Thursday, June 26, 2014

Doug, Ron and The Old White Guy

Safely and soundly north we had our first visitor, Ron, Doug's son.  Now there are fishers and there are catchers.  Ron must have been born with a rod in his hand.  There is not much he would rather do than fish.  Our ten days were an epic foraging trip that was wonderful fun.  See what Ron caught and meet the Old White Guy...

Father and Son Getting Ready to Fish
It has been fun watching Doug ready for Ron's time on the boat.  I think that he was excited to have someone other than me to play with: a real fisherman.





Nice Chinook Salmon!
Ron took three or four Chinook salmon back with him but caught and released nearly 60 salmon.  You can only eat so much!
Nice 32 Pound Halibut
Halibut are difficult to find this time of year as they prowl around looking for food before the fall salmon runs concentrate fish at the mouth of the streams.  This is a nice size for eating.  Canada is trying to preserve their halibut fishery.  Halibut are born male and become female at about 100 lbs.  Canadian Fisheries has limited the size of the hali you can take.  It isn't very easy to accurately measure a 70 pound hali in the water and we were happy with this well within range guy.
18 Pound Ling cod
Lingcod have a maturation cycle like the halibut with the males becoming female at about 25 pounds.  Although it is not prohibited by regulation, we never take big lingcod.  We want grandson, Jude, to enjoy the fishery forty years from now.
Good Prawn Pull
Prawns are a wonderfully renewing resource.  Their life cycle is three to four years with the younger prawns becoming female in the 3rd year.   We size spot prawns by bite.  These are one bite, two bite and three bite prawns.  We have gotten into four bite prawns but not often.
Meet the Old White Guy
One of our most delightful creatures up north are the sea otters.  Ian McAllister, reknown naturalist was visited us and spotted this guy which he said is the largest sea otter he has ever seen.  He is grizzled with age.  Sea Otters grow proportionately to the food supply.  In the rich northern waters males can grow to 100 lbs.  What do you think?

My question for you...What is in a whale's blow?  Answer in the next blog

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