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hey good lookin', Whatcha got cookin?

Got Time for a Quickie?

8/17/2015

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Picture
We are in town for a day trying for a record breaking less-than-12-hour turnaround. Fishing has been a bit slow and since we decided to switch from fishing “south” to fishing “north” we had to run right past Sitka. Seemed silly not to stop.

Groceries, laundry, water, fuel, and a few other errands and then we’ll throw off the lines again. It’s quite a scene in front of Sitka with about 100 trollers fishing for dog salmon along with a group of seiners. How they are avoiding each other is beyond me! We’ll take ourselves somewhere a little less crowded.

Lower Chatham was again a rich source of life. We saw a small pod of killer whales one morning and since we didn’t have gear in the water we were able to cut the engine for a few minutes and watch them work, diving and rolling in feed. Although they can be a real nuisance to fishermen (especially long liners) I am always thrilled to see them.

Fishing has been a bit slow. We hear there are only about 250 of the thousand so power troll permits being actively fished, and judging from how many are after dog salmon right now, the coho effort is pretty light. So light in fact that we didn’t even have a closure. ADF&G almost always shuts us down for a handful of days in August. So regular that there’s a “Troll Closure Open” golf tournament in Port Alexander every year. 

Despite the slow fishing we have so much to be happy about!  In fact, I decided to start keeping a list. Didn’t High Times used to have a Top 100 at the end of each issue? Maybe they still do. I can remember looking at that in my teens and thinking “man, adults are SO cool”, although I can’t really remember why. Here’s what we’re enjoying right now.

  • Satellite Radio. It’s almost always on. In particular we love Prairie Home Companion followed by The Splendid Table every Saturday. Johnny Knoxville and his Big-Ass Family Jamboree and when we drop the anchor for the night, we switch over to channel 68 and enjoy the corny yet soothing sounds of “Spa”. Cue the lavender oil. 
  • Paul Newman’s Frozen Pizzas. Especially when topped with an over-easy egg or two. Although things aren't so easy for the Newman Clan these days…
  • Wristers. Wristers are those weird wrist braces that you wear for Carpel Tunnel Syndrome. Which we suffer from. Before wristers came on our scene we used to both wake up sobbing from pain in the middle of the night. But, wristers have solved that! Thank you wristers!
  • Reading. We rarely have time for it, but when faced with a 10 hour run or a weather day we love nothing more than to bury our noses. My favorite read of the summer so far is Daniel Menaker’s "My Mistake" - highly recommended, especially if you are a fan of the New Yorker.
  • The Sibley.  As in “WHERE’S THE SIBLEY!?!?” when I spy some sea bird that I have got to I.D. Although I am not a bird nerd, per se, there are times when I just feel the need to double check the differences between a Marbled Murrelet and a Kittlitz’s Murrelet. 

and finally, it probably goes without saying, but I love Coffee. We just read something about Alton Brown putting just a tiny pinch of salt in his coffee before brewing, so we’re trying that although honestly I don’t know that I could love coffee any more than I already do.  

Hope you are having a wonderful August - hold on to summer as long as you can! 


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Staying in Touch

8/5/2015

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PictureCaptain Dave down in the freezer glazing a coho salmon.
We’re turning the Virga around this afternoon to head out for our second coho trip of the season, so if we’re out of touch it’s because we’re in a wi-fi free zone. Those are pretty hard to find these days! I do experience a little withdrawal at first, but after a while there is a wonderful freedom that comes from not feeling compelled to pick up my iPhone every 10 minutes…

Speaking of staying in touch, we were talking about how many times we handle our salmon while we were offloading yesterday, and the total number of touches came to 12.  That’s a lot!

  1. First contact with the fish at the stern
  2. Cutting the gills to begin bleeding
  3. Transferring fish from checker to cleaning table
  4. Transferring cleaned fish to hatch for final rinse
  5. Handing fish down into the freezer
  6. Placing the fish on the freezing plates
  7. Transferring frozen fish into freezer bin
  8. Removing fish from bin for first glaze dip
  9. Second glaze dip
  10. Returning fish to bins after glazing
  11. Removing fish from bin to offload
  12. …and finally placing fish in the tote for shipping

It’s especially a lot if you imagine that it’s just the two of us completing each of those steps. It’s easy to understand why traceability becomes such an important issue - if you have 12 different people completing each of those steps, at multiple facilities, possibly in different countries (with different approaches to sanitation and labor practices) there is plenty of room for concern.  Add filleting, portioning, smoking, seasoning and/or breading to the mix and the opportunity for issues grows. 

Buying as direct from the fisherman as possible helps you feel confident that each of those steps was done with care.  Keep the chain of custody as limited as possible!  

We’ll be out on this trip 2 or 3 weeks, depending on how fast we can load the boat. Here’s hoping we have good weather and better fishing.

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