Fishing in Mermaid Lagoon

Every year my family (or members thereof ) takes a 1-3 day trip out to an extension of our Island called Pasagshack. Here is where we have participated in subsistence fishing for the past 7+ years. According to Alaska regulations each Alaska resident of one year or more can supply themselves with 25 salmon for that year. This does not include sportfishing such as trolling or bottom fishing. So really, you can catch 100's of fish in a year if you wanted to. Anyways, this year my Dad, Wes, and I were the chosen crew to make the journey.

My preparation began Monday night while my Dad was at work. I needed to get a lunch cooler made up, gear brought out and checked over, fillet knives sharpened, fuel put in the boat's tank, net coiled and stowed properly in the "cradle" then pushed up into the gully, anchor lines coiled, life jackets present, and on and on....... So anyways, not much sleep was achieved that night.

We left the house around 3 a.m. It was a pretty Quiet drive all the way out there (except for Wes' snoring). Launching the boat went very smoothly and fairly quietly. You have to be quiet so as not to wake the competition that's camping out on the beach. It was totally a piratical feeling....like you were a boarding party or something! We made it out to claim the #1 set net site and sat on that claim like a mother duck. As time passed more set-netters came and claimed the next consecutive "hot spots". While we were waiting we also got to enjoy watching a pod of whales feeding at the other end of the Bay.

6 a.m. was Go Time! My Dad maneuvered into shore and let me off to lodge the shore anchor into the sand, then I hopped back in and we pulled away from the surf and shore leaving lead and cork in our wake. Not a bad set, but not good in my opinion either. The next couple of hours were speckled with a fish or two here and there but NOTHING like what my Bristol Bay experience was like. That's OK, we didn't need 100's upon 100's of fish.

I must say it was fun to watch Wesley work his first fish out of the net, I think it was a good experience for him and I hope he had some fun.

Around 3 p.m. we decided to wrap it up and call it a day, we had only 28 fish at the time. My Dad and I dropped Wesley off at the beach and picked up the "cradle" (big tote for the net). Then we headed back to haul in the net. We ended up getting 13 more fish when we took up our net along with 8+ Dungeness Crab, 2 flounders, and a very interesting rock..........

Our days' work yielded 40 Red salmon and 1 Pink. Not to shabby. But really, the work was just getting started again. Now it's time to unpack and clean everything, not to mention fillet those fish! :) Aren't they beautiful!

I was pleased to find that my skills were in no way rusty when it came to that task. I was afraid that my Dad might tease me about that, but really.....my fillets were prettier......then again, that's just my opinion. Wes did and awesome job with cleanup too, he also managed to get some pictures:

This sockeye is a female, I'm pulling out 1 of the 2 egg sacks. The seagulls at the cleaning station really liked me for it, they like caviar too!