What's for dinner?

Southeast Alaska white king, Bristol Bay Chinook, bean sprout pilaf and peanut slaw.

The Wife and I provided the fish; the red onion, scallions, cilantro and parsley came from the garden; and the cabbage and carrots came from local farms.  The beer (not pictured) came from California.  You can't call it all local, but it's getting close.

Strike Three

I remember being especially impressed with Obama's inaugural address when he vowed to "restore science to its rightful place."  Hearing this was a breath of fresh air following an unprecedented eight years of manipulation, suppression and misrepresentation of science during the Bush era.

Unfortunately, I also recall Obama's vow falling by the wayside when his administration failed to make meaningful changes in its management of Columbia River Basin dams to ensure they did not jeopardize the continued existence of endangered and threatened Pacific salmon.

Lower Granite Dam

I take it as a given that our elected officials and high-level bureaucrats want cover when making difficult or controversial decisions.  Our leaders are paralyzed unless they feel protected by sufficient cover--whether in the form of an outspoken mass of voters, impending economic doom, or a judge forcing the issue.  As it turns out, our leaders too often would rather follow than take the lead. 

So, it was with great joy that I sat down this evening to read Judge Redden's opinion (PDF), issued yesterday, rebuking for the third time NOAA Fisheries' 2010 biological opinion for the Columbia River Basin salmon.  For those that don't have the time, the footnotes are where it's at:

FN2 - The history of the Federal Defendant's lack of, or at best, marginal compliance with the procedural and substantive requirements of the [Endangered Species Act] as to [Federal Columbia River Power System] operations has been laid out in prior Opinions and Orders in this case and is repeated here only where relevant.

Translation: Quit with this crap already; it's getting old.

FN3 - Because I find that the [biological opinion] impermissibly relies on mitigation measures that are not reasonably certain to occur, I need not address Plaintiffs' remaining arguments.  I continue to have serious concerns about the specific, numerical survival benefits NOAA Fisheries attributes to habitat mitigation.  Habitat improvement is a vital component of recovery and may lead to increased survival.  Nevertheless, the lack of scientific support for specific survival predictions is troubling.  Indeed, NOAA Fisheries acknowledges that the benefits associated with habitat improvement may not accrue for many years, if ever.  Although the court may be required to defer to NOAA Fisheries' technical and scientific "expertise" in predicting the benefits of habitat mitigation, the court is not required to defer to uncertain survival predictions that are based upon unidentified mitigation plans.

Translation: You're so full of shit I have to put quotes around "expertise."

So, hide behind Judge Redden if you must, Mr. Obama, but it's well past time to make the right decision.

About time

Since several people have expressed concern about my lack of recent posts, here's a little somethin' somethin' to get back in the swing of things.  Adam, getting it done from a sea kayak:

Kelly and Russ come to visit, Part 3

One of the great things about fishing is getting to explore new places.  There's something quite exciting about setting out for a spot on a map unsure of what might lie ahead.  Even if the trip's a bust, it's still pretty cool.  And, when your planning and execution combine with a little luck, it's possible to end up with a truly exceptional trip, which is exactly what happened here.

Still relatively new to the area and unfamiliar with many of the local floats, I had been eying a route that required putting in on a lake, traveling roughly 1.5 miles across the lake to the outlet, then floating an additional 11 miles downstream to the next easily-accessible take out.  It's a fairly popular route, but since the lake is rather large and frequently has unpredictable weather that can wreck havoc on small boats, most people run this stretch with a motor and either a skiff or drift boat.

Of course, we had a small raft.  And no motor.

We set out for the lake on Wednesday morning of last week with the wind howling in the wrong direction and visible whitecaps.  Our plan in the event of foul weather like this was to walk the raft along the lake shore to the outlet.  It seemed very doable even though I'd never heard of anyone else doing anything like this.  With such an awesome stretch of river right nearby and only a mile and a half of lake between road and river, there only seemed two possible reasons why the legions of motorless floaters don't bother doing this stretch: (1) we were severely underestimating things, or (2) the world is full of morons.  I was banking on option two.

After an uneventful 45 minute slog along the lake shore, which certainly wasn't difficult, we found ourselves at the outlet.  After a little experimentation with the beads we were fishing, it was on:

Russ landed multiple nice dollies and several big rainbow early on.  He also managed hooking the first of many pink on the trip:

After landing a long spawned-out Chinook that fought more like an anchor than a salmon, Russ followed it up with something even better and a bit fresher.

We were floating down a long nondescript run--the sort that most of the motored boats were simply powering through on their way to the next obvious hole--when Russ hooked into something huge that instantly corked his rod and ripped into his backing.  For the next half hour or so, I gave the oars a workout trying to slow our progress downriver as the fish alternately ran upstream and held in place.  Rowing back and forth between the river banks, I attempted to keep the passing powerboats away from Russ' line, which at this point still extended far into his backing.  I won't venture a guess as to how much backing was in the river, but it was well past the point where reasonable people expect to land the fish.

Eventually, Russ got the upper hand and got the fish within view, exposing a huge Chinook.  After beaching the raft at the head of an island, Russ kept up the fight and worked the fish toward shore:

Moving a fish into shallow water is always exciting and presents many opportunities for failure.  You generally only get one try with a fish like this:

After reveling in the moment for a while and listening to Russ whine about how sore his arm was, it was back to the raft and on downstream.  Sensing her title was at stake, The Wife almost immediately stepped up her game and got into what probably was our best rainbow of the trip, a certifiable toad:

Over the course of the day, we all caught fish.  Rainbows, dollies and pink out the wazoo, two Chinook and even a whitefish.  Everyone hooked lip and, as the day progressed, the weather only got better.

After taking a day off from fishing, we (sans The Wife because, for once, my job was better than hers) were back on it Friday.  This time, the weather was beautiful and I was able to get in on the action a bit more:

Russ, back where he landed the large Chinook the day before:

However, Kelly probably had the best day on the water, grabbing onto one of the largest coho I've ever seen in person:

As the final day for Russ and Kelly fishing up here wound down, Kelly had yet to hook into a truly large rainbow.  She had hooked into a few and had mentioned wanting a large rainbow a couple times, but things just hadn't worked out.  Then, within sight of the take out:

When it was all said and done, we managed to get some damn good fishing in and had a great time with Russ and Kelly.  There's something magical about a large fish pulling on your line, and its all the better when you have good friends cheering you on.  Oh, and only a moron would let 1.5 miles of lake get between them and great fishing.

A gluttonous tragedy

I first ventured to Alaska in earnest in 2003, well after the heyday, to work a seasonal fisheries job for the U.S. Forest Service in southeast Alaska.  I had just been accepted to law school and was looking for one last epic opportunity to chase fish. 

You really ought to click that picture and make it a bit bigger.

Having, to that point, been almost exclusively a catch-and-release angler who valued fish first and foremost for their intrinsic and sporting value, I was disgusted to see people with readily-available alternative food sources setting gill nets across entire stream widths that effectively blocked entire salmon runs, dipnetting more than they possibly could consume in a single year, and generally killing everything in sight in an orgy of overabundance and shortsightedness.  Yeah, your freezer might be full this winter, but what about the winter a few years from now?

I was disappointed, but not surprised, to later learn that one of the most prolific sockeye fisheries in that area had been closed.  From a 2008 news release:

The weir count to date is 90 sockeye. The weir count in 2007, as of the same date, was 2765 . . .

***

As I eluded to in my last post, The Wife and I spent the Fourth of July weekend fishing and camping.  I had pulled an all-nighter on Thursday in order to meet a work deadline and was in no condition to go anywhere after work on Friday but bed.  It had been a rough week.

Come Saturday morning, we geared up and headed north with our good friends Sam and Liz.  Because King Season was in full swing, we had planned to avoid the combat-fishing crowds and target areas farther up stream for rainbows.  Seemed to make sense at the time since few things repulse me more than rubbing shoulders on the stream bank with people too self interested to see beyond the tip of their fishing rod. 

From some exploring I had done last year, I had some ideas about where to go.  We drove down a too-narrow-for-my-truck two-track road to the river with hopes that we might have the place to ourselves.  Of course, we did not:

The first day only afforded us an afternoon on the water before calling it and heading back to the rig to set up camp and cook some grub.  Of course, the camera wasn't around when I hooked into my best fish--a feisty rainbow around 20" that almost got away from me down a side channel on the far side of the river.  By the time the camera came back, all I had to show for my efforts was this stick, broken roughly to the proper length and every bit as exciting to Karta as the real thing:

With the camera back in tow, Liz grabbed a hold of this guy:

 Got's to put forth the effort (there's a dog in there too):

Of course, it rained all night and by morning the too-narrow-for-my-truck two-track road turned into a too-muddy-for-my-truck two-track road:

Yeehaw!  With much coercion, we forced things along and made it back to pavement after only an hour or two delay.

While neither The Wife nor I managed to take a single picture for the remainder of Sunday the Fourth, we worked our way north, exploring new streams before ultimately enjoying beers in Talkeetna, then turning back to a nearly vacant campground that allowed us to stretch our legs a bit.  We definitely saw more people on the water than I cared to see, but I can't complain about the crowds where we chose to camp.

Having fished hard for two days with very limited success (no fish were caught on Sunday), we headed back to a familiar stream hoping to up our catch rate.  Sam found some Chinook schooling up in this big bend:

And soon thereafter we started hooking fish:

And the rainbow version:

The Wife sending it:

After all was said and done, we had had a great weekend.  We fished hard, ripped a little lip, shotgunned a couple PBRs, and generally had a great time--but something was missing.  Something was off.  For the peak of Chinook season, we only saw a handful of salmon.  There might have been more people on some of these creeks than salmon.

Little did I know, since we were planning to chase rainbows all along, but the Chinook fishery was in such dire straights that it had been closed.  This is Alaska folks.  What the hell?

Thinking back to my days in southeast Alaska, I couldn't help but wonder about the individual and collective greed that likely led to these low salmon abundance numbers.  Apparently, I'm not the only one with these thoughts.  In more eloquent words that I might provide, you really ought to give this opinion piece by a Mr. Wittshirk a read.  It's better fare than anything the ADN typically provides.

Since it's late, I'll leave you to come to your own conclusions here . . . but I can't help but look for some sort of lesson.  With our ridiculous history of overfishing and short-term fisheries management--in southeast Alaska, here locally, and in nearly every other fishery in the world--perhaps . . .