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King Salmon Fishing on the Kuskokwim

As it turns out, a summer day on the Kuskokwim river in Bethel isn’t a swimsuit holiday , it’s work and adventure. It’s rubber golashes up to your knees, a great probability of getting hung up on a sand bar, a taste of the tundra wind, and some friends and drinks to smooth it all out.

Last Saturday was our first gill netting adventure. The King Salmon were running, and it was legal to fish for them (they count how many fish run through at the mouth of the river, allocating a certain amount through before opening up the fishing season). It’s not the old rod and reel fight with a big fish, it’s a drop the 150-foot net into the water, constantly maneuver the boat to keep the net relatively straight, sit and chat, drink a beer, and pull up fish kind of operation.

We headed out with our friend Jeff, captain of the boat, and our neighbor Nicole. The boat was equipped with everything you’d expect in an Alaska fishing boat: fishing rods, nets, tubs to hold lots of fish, booze, and a fully enclosed canopy to keep in the warmth (very important).

After finding “Jeff’s secret spot”, we placed the net and proceeded to wait. The depth finder kept showing school after school of fish at varying depths below us. But the monitor was at the stern of the boat and the fish must have truly always been behind us wherever we were. After 3 “floats” lasting 8 hours, we managed 6 King Salmon (seven counting the one that got away).

Up on board with evening approaching and whole fish in a bucket we opted for cutting the fish before heading  back to the harbor because, really, who wants to do tons more work on shore?! We filleted the 6 fish and saved the roe for something yet to be determined. While Rob had a great understanding of the whole fish cutting process and Colleen learned quickly, the locals would probably not be impressed with our technique. The overcast day helped none with navigation as we couldn’t tell where the sun was setting so we set off in one direction until we got a sense of the other being a better choice. When confusion prevailed our captain ponied up his GPS system that directed us back to Bethel.

Everyone aboard gave all of the catch to us, so once we were home, we spent the rest of the evening trimming up the fillets and carefully packing and sealing them for the freezer. All said and done, our small little freezer is now packed full with King Salmon. We say “small freezer”, as relative to this part of Alaska: most people have a large chest freezer or two to support subsistence living (moose, caribou, etc).

And, speaking of subsistence living, along the 10-hour journey we passed 50ish “fish camps”.  Essentially a private fish processing operation for the subsistence lifestyle, the camps are established by each family with the end goal of drying and storing enough fish to last the entire winter. They range from ramshackle to exotic, but mostly contain an area to to clean the fish and a separate, covered structure to air dry the fillets.

The next step: drying and preserving. Most likely we’ll brine and smoke this catch–more on that later.

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