Boat work continues…

June 9th, 2011 – Today we lost our internet connection, it is real touch-and-go up here.  It is amazing at that wecan be in remote western Alaska and get the internet at all.  The weather is more of the same, low 50′s and rain on an off.  We would welcome a day of sun because we have to fiber glass some new hatch covers that we built.  The welder is working on re-fabricating our rudder.  It was put together quickly a few years ago when a weld broke and we lost our rudder, causing us to rebuild one that we found in a junk pile.  It wasn’t aligned and it wore out the rudder post block at the end of last season.  We started taking on water fast then the bilge pump would pump the water back over.  We had to use our deck hose to suck the water out of the laze and that brought the season to an end.
 
Today we found a leak in the coolant system.   Since this required us to drain 6 gallons of antifreeze out of the motor I figured it was a good time to replace all of the hoses in the system.  I just finished that project at 9:30 pm.  Dinner is ready, Cabot cooked up some PA deer steaks and noodles with pesto sauce on them.  It smells good!   I had to laugh as Cabot said “this doesn’t look like the same as when Jenn makes it” as he picked the pack out of the trash and re-read the directions.
 
No talk of any salmon showing up in the set nets yet.  The locals are allowed to set out small nets to catch their winter supply.  They are the first one to spread the word that salmon are starting to show up.  Hopefully around the 16th or 17th.  Shouldn’t be too much longer.
 
Dinner time!

June 9th, 2011 -

Yesterday we lost our internet connection, it’s real touch-and-go up here.  It is amazing at that we can be in remote western Alaska and get the internet at all.  The weather is more of the same low 50′s and rain on and off.  We would welcome a day of sun as we have to fiber glass some new hatch covers that we built.  The welder is working on re-fabricating our rudder.  It was put together a few years ago when a weld broke and we lost our rudder, causing us to rebuild one in the middle of the season that we found in a junk pile.  It wasn’t aligned and it wore out the rudder post block at the end of last season.  We started taking on water fast then the bilge pump would pump the water back over.  We had to use our deck hose to suck the water out of the laze and that brought the season to an end.
 
Today we found a leak in the coolant system.   (These are good things to discover while you are still on land!)  Since we had to drain 6 gallons of antifreeze out of the motor I figured it was a good time to replace all of the hoses in the system.   We just finished that project up at 9:30 pm (And it’s still daylight).  Dinner is ready, Cabot cooked up some PA deer steaks and noodles with pesto sauce on them.  Smells good!   I had to laugh when he said “this doesn’t look like the same as when Jenn makes it” then he picked the pack out of the trash and re-read the directions.
 
No talk of any salmon showing up in the set nets yet.  The locals are allowed to set out small nets to catch their winter supply.  They are the first ones to spread the word that salmon are starting to show up.  Won’t be too long now, probably around June 15th or 16th we’ll be ready to put the boat in the water.

Dinner time!

Friday, July 23rd…ADF&G closes the fishing down at 9am on Friday, July 23rd and REopens it again on Monday, July 26th at 9am.  I’m not sure of the reason but they do this each year.   From a sockeye’s perspective…it might be like a national holiday…Independence Weekend.  Swim free for 3 days

Because the fishing has slowed down anyway and the fisherman need to take almost 3 days off, most fishermen call it quits at this time.   Most head into the river awaiting “Tractor Bob” and his long list of candidates to be removed from the river and sent to dry dock for the winter.  This is exactly the direction the R~J went.  The tide only permits a couple of boats to be pulled each high tide so the R~J must wait till Sunday morning.  Meanwhile the guys worked to strip the nets, cleaned the brailer bags and fish holds, and scrubed down the back deck.   Then it was time to relax!  Saturday night deck party!

June 18th, 2010…

I am headed back to PA today.  Things have gotten slow enough on the water that the 3 guys can handle everything themselves.   Everything has been on hold for 5 weeks now and probably needs mucho attention!   I will arrive home on July 20th for my mom’s birthday   Keep up the good work guys!

July 17, 2010…A day of trying events.  Today are refrigeration unit must have decided that it had worked too hard.  It quit on us in the morning.  We made our way inside the river to the dock to remove the part and install a new one.  (Luckily there was one on shore!)   12 hours later we are good to go and have been cleared by the refrigeration specialist. 

We had not planned on leaving this late in the day because of the tide (now it’s low tide), but we needed to wait till the specialist was available.  Mind you, the tides fluctuate about 25 feet each tide at the river mouth.   So we set out for the small channel out to the bay.  Things were motoring along nicely…until…bam!  “@#*!”  We have hit a large rock.  The imact was sudden and quick.  The deckhands managed to stay on the deck and the boat came to a complete stop.  The door into the cabin came off the hinges and we are resting at a 40 degree angle.  After we all collected our thoughts, we watched to be sure no damage to the hull and no water was entering into the boat.   We were pinned between the tide exiting the river and this lovely rock…waiting for the tide to come back in and level us out.   In 2 hours we are upright and floating.  We are not taking on any water so this is good!  Now we just needed to fix the cabin door and we’re back in business. (Door hinges are NOT easy to find in Naknek.)   The hardest part of all of this is not the manual labor needed to fix things, it’s listening to your buddies on the radio catch fish while you’re not.

July 12th…We are now fishing 24 hours per day.   The biologists have met their escapement numbers and would like us to catch the rest of the salmon in this district.   In the last 20 hours alone, we have managed to catch 27,000 lbs of salmon!   During our career in the bay we have not seen anything like this.   The fish are blowing in (in crazy numbers), along with winds of 30-40 mph.    Steve, Cabot, Ricky, and I are working as fast as we possibly can.  Pick half the net, lay it back out in the water.  Go to the other end, pick the other half, lay it back out.  You get the net wet and it’s full of fish!  We have off loaded the salmon from the boat 3 times.   Blood, sweat, and tears…of joy of course!

Salmon are everywhere in the bay.  You can’t help but catch them.  All rivers are getting the numbers they need to reach escapement goals.  The hours have increased to 8 hours, 2 tides per day, this leaves time for a short nap between fishing periods and a bite to eat.   The Naknek River is the place to be right now.  More fisherman are begining to realize this, so we should see more company here in Naknek in the next few days.

Back at home base in Naknek…allowing me to get this information to you! Laundry, showers, and some repairs for today.

This morning we began the day by changing oil and indulged ourselves with a shower! We have a large hole in the net caused by a backlash yesterday that needs fixed before we begin today. As it stands now our total catch is 27,400 lbs. We have an opening today, same short tide, 2:30-6:30pm, only 4 hours…Because of the short fishing openings we’re thinking that maybe we should have gone to the Nushagak???

It’s Tuesday evening, after a very slow day of fishing (860 lbs) and not so encouraging information from the Egegik biologist, we and others from our fleet have made the costly decision to transfer to another river, the Naknek River. The biologist reported that the River was not getting their escapement in a timely fashion, unlike the other rivers that were flowing in as predicted, so they were going to put fishermen on standby in the Egegik district, maybe a day off or so. This transfer to Naknek will cause us to stand down for 2 days without fishing. A hard decision because sitting 2 days at this point in the season will be difficult, but the outcome should pay out. Naknek is fishing 2 tides per day and has a 13.4 million predicted salmon run. Unlike the Egegik and the Nushagak rivers which tend to be early, the Naknek is usually a river that ‘pops’ later in the run than the rest of the rivers, so hopefully we won’t miss much.

Wind traditionally brings in the fish, so while it wears you out and more dangerous and extremely uncomfortable (not that much can be described as ‘comfy’ out here), it is ultimately helpful to the cause. We saw a large increase of fish into the river today.