Thirty-Three Reds

The Kenai River personal use dipnet fishery was awesome this year. Still is -- there are two more days before it closes on the season.  But we were able to get our household limit, 35 fish, in two days on the river. The first day was a bust -- just two fish.  The second day was amazing -- 33 sockeyes. 

Just now I finished canning 66 pints in the pressure canner.  That's a lot of fish!  Lemon pepper. Lemon dill. Lemon capers. Jalapeno. Jalapeno spice. Hickory. We'll see soon whether that's a successful experiment in flavors.  This is a good way for us to use the fish -- no need to thaw something from the freezer. Perfect in salads, spreads and casseroles. Salmon tacos. Salmon patties. Let the feasting begin.

But that wasn't all. While I was canning fish, Dave was smoking fish. He's awesome at that. Light apple smoke with a honey glaze finish. And then, there's the frozen fillets: dozens ready for the quick thaw in a bath of cold water, a quick poach in white wine, a squeeze of lemon. Divine.

We're so lucky to live somewhere that the wild salmon stocks haven't been decimated. But that said, this year the king salmon return was abysmal. In fact, the AK Dept. of F&G closed the commercial set net fishery until April 1 in the Kenai District -- just to minimize chinook bycatch. Huge economic disruption for the Kenai commfish folks. The fact that they were off the nets, though, meant that there were many more sockeyes entering the river. They increased the fishery from 6 am to 11 pm, normal hours, to 24-hours. And they increased the hook-and-line limit from 3 per day to 6 per day. These are great inducements to bringing sports anglers to the river. Good for tourism. Bad for commercial fishers with set net permits. Like aquatic farmers who had a crop failure.

We got these fish on Friday, July 27, 2012.  Most years, we try to get to the river to dip around July 20. In fact, I took two friends along for a scouting trip on July 18 and found only 2 fish that day. We've had one 200,000+ fish day on July 16, and since then it's been steady but for a two day lull on the 17th and 18th. Both days I dipped it was sunny and pleasant. On the best day, it wasn't even crowded. Amazing.