Fishing Frenzy----A Guest Writer Post

Nelson, my husband, loves to fish.  He has enjoyed every minute of being in Alaska, and we have a freezer full of fish in PA and AK.  Here is his story about his experience dip netting, a method of fishing for salmon that only AK residents of at least one year are allowed to use.



                                                       Fishing Frenzy

Summer is the fishing season in Alaska and it tends to be intense.  Of course, I’ve been out fishing for halibut several times, which is always fun, and have begun fly fishing on the local rivers.  But the big event this year is that I got to go “dip netting.”  Okay, that term may be unfamiliar, so let’s step back a bit.  Dip netting is an ancient practice, beginning with the native Alaskans who have lived here for over 10,000 years.  A typical modern dip net consists of a circular aluminum frame either 4 or 5 feet in diameter, with a gill net attached that looks sort of like a huge sock full of holes.  A 6-8 foot aluminum pole with a handle of some sort at the end is attached to the circular net frame.  Except for the net, the entire thing consists of 1¼ inch aluminum pipe and weighs about 15 pounds.  Dip netting permits are issued to Alaska residents who have lived here for at least one full year, which now includes me.

Not surprisingly, the cost of living in Alaska is much higher than in the lower 48 states.  Groceries and fuel average about 25% above what we are used to in PA.  (One of our favorite pastimes is to take visitors to the local grocery store and watch their eyes bug out when they see the prices.  What fun!)  However, there are some compensations.  For example, there is no state income tax in AK, and residents receive a modest dividend each year from the state’s oil extraction royalties. Imagine, the state government does not immediately SPEND all its money and more besides.  Also, residents are allowed to harvest fish by dip netting or other netting methods for their family’s use, which is called subsistence fishing.  Each head of household is allowed to take 25 salmon by such methods, plus 10 more for each additional family member.  So, for example, Sue and I are entitled to 35 salmon.

One of the well-known characteristics of salmon is that they return to their river of birth to spawn at the end of their life cycle.  It may be less well-known that the five salmon species do not return haphazardly but in concentrations known as “runs,” which generally last for several weeks each.  One of the foremost runs in Alaska is for the Sockeye salmon (a.k.a., red salmon).  They return each year in the last 3 weeks of July to the Kenai River, located about 80 miles north of Homer.  The fish do not enter the river uniformly over that period.   The number of salmon is counted by a sophisticated sonar system located 19 miles upstream from the river’s mouth.  This counting system not only gives an accurate count, but can distinguish between species.  The run may begin with 2000-4000 salmon per day, but then it rapidly builds… 10,000, 15,000, 25,000 per day… at which point it explodes suddenly… 100,000 to 200,000 on the peak day, followed by an immediate reduction to 50,000, and then 10,000-30,000 per day until the run ends.  Fishermen by the thousands are intensely interested in tracking the daily counts of fish online so they can head for the mouth of the river where dip netting is allowed at the exact right time.  Entire families come by the hundreds to net, clean, filet, and process their fish for the coming year.

So, now that you have the background, here’s my own story.  It’s Sunday morning and we’re sitting in church participating in a wonderful time of worship.  Suddenly, the cell phone of our friend, George, goes off.  George is in his 70's and has his phone’s ring volume set very high.  It’s his young friend, Matt, who has called to say that the big run of “reds” is underway at the Kenai River, and he needs another guy to help man his 24-ft boat for the dip netting frenzy.  You see, one man needs to drive the boat, while two others operate their dip nets from either side.  Matt has a wife and five boys at home; so he’s entitled to dip net for 85 salmon.  He runs his own excavation business through much of the year, but like many men in Alaska, he’s often under-employed during the winter months and depends on this source of food to help feed his family.  So, here’s George excitedly talking on the phone with Matt in the middle of worship while his dismayed wife is hitting him smartly in the ribs with her elbow.  George says he’s not able to go but maybe Nelson would be able to go in the afternoon after worship.  I’m skeptical it can work out for me, but Sue – now a true Alaskan gal – says, “Go, go!”  Later, I found our pastor and several others from our church netting up on the Kenai River too.  It’s a wonder the whole church didn’t empty out right in the middle of worship.

By mid-afternoon, we were on the Kenai River taking turns steering the boat, while the other two men operated the dip nets.  The method involves driving the boat slowly down the quarter-mile-wide river close to the banks where the fish tend to concentrate.  The nets are held under the water perpendicular to the flow so that a salmon rushing upstream might swim directly into the net.  They generally cannot see the net well because the water near the mouth of the river has a lot of plankton, making it rather murky.  When a salmon slams into the net, the fisherman has to twist the net quickly to the horizontal position, lift the mouth above the water, and swing both net and salmon on board the boat before the fish can escape.  This can be tougher than it sounds.  It takes strength and agility.  Since these salmon weigh 6-10 pounds, a very large torque at the end of the long pole is created, and then there's the weight of the circular aluminum mouth of the net.  Once the fish is removed, the net is shoved back over the boat’s gunwale (side) and under the water again while the boat continues downstream.  A marker indicates the limit where dip netting is allowed.  At the marker the boat is steered back upstream for about half a mile, following the middle of the river.  Then it’s swung back to the bank for another pass down the river.  During the return upstream, fish captured on the last pass are gathered up and stored in large coolers.  An average trip down the river may yield 2-3 salmon, but when the big schools arrive it can get crazy.  As many as 10-15 fish can be landed in 15 minutes.

Here’s what it’s like on a typical pass downstream.  I was using Matt’s big 5-ft diameter net, which has an extra long pole, while Matt drove the boat.  He’s a big, very strong guy, while I’m a skinny, 65-year-old who has never done this before.  So, you can see where this is headed.  There I’d be, standing at the boat’s gunwale, holding the net several feet under the water, when WHAM a 10-lb salmon hits the net.  Rotate!! Lift!!  Wrestle the net and fish into the boat, which by now is very wet and has several salmon already sliding back and forth in its bottom.  This puts me off balance and I slip on the wet bottom, falling backwards with the net’s mouth above me.  The salmon is badly tangled in the net by this time and is thrashing around madly, while I’m desperately trying to grab it and untangle it from the net.  Meanwhile, the fellow on the other side of the boat has also nabbed a salmon and this madness is being repeated alongside me.  At this point I’m down and the fish is up.  I think the fish is winning!  Matt, at the boat’s wheel, is laughing uproariously like his sides will split.  I’m laughing hilariously, too, because of the shear ridiculousness of the sight.

We fished until 11:00pm----7 hours through the long summer evening.  This period later proved to be the exact peak of the salmon run. Over 194,000 fish were counted that day by the upstream sonar. Altogether, we took 150 fish, each of us reaching his full quota.  At an average of over 7 lbs apiece, that’s 1000 lbs of salmon, a microscopic dent in the 700,000–1,000,000 fish successfully passing upstream each year.  It would have been well worth the trip just to see the look on Matt’s face during the middle of the evening when as many as 2 or 3 fish were being netted at once each time a net was lowered over the side.  He was like a great big kid with a wide grin, eyes gleaming brightly, and happy laughter.  After returning to the dock, we divided the fish.  Alaska is probably one of the few places in the world where this fishing method is still used.  What an experience!

                                         The grandkids holding a dip net

                                                   Fire up the grill!