Adios!

Have you ever had the feeling that you were being hunted down by the Terminator? Now, I can honestly say that I have. Thanks Sean. Won't this boat go any faster?

Last week we took our last trip up the Alec river with our late season crew (Jen, Rachel, Me, Sean, and Conrad). It was a successful trip and we saw ~25 bears along the way. Luckily they are all pretty satiated on the 700,000 spawning sockeye that are there right now (note the fish heads in the foreground, the area was littered with them, as its the only part the bears won't eat).

We also did our last trip to Black Lake, which was an overnighter, so we stayed at Ron's cabin on Black River. Here we are waiting for some better weather to get out and get the work done.

After the bulk of the field work was done, Sean and I put in some time for coho. The water is unusually murky, but the ~1500 coho entering the river every day has made our job easier. We had some fun, and Sean got to take some fish home. Here's a little one I took on a fly this morning.

One of our last chores for the season is to pull all of our boats out of the water. We don't have the capacity to get our 19" workskiff out at camp, so we take it to the Trident Seafoods dock in the bay, and they haul it out for us. We are closing up camp now. Tomorrow we will board up the windows and drain the water system as our last activities. Then we wait for the nice folks from the ADF&G weir to give us a ride to the airstrip so we can head home. It has been a great season, and I think we are all pretty happy about the progress of the work we got done. See ya!

Chignik Olympics II

Fishing. OK, this is a bit of a stretch, but hey, we spend a bit of time fishing; some for fun, some for science, and sometimes your arm gets sore from all of the casting. Tish wore herself out fighting a couple of nice halibut a while back

Boat pushing. Ah, the dark side of Black Lake trips. To get into the Alec River, we navigate two deltas, and each has its pitfalls. Late season when the snow is gone and the water is low can be treacherous. At its worst we have to take all of the heavy items out of the boat and push until we find knee deep water, then reload everything and hope the cooling system isn't completely jammed with sand.

Net pulling. Well, our job here is to catch fish after all, and the fly rod only goes so far. In the end we pull lots of nets, usually beach seines in Chignik Lake, Black lake, and Chignik Lagoon. This is probably our most common "activity."

OK, net pulling gets two. Conrad has been conducting research on pygmy whitefish for a couple of years here. In order to catch the deep morph we sink small-mesh gill nets to the bottom of Chignik Lake (~180 ft.) and pull them up each day. Its a haul.


The Chignik Olympics are nearly over for this season, but if we leave with all of our digits intact we are all winners right? Someone help Jen on to the podium.

Chignik Olympics I

Its a well known fact that we just don't get much exercise here in Chignik. Jen and Lindsy were pretty vigilant about running up and down the trail from the cabin to the boats, but in general our hearts don't get much of a day to day workout (unless you count pumping pork products). That said, we do have a few activities we affectionately term the Chignik Olympics. Here are a smattering of them in no particular order:

Generator starting. Ever since the alternator went out on our 1982 Lister 5kW generator we have been starting it by hand. Originally we would have one person crank and flip the compression lever, but lately we have all been cranking and flipping on one fell swoop.

Cart pushing/pulling. Our camp is about 400 feet from the river, and to get anything to and from the boats (which is everything) we load it on a cart and roll it up the hill. The challenge is to see how much you can load and roll without dumping the whole load on the path.

Barrel rolling. This is a big one. We need approximately 18, 55 gallon drums to fuel our boat and power requirements for the summer with a little left over to start the next season. Gas barrels weigh about 350 pounds, and diesel about 390. We bring them in our large boat, push them over the side and roll them up to camp. Champs in this sport like Conrad (pictured) can push a barrel all the way up the path to the fuel area by themselves.

Rope pulling. This is kind of an odd one, but we sometimes try to tension rope to hold a beach seine in a boat or in this case hold a boat midriver in the current. We pull so many ropes that we all have hands like velcro after a couple weeks.

instrument search and recovery

A couple weeks ago we spent a lot of time looking for one of my lost acoustic receivers. In the end we decided to use a big water pump to blast away sand in the area we thought the receiver may have been buried over the winter. Conrad put together this video of the result:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRNJCmkfRpg

Fox

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. Tish and Lindsy are both gone now, so there are only three of us left in camp. Today we made a foray to the Alec River to try to calibrate some of Jen's equipment. Coming around the bend we saw this fox with the better part of a sockeye. He was pretty reluctant to leave it or haul it off and was tolerant us a quick photo shoot. I will try to post more soon.

The Hike

For several years there has been discussion of climbing a local peak near Chignik Lake. We have been excited about it (the peak on the right in this photo) because it looks like it would afford good views of both Chignik Lake and Black Lake, our main study areas. This has become known as "the hike." We have been waiting for good weather for this, and yesterday (August 6) we finally got some, and decided to go for it.

We planned out our proposed route a bit and decided to make a run up a long wash coming out the the drainage behind the peak. This was a little longer and required some stream crossings, but allowed us to hike up without too much bushwacking through alders. Eventually (seen here) we left the creek and began our ascent up an old landslide to avoid thick brush.

After about 5 hours we finally made it to the top. The view was spectacular and worth the climb. From the top we could see all of Chignik Lake, some of the lagoon, and a bit of the bay (gulf of Alaska). Turning the other direction we could see Black Lake, and Bristol Bay.

The very peak of the summit (3642 ft.), with Mt. Veniaminof in the background. Its a pretty sheer drop off the back side.

Chignik Lake, from the Black River delta on the left to the outlet on the right. This is the view that we climbed for.

Tish in Alaska

Tish arrived at camp a few days ago. We went out on the river for some king fishing.

Tish and Conrad (combo effort) caught a nice one!

We have been working pretty hard, but today there was a little down time for guitar practice.

Black Lake revisited

Up the Alec river there are some neat marshy areas that have fun plants we don't really see anywhere else. Conrad snapped some of these shots of one of our trips to Black Lake.

Curious bear.

Amazingly flat and clear day on Black Lake with an incredible view of Mt. Veniaminof, our local volcano.

Coming home from Black Lake can get challenging. Jets are a necessity as the the delta is only a few inches deep in spots. To make it through we go as fast as we can and hope to find the channel. Sometimes we don't make it and have to push the boats.

Often bears fish in the delta because it is so shallow and the can easily catch fish. Usually they run for their lives when we come screaming through at top speed, but occasionally they are curious and hang around while we push the boats.

Baby Bears

Every time there is a bear in camp, we run out to take pictures. No matter how many pictures you have, there is always room for another bear shot.

This year there seem to be lots of bear cubs around. A couple nights ago we saw this sow and cub across the river and watched mom fish with the cub on her back.

At one of our beach seine sites in the lagoon we saw a sow with two cubs that were enjoying some rare sunshine. Mom lay in the water while the young ones frolicked on the beach.

Nothing more exciting than a washed up orange!

Halibut!

Our last fishing expedition to the bay was disappointing. We ended us catching nothing but Pacific cod. Cod is ok, but it really pales in comparison to a nice halibut taco. So we went for an all day outing to the bay. We left on the morning high with plans to do some stream work in the bay, get some fuel and groceries, then fish our way home on the evening tide. We saw bears, a gray whale and some otters while we were out on a really beautiful day.

And we came home with four halibut, although it was after midnight at this point. We were starving and decided to go for it and clean the fish and make tacos.

1:30 am: Yay, fish tacos!! I'm so excited and delirious from lack of sleep!

1:35 am: Too many fish tacos.

4th of July fun

For the second year in a row we went to the Fish and Game weir to have a BBQ and horseshoe tournament. For the second year in a row I was randomly paired with the weir manager. We braved some lousy weather, but it was still fun to hang out with everyone.

The boys at the weir found some inventive ways to launch bottle rockets. The pipe that I use to hold some of my fish tracking instrumentation was apparently the perfect launching pad.

We also launched some expired rocket flares.

Todd and I won the horseshoe tournament. I think it was the power of the smoked salmon sticks that helped my delivery.

Weir Art contest

A couple days ago, we were invited to an art contest at the Fish and Game weir. They are a talented bunch and put together quite a show. I was lacking in inspiration and made a "monkey's fist" and braid with some rope I found on the beach.

As a group submission, we all put together this FRI gingerbread cabin (and associated out building).

Note the working seat!



Apparently my rope ball smelled authentic enough to win the "most resourceful" category. They had some sweet prizes. I just missed out on the six pack of beer and won the electronic game Catch Phrase instead.

West Fork

A week or so ago we attempted a trip that we have been talking about for a few years, West Fork. West Fork is the river that drains Mt. Veniaminof, our closest volcano, but has not been visited by and FRI students in recent history. It is very silty and notoriously braided, but it harbors a large amount of the watershed that I have no genetic samples from. So, while the water was still high we decided to take both our jets up the river and give it a try. As predicted. the lower stretch is a silty mess. Both boats ended up getting stuck and a bit of cooling system repair and pushing was needed (here Conrad and Lindsy are working on the duck boat).

Once we got past the delta area the going was easier, although its is still a flat braided mess, and some on the fly decisions are required about direction.

We got very close to the volcano and it afforded some spectacular views between the clouds.

In the end we made it about 25 km up the West Fork. We could have gone further, but the gradient got pretty steep and we were more worried about getting back down, so we decided to call it a day. In the end I got 300 Dolly Varden samples from three streams, so the mission was a success