Seining

Drying salmon on the back of the wheelhouse of the Lady Joanne

I hope everyone had a fun and safe 4th of July. This town partied like a rock star, but I went to bed early since I was getting up before dawn to go out on the test fish with the assistant area biologist, James, the next day.
The seine fishery is on a scheduled closing over the week of the 4th, and before Fish and Game opens the fishery back up we have to check for immature salmon. A seine net has small enough webbing it will catch just about anything, where a gill net has big enough mesh that the little guys can swim right though. Catching immature salmon is understandably not good for the stock, and they get caught by their gills in the seine net making for really slow fishing, since they all have to be picked out. Because of this, they are called "gillers." I had the privilege of tagging along with James and the great crew on the Lady Joanne, as long as I promised to help pick out all the gillers. I have such boat lust that I confess I'll do just about anything to be on one. The day ended with more immatures than we wanted, so the fishery is still closed. We'll go back out tomorrow for another test fish and see how it looks. Which means I get to go back out on the boat. Yay!