And again

Well here I am again, spending the summer in Alaska. I got into town on Thursday the 15th of May, exactly a year after I got here the first time. I have to say that it is pretty weird to be back, because in some ways it almost feels like I never left. The town is still the same and everyone around here is still the same.

The real difference between this year and last year is going to be the fish. The salmon here tend to operate on a year-on, year-off cycle. Odd numbered years are the big ones lately, but since 2008 happens to be an even number, the fish are supposed to be much fewer this summer. However, there is great news because right now the price of pink salmon is projected to be somewhere around 30-35 cents per pound, a huge increase from the 19 cents per pound we were getting last season. It seems that a lot of the other supplies of pink salmon are getting hit drastically by disease or overfishing, so the Alaska supply is looking pretty good and becoming more in demand. This works great for us, because it means that there will be some decent money to be made this summer. Plus the price of chum (or dog) salmon that we will be fishing for a month before pinks is supposed to be at least 50 cents a pound, if not more than that. I've heard rumors up to 96 cents per pound, but that's a little hard to believe. What it means is that we will be heading out of town on the 25th to get to Chalmers and start fishing the day that it opens, because if we can somehow manage to average 4000 pounds a day, over 30 days that will end up being about 60000 dollars, which is a great way to start off a season, especially a down year.

Less fish might also mean that we could get fewer openers than a year ago, because the department that controls the fishing is worried about overfishing on a thin year. So instead of fishing every other day, we might end up fishing every once every three days or something like that. It's too early to really know what is going to happen, but this is what some people think might happen, and a lot of times those people are right.

Well I'm glad to be back and I'm excited about fishing starting soon. I really can't wait because the pre-season work is dreadful. It's actually making me sore and really tired at night, because I think it involves more physical work than fishing does sometimes. Only a week left! Thank God.

-Jack