#2013-25 Give Us This Day, Our Daily.......Limit!

It's Sunday and we should be in church. Just can't make it today, so we'll worship on the water in our beautiful and natural surroundings.  The choir is ready for our favorite hymn.  All together now....FISH ON!

Alaska Department of Fish and Game sets the limits for all fisherman.  Alaska residents have no limit.  We non-residents are allowed 1 King per day up to 3 fish per year, if caught before June 30th.  So when the bite's on, we have to stop landing Kings after one per fisherman, or 4 total for the day.  As soon as we get our King salmon daily limit, were headed back to Sitka to get our fish into processing.  So just give us our daily limit......  Luckily we can keep up to 6 coho salmon per day per fisherman.

What fish we've caught takes Dave a long time to clean.  It takes much longer to fillet it all then vacuum package it.  Even so, the Wild Blue just doesn't have the freezer space for so much fish. So the cleaned fish is iced down and kept in coolers.  It will be filleted and packaged in Sitka by a private seafood processor and stored frozen until ready to ship home.

Today we fish at the entrance to Great Arm and the shoreline between Great and Small Arms.  The bell is ringing all day long.  As the morning wears on, we've landed many Cohos, 3 Kings but one shy of our daily limit.  We've lost 8 fish due to broken line, poor netting, smart fish and too tight reel brakes.  But the bell keeps ringing and by 1pm we're talking crab enchiladas again.  We pull into Kristoi Basin and anchor for lunch.  An hour later is fish time again, yet we need to head north by 5pm to make high tides in the narrows.  Just give us our daily limit.  At departure time, we just can't find that last King, even so it's been a record setting day!

Roger is King for a day.

Dave's King.

Roger's 35-inch salmon weighed 19 pounds.

3 King and 14 Coho for 17 fish total, 

a new Wild Blue daily record, but

we missed our King limit by one!

Just before 8pm we crept into Kliuchevoi Bay aka Hot Springs Bay and set the hook.  Dave and Roger began cleaning fish. We'll make Sitka tomorrow and get our fish to the processor and then we're taking the rest of the day off.  Anybody for a barbecue fresh salmon dinner?

Fresh barbecued King salmon for dinner.

Served with the appropriate accouterments, of course.