Drift Netting

So, it is summer and in the village that means subsistence fishing.  I went around letting people know that I wanted to go drift netting for salmon.  Everyone was like, "Oh yeah, I will come get you when we go."  Though it felt like for every ten people that said they would take me, I would only actually get out once.

I first got out with the husband of a coworker.  We had a good time.  We did two drifts and pulled in about 30 fish (see above picture).  Most were king salmon.  I then got a chance to go to their fish camp and see how they prepare and smoke their fish.

I then went out with Josh and his brother a couple of times in the last two days.  I went out fishing with him last year as well.  On Tuesday, we didn't have too much luck and only caught maybe four fish in four drifts.  Then last night, we went out at about 1am and only had to do one drift.  They had switched to a smaller net (smaller "holes") for more of a chance to catch the more common/predominant chum.  Kings are ideal, but they would probably "bounce" off the net rather than get tangled.  Their mom wanted lots of fish to cut, I guess.

We didn't even drift that long with the net.  We could see buoys bouncing up and down, indicating there were fish struggling.  It probably took us more time pulling in the net and freeing the fish than we waited drifting.  Josh and I pulled out 112 fish from the net.  It was a lot of work, but still pretty fun.