Today is a BEAUUUUUUTIFUL day here in Alaska... it could be about 60 degrees and sunny. Right after I get done with this, I'm going to track down Deena and see if she'll go fishing with me. I've been giving the mission to catch a King Salmon for a party.
What is the party, you ask!? A fish RELEASE party that we are having tomorrow... for the obvious point that we have RELEASED all our fish! Today Dan is releasing his 4 pens of the "late large" chum that he still has out front, which he is gladly saying goodbye too! All the fishing being gone is a good enough reason to party around here so there is going to be steaks and fish galore! I'll get to the fish galore in a minute!
What have I been doing lately? Ehh boring work. Since most of the fish are gone except Dan's chum, it's starting to be maintenance work time at the hatchery. I have helped feed his fish out there some... but for the past few days, it's been net mending. This is where we spread out the nets that the fish have been living in which have been "cleaned!" (I say that loosely cause some aren't cleaned very well... we got one with a rotting chinook in it, maggots included! Ya know when your dog rolls around in poop... yeah it smelled kinda like that... but AMPLIFIED!) Then we hoist them up by the corners so they are somewhat spread out and hung and just sew up holes. This part isn't too bad but when we have to go folding them up at the end is what kills me! Some of the nets are HUUUUUUGE so it's tough... I just went into the incubation room and tried to take some pictures. I'll show them later. I also got some pictures of the incubators that I talked about a while ago... A few days ago, a few of us helped paint in the apartment that is getting built here for Angie, a permanent employee. That was kinda fun and gave me a little extra money. :-)
Anyhow, besides that, there's been alot of fishing going on. Not so much by me, but by everyone else. Lots of fishing by a pole and lots of long line action. The guys like to set this long line that goes 600 feet or something... depending on what they want to do. I THINK it lays on the bottom but I'm not totally sure. Anyhow, they catch alot of rockfish and halibut and some other stuff on those. Well, this construction dude that was here set one and ended up pulling a 130 lb. halibut off of it. I know I told this to mom and she had no idea how big that could be... it was about 5'4" in length or something. I actually didn't see it though. Then the guys set one the other day and we watched them pull that but they didn't get that much... a small halibut and a bunch of rockfish. A ton of us went along to watch... we were hecklers! :-)
This is the Hidden Falls Beard Patrol showing off the catches of the day! This is Adam (in the blue) with a few salmon that were caught near the lagoon. Tim and Dan have the long line catch.
Pretty right!? This was at around 9:30pm while the guys were pulling the long line.
Alright, I've been raving about this huge waterfall near the hatchery. I always passed it driving to Takatz. Well finally I got a picture. Man, I love this waterfall!
Well Dan and Adam set one yesterday and got the moneyload! They set about 30 hooks on this thing and in the first 7 hooks, they already had two ~50 lb. halibut, a big fat yelloweye rockfish (looks alot like a massive goldfish), an MONSTER halibut which they predicted over 100 lbs., and another halibut which they said was probably about 80 lbs. but they let it go cause they already had so much. Well after that, there was a bit of an issue because some rock at the bottom of the line was stuck on the bottom so they had to deal with that but they did come back with a few more fish. So now... I have some fun pictures for you to see of this stuff!
Adam with the 100+ lb. halibut. It's almost as big as him! That is one of the 50 lb. halibut at his feet and the orange rockfish.
The catch...
Dan cutting up the 100+ lb. halibut. They are almost all meat, so they got ALOT from this guy! They were up til 1am packaging the meat from all the catch and the sausages that they made last night too. They made 50 lbs. of sausage.
SHOUT OUT OF THE DAY - To Mother Nature... thanks for the weather!
2 comments:
Now if only there were fish like that in Paw Paw Lake, fishing there would be soo bad. I think if I ever got a fish like that on the line i'd shit myself. haha.
Steven
Ditto for Dad!
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