As October begins, we are finally all wrapped up from our summer’s work, our nets safely stored ashore, fish camps shut down and boarded up, most skiffs towed to their dry land winter resting spots, and our muscles slowly easing out of their knotted soreness. With equinox just past, we are enjoying this time to feel our way out of summer’s marathon and into a more balanced state.

Looking back on the successful season, we first want to thank our crew members who each brought their own brand of energy, enthusiasm, and dedication to the team. Tollef says thanks to Liam and Lachy, you guys brought the reds and you made the storms fun, easy going and hard working perfect combo I’d say! I (Adelia) thank my family, Abby, Kakiko, and Maddie. You all are stars and I appreciate each of your contributions and truly hard work in sometimes very challenging conditions! I couldn’t do it without you, and I wouldn’t want to either!

Aside from getting to work and share our lives with these wonderful people, what stands out about summer 2023 is the FISH! Karluk River, the major salmon spawning ground for our part of the world, saw its strongest sockeye return in 48 years! Our pink salmon return was also quite robust, and the coho abounded in the fall as well. This all translated into excellent, mostly nonstop fishing for both of us, allowing us to get into a good rhythm of fishing, eating, and sleeping. Here’s a look at a typical day in Uganik for us, during the peak fishing of late August. Even though we fish across the bay from each other and have our own ways of doing things, the basics of fishing and taking care of business are shared amongst all sites, building a tremendously tight-knit community that truly understands each other.

Mornings

We would both have an alarm at 6:15, and whoever had custody of the dog that week would get to enjoy some fluffy greetings while getting up. The first order of business is always to assess the conditions, see what the wind and waves are doing, and consult the tide book to get the day’s tides ingrained in our heads. As we swung closer to fall and the mornings became dramatically darker and our bodies were starting to feel more worn out, Tollef’s morning coffee routine was finally adopted by Adelia (instead of just zooming out to fish straight away). We’d be across the bay from each other drinking coffee for a few quiet moments and texting, Tollef sharing that night’s batch of wild dreams. Before 7 we’d greet our crew, putting our boots and raingear on for the first of many times throughout the day. Unless it was the worst of a storm, we’d pick the net, dealing with any kelp or logs or jellyfish, as well as a good amount of fish. Next, we’d offload the salmon to our respective holding barges, Adelia’s with refrigerated seawater circulating, and Tollef’s with slush ice, both to keep the fish at 33 degrees. We’d hurry back to shore as fast as the amount of fish would allow, make a little fire in the woodstove and have a speedy breakfast and more coffee while waiting for the tender to come around. Our tenders were 58 foot boats that picked up salmon from the setnetters and bring the fish to the cannery in town for processing. Every day, we would deliver a day’s worth of fish, get gas if needed, and clean the holds with a chlorine solution before filling them up again with again with the next load of fish

Middays

Back ashore again, someone might make some lunch while the others have time for a chore like splitting wood or kindling, fixing various items that always need some attention - from leaks in the inflatable dinghy and in our boots and raingear to any number of issues with the machines - the outboards, pressure washers, generators, RSW systems, solar setups, water filters - that power our days. If it’s not too fishy, there may even be time for a break - a nap or reading or a walk on the beach - but some days, if there’s a major repair needed, or really heavy fishing, or a bad storm and a net full of kelp, it’s all we can do to get ourselves fed between hours on the water. Regardless, no matter how tired we are, anytime we climb in the skiff it feels like we are back where we are meant to be, going through the same rhythms of pulling web, flicking out fish as fast as possible, offloading to our barge, and doing it all again.

Lachy getting ready to ice down a load of salmon

We’d often try to remember to bring a fish in for dinner. Kakiko brought with him our new favorite way to cook salmon - it was a huge hit and we can’t recommend it highly enough. If you check out the link, you’ll see that it is meant for halibut but we ignored that and just used salmon instead. Everything else we did as directed and it was wonderful. Thank goodness our cilantro in the garden grew all right this summer! Yum.

Evenings

As the season progressed we kept having to start our final pick of the day earlier because: 1. Commonly we had our heaviest fishing at the end of the day, so it could take hours to get all the fish out of the net, and often we would pick the fishiest sections of the net twice before leaving it overnight; 2. We had quite a bit of fall type stormy weather, and bashing about in big waves makes things much slower than normal, and 3. It starts actually getting dark in the evenings by late August. Normally we’d go out at 8:30, but on the earliest of evenings, we’d head out as early as 7:30 - Adelia would say “let’s go so we can come back!” - since by 10:30 it was really starting to be dusky. As we picked for the last time of the day, racing so bedtime and a little rest for our overworked hands and backs would come sooner, we marveled at the low angled sun tipping toward the snow-capped peaks of the Alaska Peninsula, flooding us with majestic golden orange pink sunsets. These moments of beauty and awe capping off our hardworking days reminded us why we love doing what we do, even in the midst of the most frenzied fishing. How grateful we are to live this life!

Our Season Summary: A day in the life of setnetting

Mornings

Middays

Evenings