?
He shrugged and we both ran out on deck. 

Turns out, what that was was a boat ran into our stern.  A 32' fiberglass boat, ( I don't want to name names, but ah.... Eskimo Viking) with metal plates on his bow,  evidently for ramming, and quite effective, I might add,  going 10 knots packing 5,000 pounds or so of fish packs quite a punch.  He hit like a ball ping hammer only on a much, much, larger scale.  WHAM!

At first, he tried to blame us. 

EV:You must have stopped suddenly right in front of me.  

Skipper:  I'm on fuckin' anchor! You dumb #*&@"#%$!!!

EV: Oh, oh.  Sorry.  Uh, the sun was in my eyes.

Wanna see the damage?

The damaged rail from the Eskimo Viking. 

I kind of liked that rail after that.  I was always on the starboard side and the bent rail made a nice little seat for me, complete with back rest.  Hey skipper, can you just leave that for me?

Nothing a little splash zone didn't fix.

Skipper just cut off that flap with a sawzall, bolted an old buoy over it and sealed 'er with splash zone.
But remember I said my arse  also took a beating during all this?  Even 10 days after the fact, still looks a bit nasty.

ouch!

It was all down hill from there.  Steve, aka Hollywood, who flew out to fish the peak of the season, got on board and immediately fell into the laz (lazarette).  Sean had left the hatch open, announced that the hatch was open, then went to the bow to tie up the boat as we were landing.  Steve went to tie up the stern but ended up in the laz instead.  He managed to scrape every bit of himself from his shins to his armpit before, luckily, landing on the 5 gallon bucket of hydraulic fluid that was strategically placed.  Otherwise, he would have fallen yet another 2 feet.  That's ok Steve, I'll get the stern line.  And, oh, by the way Steve, the laz is open.

Steve's laz ride

In an effort to keep this blog somewhat PG rated, photos of my other bruises won't be shown.  But, suffice to say, they were just as pretty.  After getting rammed, I fell into the fish hold for the first time in my career.  Fortunately, it was full of fish.  After that, I was flung from my seat at the galley table, over the little wooden ledge that hold the seat cushions in place, and across the galley.  And finally, just when I thought my ass beatings were over, I mean, we were tied up to the dock at the end of the season getting ready to get pulled out the next day.  The season was over, what else could happen?  Yeah, my foot slipped on the top step and I fell into our 6' deep fo's'cle.   Lets just say that comparatively, that first bruise looked like child's play.  And that concludes the ass beating portion of Bristol Bay 2013. 

The Bristol Bay Report

At last!  Photo highlights from my Bristol Bay season aboard the f/v Fischer.  The last you heard from me I was heading west to gillnet Bristol Bay back in June.  Admittedly, I know there has been radio silence from me for some time, my apologies.   I've been back from the Bay for a few weeks now but was off on my next venture already, without time to write or internet connection.  I have been gearing up to write a post but dragging my anchor on it.  However, today I ran into my buddy Dan at Costco and he guilted me into submission and told me I need to update my blog.  So here ya go, the Bristol Bay report.

I had a good season. We fished Naknek and Egegik.  The weather was (mostly) nice, the crew was (mostly) nice, (OK, that's a lie, but I'm trying to be nice, more scuttlebutt on that later), the skipper had his shit together, and though there weren't a ton of fish around, we managed to scrape up a few.  The price had jumped from $1.00 a pound last year to $1.50 a pound, so that helped.   Shoots, last time I fished out there, back in 2006, it was .70 cents a pound, so I can't complain. Really, I can't complain,  I signed a waiver.  Haha, just kidding.  Actually, there wasn't much to complain about, I had a blast out there! We'll, I can find a few things to complain about, but I'll have to fill you in bit by bit, otherwise, we'll be swamped.  So I'll start by showing you the boat I was on and introducing you to most of the crew.  Without further ado, the f/v Fischer.

f/v Fischer, just slightly out of the channel

As you can see here, going dry is a common occurrence out in the Bay, too.  We were running in after an opener and missed the channel, just slightly, by about 20 feet.  Skipper said he knew it was around here somewhere. So close.... It was blowing about 40 out and kind of lumpy, so being on solid ground was a nice treat.  Until we had some mending to do.   Dry or not, mending gear in a gale is no fun.  But, I digress. Enjoy the photos and my little video.  Its my first attempt at downloading a vid, I hope it works.

Fischer, who the boat is named after

Fischer and his dad, Kelly, the skipper

myself and Sean, the other deckhand

This is the first of my Bay report.  More to dribble in soon.  Until then, go slime a salmon!

Goin' salmon fishing in Bristol Bay

What day is it anyhow?

Well, it must be either Tuesday or Friday because fishing just closed on the Copper River Flats after a 24-hour period.  It’s been tricky the past few weeks trying to figure out what day it is because commercial fishing was closed for 2 weeks while fish & game waited for the escapement numbers to go up, which they did.  Fish have been coming into the river like gangbusters the past few days, exceeding escapement by the tens of thousands.

At least when the fleet is fishing 2 openers a week I can guess a few of the days.  If guys are heading out to fish, its either Wednesday or Sunday.  If they are out fishing, its either Monday or Thursday.  If they just got back, its either Tuesday or Friday.  Saturday is always a crapshoot.   I almost ripped my arm off the other day trying to deposit a check at the bank on a Saturday.   I could have sworn it was a weekday, I mean, five out of seven days a week are, right?  That’s pretty good odds.  But when I pulled on that locked door, well, I figured it out on the second tug.

Being that we here in Alaska and are approaching the solstice, we have near 24 hours of daylight.  So guessing the time gets tricky, too.  I see the time on bank clock downtown and have to wonder if its 10:30 am or pm.  I don’t wear a watch. Besides, the watch I do own is an old school Swiss Army dial style, so that wouldn’t help anyhow.

Nonetheless, I do actually know what today is, I don’t know the date but I know it’s the day I drive my car on the ferry to Whittier, about a three and half hour ferry ride across Prince William Sound.  From there, I drive through the Whittier tunnel that goes 2.2 miles under the mountain.  I drive about an hour and half to Anchorage where I catch about an hour flight to King Salmon, Alaska.  From there, it’s a short 11 mile cab ride to Naknek, where my next job awaits.  A fishing vessel called the Fischer.  After we launch, it’s about a 4 hour run to Egegik, the river where we’ll be commercially fishing for sockeye salmon for the next five weeks.  Being that fishing has been my way of life for almost 20 years now, these kinds of commutes never even dawn on me.  But as my Dad pointed out to me when I called him from the ferry terminal this morning to tell him I’ll be out of contact until the end of July, he frankly stated, “that’s more transportation than I’ve ever taken for a job”.  Probably so.

Until then, good fishin’ and I’ll catch ya on the flip side.