Hi John,
Thanks for replying. I was in AK for 2 years. I was I landed in Anchorage, then took a shuttle out to Homer, then a ferry out to Kodiak.
My original plan was to make it out to Dutch Harbor, but what I learned is that fishing rules have changed drastically. There is no more big money in it even for the gigantic boats because back then they just paid for the fishing or crabbing license and caught unlimited amount for the season. Now they have to buy a share and sort of guess on how much they will catch.
So what I mean is lets say you paid for shares for king crabbing and paid X amount per pounds of King crab you would catch. That could easily be $200K for a big boat. Then you only catch and make profit of either too little over or under. It is really a gamble and not a stable income plus the bering sea is not a play around ocean.
When I was there I heard a boat sank, hit ice and waves just toppled it. So all these boats have this special life board boat that inflates and zips up completely. I think it was 2 or 4 sailors in it and were found frozen with no injuries inside a few days later. I mean drowning was the last thing to happen , but the hypothermia killed them quickly so for this reason I only like warm because you can jump in and swim if you have to.
Besides this I have seen eagles, sea otters, elk, many types of fish. The captain I was with asked me what I want for dinner and I said I love fish. So we caught a fresh halibut and he showed me how to fillet it. Fresh halibut's taste was amazing. Can't ever get that from a store because it is frozen. By the way any fish you see from AK here in the lower 48 states has been frozen and thawed a million times. I would not buy it. Then the next night we caught Black Cod and oh boy, let me tell ya, this fish is delicious.
After Kodiak I went to Juneau, AK and got on a different boat. Very small about 36ft. We did salmon gill netting. That is where I had fresh SOckeye and king salmon. We also caught a lot of pink salmon which is garbage fish compared to the two I mentioned. If you go to walmart or most stores you will see they sell pink salmon in a can as if its high quality. Seriously it is low grade of the fishes. I learned a lot in terms of food quality and grade. Now I know what to look for.
I knew some folks in AK. They use to scuba dive to get king crab when they opened the season. They use to drag an open net and can see them walking on the bottom of the ocean floor and would just toss them in the net. The only problem is you need a huge pot to cook it which they did usually in their back yard.
Brings back some memories
