salmon fishing in alaska

Salmon fishing in Alaska is a short intensive activity from June to about September.

From what I understand there are 3 types of fishing.The type we encountered as we got to Point Nowell were the gil netting fishing boats as well as some land based netting.

The boats are amazing, designed to be operated by a single hand. The fisherman lays out the net and then waits for the fish to get caught, he then lifts up the net and with a huge winch rolls the net back on the boat shaking out the fish as they come up out of the water.

The fresh salmon slide onto the deck and into a hold, when he is full he goes and meets a collection boat, who weigh his catch and give him a slip with the information for later payment.

He then goes back and does it all over again, this for about 4 months while living on his boat all the time and then has the rest of the year off to do other stuff. All of the commercial fishermen that we met were extremely proud of their way of life, very friendly and generously gave us fish for our group.

We also met a family who live in a shack on the bay, fish from nets attached to land, go out in boats and unload the catch as often as needed. They also spend 4 intensive months living and fishing in the bay and then spend the rest of the year at other activities. [in this case they go Halibut fishing in another area]

It seems like a very profitable if difficult way of life. You need to be resourceful, independent and not afraid of hard work, as well as being able to live alone or almost alone for long periods of time.
I have also seen ads for working as deck hands on these vessels, could be a good experience for the adventurous among us.
An then we had to clean and gut our fish  that we had been given.

One of them was full of roe, which is just delicious when fried

Need I tell you what a great feast we had that day?

There is nothing like eating really freshly caught fish, either raw like sashimi with a bit of lemon and salt and pepper or  fried in a pan.