Salmon mania

[Richard Flanders]

We were in on the "personal use" fishery below the bridge at Chitina. Above the bridge it's "susbsistence", whatever that means. The natives often get to do what they please at times, but not always. I really don't know or care what those rules are, I do know that subsistence is not limited to natives at all. I could probably qualify for subsistence fishing next year. Everything went our way yesterday - best spot on the river, CAVU weather, no rain or wind, I didn't fall into the river and no running off the road from exhaustion while driving back home after fishing all day, which is a big one and not unheard of. It was a spectacular and productive day and very economic if you consider having to buy 150# of sockeye at the store for $8/# or whatever it is these days. If gas was $10/gal you'd just laugh and pay it and haul azz off to go fishing. It's a very worthwhile trip. The charter guy said they were considering raising their price from $110/person to $140... I did the math in my head and that raises the cost by the price of only two filets off one smallish sized fish at the grocery store so has an insignificant effect on the economics of the situation. Here are the cleaning tables the charter outfit sets up. The clouds of gulls in the creek where all the waste goes are a very well-fed lot...