Darwin...hunter/gatherer

Since I am writing this blog and not Darwin...I will not do these stories justice. Not on purpose, but because I wasn't there and don't get as excited about fishing and hunting. Darwin has been getting up at 4 am and going fishing with people from work. The first picture of two salmon were caught this morning. The next fish picture (a salmon) is from Oct. 5th. The last picture of two salmon were caught on Oct. 7th. On Oct. 9th and 10th, Darwin and Bud went out hunting for moose. They saw plenty of "sign", but came up empty. Bud did kill a mouse...when it surprised him and he stomped on it with his boot...but that was the only kill of the trip.

The boat at the dock at Amalga Harbor.

The beach they went to, to go hunting.


Bear tracks in the mud



Moose tracks



Moose poo.



Darwin



Bud



He said there were all these tracks all over the place...not sure what they were ever for, but they weren't being used anymore.



A stellar jay.



Beauty.

Fishing with the Strassers

Darwin took Micah, Cori, Aria, and Isaiah out halibut fishing today. They caught 10 halibut and 3 quillback. Aria caught the first halibut and also the biggest halibut. While they were out they got to see tons of porpoise and a pod of 12 or so killer whales came right up to the boat (within arms reach) and gave them a show! Micah, Cori, and I bagged the fish after they got back, and they ended up with about 40 lbs of halibut!

While they were out fishing Caleb, London, Teagan, and I went to the park, to Costco, and later on...out for a walk. We had fun being outside in the 80 degree weather.

If any of you were wondering where Brooklin is in these latest two posts...she is enjoying herself out at Girl's Camp. She left Monday morning at 7am, and will be out there at the Boy Scout campgrounds until sometime Saturday afternoon. Darwin hiked out last night and tonight to sleep (the program requires a priesthood holder to stay in a seperate cabin over night...incase anything goes bump in the night) and told us she is having a lot of fun. She is a little bummed that she is missing out on visiting with her cousins and aunt and uncle, but she will get to spend some time with them this weekend.

Caleb liked to make Teagan laugh but making funny noises and faces.



Teagan swingin'.
He was a little nervous about the swing, but he had fun.

I took these off of Micah's facebook...

Micah fishing.

Cori fishing.

Aria with her quillback.

Aria trying to lift up a halibut...too cute!

Most of the days catch

Fishing with the family

This weekend was the Coast Guard fishing derby. We wanted in on the fun, so we took the boat out to catch us some big fish. Kids up to 13 can catch pretty much anything, but the adults are limited to salmon and halibut. In a few weeks, the results will be released at the Coast Guard birthday celebration picnic at Sandy Beach. I caught a halibut, and then got really sea sick. I laid in the boat on my stomach and listened to the kids catch two other halibut, some uglies and a quillback. We were gone most of the day. We all had fun...even though I wasn't feeling so good. Caleb caught a 19 lb. halibut and Brooklin caught a 14 lb one. Mine was a baby, and we threw it back. At the dock at Amalga harbor, Isaiah pulled out his "ugly pole" and tried to catch a chum. No luck with that, but he did catch (for a few seconds) a baby sculpin. It got away, but he was really excited about it.

Fishing with dad and grandpa, Day 1

Dad and grandpa came on Saturday. That night they decided to make preparations for fishing. I told them that there were kings in at fish creek and so we decided to spend the first day working to get the kings. We went down to fish creek in the morning. Braving the no-see-ums we threw out cast after cast. I went to the mouth of fish creek and was not having any luck so I came back to the pond and found that dad had traveled to the other side from Grandpa and they both had not yet snagged the goal. After fishing for a few minutes with Grandpa I saw that dad had snagged his first fish. We watched him bring it to the shore from afar and I knew if I did not catch a fish now I would not hear the end of it. After a few minutes Grandpa spotted a school of fish not too far from where we were and I cast into them and hooked a fish. Dad had the gaff so I was forced to drag the fish ashore and keep it at bay until I could get it on a stringer. Then dad was lucky to get another fish on and the bugs got the best of me. It was a fun day of fishing.

Dad admiring my fish.

Working the fish over. With the three men going to work on the catch.

Darwin's Butts

This was last weekend, but I wanted to get it posted to have proof that I still know how to fish after all the fish that Jared caught over memorial day weekend. Now I did not catch as many fish as Jared, my limit was only two fish, but I was able to get a little more meat in the end.

The Friday before we took the kids to twin lakes I was feeling a little frustrated that I had not caught any fish yet. My job was sending me to Excursion Inlet to do some inspections. So I combined the fact that I was out and about with the desire to fish and went looking for fish in an area that I do not normally go to. I got up early to fish and ended up not leaving until around 0800. I went to Sister's island first and was unable to catch a thing, even though the boats around me were catching small halibut, pacific cod and some other fish. I was a little frustrated at this point, not having caught a halibut this year so i decided to go out a lot further then I have done to date.

On the way out the water actually became a little calmer and I was able to see whales, porpoise, sea otters, etc., and the sun even came out for part of the trip. I anchored in about 150ft of water and drifted my line out with 20 ounces of weight and began to work on lunch. I had dumped a can of soup in a small pot and started the small single burner propane stove when I heard the sing of the drag on the fishing pole. I quickly turned off the stove and grabbed the fishing pole and battled the fish to the boat for about 10 minutes. When the fish finally came to the surface I saw it was about 30lbs and since I was by myself I was unsure how I was going to get it in the boat. With the rod in one hand and the gaff in the other, I tried several attempts to get the fish on the gaff with very little luck. Finally I hooked the fish and drug it in the boat and the fish expressed his displeasure at being out of the water. This was my first halibut in awhile so I beat the cheeks of the fish, trying to get him to calm down before I hit the head where the brain was to get him to relax. I gilled the halibut and put him on a line over the side of the boat and let my line out again.

Just as I was getting ready to start the stove again, I heard the drag sing again and I put aside lunch to focus at the task at hand. This fish was a little more aggressive and it took a lot longer to reel it in. In fact, a couple of times, the fish decided to go back to the bottom and I was nothing but a bystander watching the line payout after several minutes of hard work. Eventually, I did prevail and was able to bring the fish to the surface. This time it was a 55lb halibut and I was faced with the same dilema of gaffing the fish, while holding the rod, and not falling overboard. I was able to drag the fish in the boat and with a now practiced hand, I was able to motivate the fish to stop moving. Once this fish was on the stringer I settled down and ate lunch and watched the porpoises play about 10 feet off the stern of the boat.

When I got back to Excursion Inlet I noticed that the weather was calm, so I decided to run home and take care of the meat. I got home about midnight and Melissa and I worked on fish until 0130. We processed 21, 1 1/2lb bags of meat, from two fish. Boy I love fishing in AK.

The sad part is that I was alone, so after my two fish, I had to come home even though there was likely a lot more fish to be caught...so please come and help me catch fish ;)

Family fishing day at Twin Lakes

Today we took the kids to family fishing day at the lake. The lake is usually stocked with little salmon...but no one seemed to be catching anything. There were a few other activities for the kids and we had fun, but I wish they could have caught more than seaweed! Brooklin was in Anchorage for the youth temple trip, so she wasn't with us this morning. I will try and find some pictures of her there (I made her take her camera), but I don't have any on my computer yet. She had a great time. It was her first trip on an airplane without anyone from the family! She was pretty nervous when I dropped her off yesterday morning, but she just got back and said she had a lot of fun.

The salmon and what became of her

Darwin went fishing before work on Thursday morning and caught a silver salmon. We didn't measure it, but it was a really good sized one. This is him with his catch.

Tonight we had the salmon for dinner. It was pretty good...and I am not a salmon eater. I have found though, that if I cook the fish, I like it way more than if anyone else does. In fact until last week, I hated salmon. I've tried it several times, several different ways, but I can never eat more than a taste. Last week I cooked the earlier salmon that Darwin caught, and I liked it then as well. It was fried. This was a stew. I thought I would put the recipe down for it, if any of y'all would like to try it.

Salmon Stew

4 slices bacon, cut into 2-inch pieces
1 large onion, chopped
2 large potatoes, diced
1 large can (28 oz.) tomatoes
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup of lemon juice
1 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
4 whole bay leaves
2 or 3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
2 lbs salmon fillets cut into 2-inch pieces

In a 4- or 5-quart pan, fry bacon over medium heat until browned;add onion and potatoes to bacon and drippings and cook, stirring, for 10 minutes, or until onion is limp. Add tomatoes and their liquid and break up tomatoes with a spoon. Stir in water, lemon juice, Worcestershire, bay leaves, garlic, salt, and pepper; cover and simmer for 30 minutes or until potatoes are tender. Add salmon, stirring gently to mix; cover and continue cooking for 5 minutes or until fish flakes easily with a fork. Serves four to five.

Catch a fishy

This is a Silver Salmon that Darwin caught. He gets up at 5am and goes fishing in the morning before work. It's the first fish he's gotten to keep since moving back here.

DI PAC ~ Douglas Island Pink And Chum

On Saturday, Darwin took the kids down to DIPAC (die-pack) to see the salmon (I woke up sick on Saturday with chills, aches, and a fever, so I stayed home and slept most of the day). DIPAC is a fish hatchery here in Juneau. It has a big fish ladder and when the salmon make it up to the top of the ladder, the workers extract the roe (eggs) and sperm and mix them together and incubate it over the winter. In the spring, they release the smolt (baby fish) back into the channel. The hatchery is permitted to incubate 121 million chum (dog salmon), 50 million pink (humpy salmon), 1.5 million coho (silver salmon), and 950,000 chinook (king salmon) annually. After visiting the fish ladder, he let them each catch...and release...their own fish.


The kids at DIPAC


The fish ladder.

More of the ladder.

Caleb watching a dog salmon.

Thousands of fish!

More fish

Brooklin with a fish on.

Caleb reeling one in.

London's fish.

Isaiah fishing.

Brooklin picking up a fish.

Caleb holding a dog salmon.

A hard day at work!

I have often been accused of not working hard and playing all the time by my family members and I want you to know that it is just not true. So to show how hard I work I have decide to post today's efforts on this blog site. This should put to rest the unfounded rummer that I do things that are unrelated to my primary responsabilities during the work day. Now two Saturdays ago I worked the entire day talking to people about how to prepare for a hurricaine and conducting a harbor patrol in Kahului harbor. As a result today may not be the best example of a hard working day but I will do my best to put the right type of spin on it.

I arose a 0300 to begin an arduous day of work. I arrived in the harbor in time to assist in launching the vessel and getting underway in moderate to heavy seas where we could assist the Maui Fire Rescue vessel (who really did launch at the same time and went fishing in the same place) provide oversight to recreational activities happening about 12 miles outside of Kahului Harbor. When we arrive we found that there were Mahi Mahi (dolphin) and Ahi (tuna) that needed to be taken as sample specimens from the environment. We did the best that we could to take a sampling that were representative of the area: 2 dolphin and 4 tuna. When we completed the sampling we decided we should widen our search for other types of life. During our fishing (I mean searching) we collected a short billed spear fish. I will admit that it was a lot of fun to reel this one in.

OK, I have a really cool job and I had fun today. I hope all of you have as much fun as I do. Love what you do and do what you love.

This is the demonstrating my workout in the short billed spear fish lifting exercises.

This is me and Hunter Betts (the vessel owner).

This is a fish sample that we took. OK, they are a little small, but they were a lot of fun to catch.