Fish

Sorry about not updating. I am back in California now, but the internet connection in Chignik got pretty spotty the last week of my time there. I will try to post a few more photos of the sites when I get a chance. For now, just fish.


Some nice halibut

Dolly fishing in the lagoon

17.5" Dolly

Spring

There are lots of neat flowers coming up all around camp and the various areas we visit. I have found at least 15 or 20 different varieties. Most are small tundra flowers, but they are still pretty neat. The last image here appears to be a lily. It is nearly black in color and smells like rotten food or dirty socks. Must be pollinated by flies . I wonder why we have so many growing near the FRI camp?

Ryan running the river on a fine afternoon.

This awesome fish counting station is just below our camp on the Chignik river. The two large drums capture fish and hold them in large bins in the back. The little domed area is an all weather lab space for counting the fish. They dunk a bunch of the juvenile fish they catch each day in "bismark brown", which stains them. The they release them upstream and see how many marked ones are in the next day to get an idea of the population. This device runs from just after ice out (mid may) until the numbers drop in early July.

Halibut!

Ryan and I are really happy about how flat black lake was. Probably the one calm day of the year though.

The Alec river is the biggest tributary into Black Lake and we take flow by stringing a steel cable across the river and tying the boat up. Here Ryan and I are on the bow of the boat. He is recording depth and I am recording water velocity as we slide along

Today we made a trip to the bay to get some fuel (4.35/gallon, not bad!) and propane. One the way there we stopped for a minute to fish for halibut. I brought 3 fish up to the boat, but we didn't have a gaff so I was only able to bring one in. It made about the best fish tacos I've ever had though.

While in the bay we stopped at the Trident fish processing facility. Its a pretty amazing place because they only process salmon, and they are only open for about 2 months per year. During that time however, they can can 400,000 fish per day. Mostly into little quarter pound cans. Interestingly, these cans are sold as a commodity that any company can buy and then put their own label on. Also, almost everyone working at the facility is from eastern Europe, mostly Ukraine I think. They come in on a special 3 month work visa. The really nice looking fish go to a special section called H&G (Head and gut), where the fish are, well, headed and gutted. Then they are flash frozen (see above) and sent to Japan. Interestingly, most salmon is canned, probably 80+%. Almost all of that goes to Europe. Apparently Americans just don't like canned salmon. Only a small percentage is filleted and sent to the US. This seemed silly to me, but the reason is that in Bristol bay, they catch 20 to 30 million fish, in three weeks. There is simply not enough capacity to fillet that many fish while it is still fresh. Its just to hard to hire that many people for three weeks of work. Canning is very fast by comparison, so they can deal with many huge loads in a matter of hours.

Day on the spit

Yesterday morning we went out to the spit, the point in the lagoon closest to the ocean. There we did some beach seining and I caught 7 dolly varden and put acoustic tags in them to track where they move in the system (hopefully upstream). This is the operating theater.

Wet eagle.

Seiner in the lagoon pursing up the net. Total sockeye escapement this year so far is about 375,ooo fish, and the fishery has caught an additional 350,000 or so. Not a great year here apparently. In Bristol bay however they are having two million fish days and may approach 50 million sockeye this year.

One for Tish

Chignik Lake Village

The other day we went to Chignik Lake village across the lake for dinner. Julie (on the left in the photo) put together a nice spread for us, which she has done for the FRI folks a couple of times a summer for many years now. Her family was among the original supporters of the research community when the work started here in the 50's. After dinner we got to help check the smoker. Everyone in the village it seems has a very large smoker, where they can smoke several hundred fish at a time if need be. Others in the picture are: Ryan Simmons (back, left;fellow grad student), Conrad Gowell (back right;summer intern), Julie's brother Willard (front right), and Willard's grandson. Its a pretty tight community over there and everyone help each other out alot to make things happen. Just ofter this picture was taken, we and about 10 other guys helped a fisherman (incidentally one of Julie and Willards other brothers, Mitch) hoist his boat onto a trailer.

Happy Fourth!

Last night we celebrated the Fourth of July a little early. Ryan and I went to the fish and game weir where they all celebrate early because they have the fourth off of work. The F&G crew has built a nice little campfire spot on the bluff overlooking the valley. At midnight one of the F&G guys passed out sparklers, and Ryan caught this picture of me spelling out F.R.I. FRI is the Fisheries Research Institute, which was started by UW back in the 50's. They have since changed the name to the Alaska Salmon Program, but here in Chignik everyone knows us as FRI, so our camp has kept the name. The last few days have been spent on boat repair, and afetr lots of headaches we now have 3 of 4 boats in good working order. Its been a bit rainy, so I haven't had the camera out much. The Chinook are starting to run in the river, so hopefully we will catch some soon!

Black Lake

Today we headed up to Black lake. Here the boat is moored on the bank of the north side of the lake and we are looking south. This is as far up the system as we can go. It is flat tundra all around black lake. You can see the steep mountains of Chignik lake just on the other side. Black lake is interesting because it is ~30 square km, but the maximum depth is about 10 feet. Most of it is much shallower. In the summer it can reach 18 degrees C!


Looking north from the shore of Black lake there is nothing but flat tundra all the way to Bristol bay on the north side of the peninsula.


We took two boats up to Black lake, and the impeller on one motor died. We had to tow it all the way back. One hour to get up, three and a half to get back.


The delta of the Black river running into Chignik lake is the trickiest part of the whole system, and one spot was so shallow we had to walk the boats for quite a ways before finding a channel.

Bears

Ram vs. Bear. This little guy went all the way around the truck a couple of times, but didn't seem to break anything. Just curious, or hungry.

Last night we were fishing for Chinook in one of the better salmon holes and these bears came out of the brush. We were anchored in the middle of the river where it is pretty safe. They looked us over for a while and headed off again. It was neat to see them though. Unfortunately, we didn;t catch any kings. It's a little early yet I think.

Fish for dinner

I took this at about 1am last night. This is what we see of the village of Chignik lake, across the river. There aren't many roads, so everyone gets around by boat. There is a fairly large new high school there as well, but only 50 students or so. There is still a bit of snow on the peaks around, but it is disappearing rapidly.

Chignik lagoon is full of purse seiners right now. There are about 35 boats and they seem to catch 15,000-45,000 fish per day (total).

Finally, we caught some fresh sockeye and cooked it up for dinner. Just pan fried it with almost nothing on it. It was fantastic.

Here are three of our four boats. We have one of the nicest tie up spots on the lake. The river spot to the left is the outflow of chignik lake (the beginning of the Chignik river) and one of the best king salmon holes around. Hopefully soon I will have a photo to show of a big king.

Beautiful day on the lake!

Large bear print on the lake shore, but no bear in sight.

A couple of bald eagles on an abandoned cabin near our camp

Our camp viewed from the river. Building at the far left is the outhouse, then the generator room, then the shop/lab, then a storage hut, then the common room and bunks. We have a nice landing for the boats just out of view. There are VHF radio and internet antennas on the roof. VHF works great, but the internet is really slow.

Arrived in Chignik

Inside the common area of the Chignik residence.
Lots of food is stock upon those shelves.

Checking traps with the crew, Jennifer, Ryan, and Conrad.

Check out their weir! Its huge! Every one of those posts gets driven in with a pile driver each spring after ice out