Fishing

A calm Sand Point harbor at 6 am.

Lisa and I volunteered this year to be the observers on the test fish. Those of you who followed my blog last year might remember my posts about seining with the f/v Lady Joanne, the same boat chartered this year. Every summer there is a pause in the fishery known as the "overlap" that happens the first week of July. During this time, Fish & Game charters a local seiner to fish for 3 days so that the number of immature salmon in the harvest may be observed. This season the numbers were within the ideal range, and the fishery reopened on the 6th of July.


In this picture, Lisa is picking a "giller" out of the web. On the test fish, every immature salmon has to be counted and identified as pink, chum, coho, sockeye or king. There can be times where there are so many immatures stuck by their gills in the seine net, that it looks like a Christmas tree and the gear will jam up. Fortunately, that didn't happen while we were observing!


And here I am doing my best to stay on my feet. I imagine it takes awhile to get really good at running around all the gear on deck. This set of fish was probably around 8,000 pounds, which is pretty average. A large set is 12,000+, and a lot of fun to experience. The energy is incredible.



Though all 3 days were thick with fog, we had surprisingly calm seas for being out between two southeast storms. Getting a chance to be on a boat and do some fishing is a highlight of every summer I've had in Sand Point. It's a chance to connect with the reason I'm employed, and of course it's a whole lot of fun.