Fisher Girl DeLise

Local pod of Orcas We often see this pod of Orcas as we fish the Bay of Alaska outside Yakobi Island. The big bull is especially impressive as we can see his very large dorsal fin from quite a distance as they bear down on our fishing boat to enjoy the feast they think we have gathered for them. I am always thrilled and dismayed to see them in the distance. Thrilled by their grace and power thru the ocean but dismayed that they will chase away or eat any fish that are following the boat before we can harvest them for our livelihood. Otter checking us out Otters are a common occurrence on the outside coast. We often see them floating around in many anchorages. In Sitka Sound earlier in the season we saw a raft of them that was made up of several dozen. I enjoy watching them floating along on their backs, often cleaning their next meal or carrying their little ones on their stomachs. We have seen several brown bears (but not nearly as many as last year at th...

Doug with a 20lb King Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) allows trollers to fish for salmon in outside waters beginning in July of each year. They gave us just 5 days to fish for Kings in July but we are allowed to fish for Coho all month. Usually the Coho are near shore by that time but this year they were not close in.  It is increasingly warm in Alaska in the summer months (climate change is very noticeable here, especially as I can compare my experiences from the 1990’s when last I lived here to now and the differences are quite apparent) and some speculate that the fish just aren’t moving in as there hasn’t been the rain needed to swell the streams enough for them to swim up and spawn. We found we had to fish much further from shore (6 miles) in deeper water (over 100 fathoms) to find them this July. Harvesting Coho In early August ADF&G closed all salmon trolling for 8 days (taking a big chunk out of our fishing season) and then reopened...