Chitina Fishing

The oldest son went dip netting with a friend in Chitina at the Copper River the end of July during the silver salmon run.  Dip netting is a fancy way to catch fish ~ all you have to do is tie yourself off with a heavy rope to something on shore and stick a big net attached to a 10-15 foot pole in the river and let the salmon just swim into the net.

The Copper River is a glacial feed river cloudy with silt and cold as all get out so if a person was to get pulled into the river by a net full of fish their life would be in jeopardy.  The water being cold is one thing but when the silt begins to fill your pockets and the seams of your clothes it gets harder to stay afloat.  This is why you tie yourself off to something on shore.

This fella was bit by a seal on his way up river.  

You can see the bite marks by the eye.

At the river once you have caught the fish you club them and cut off their tails so that they will bleed out. Then you have to pack them out which is a four mile hike down a small trail to the car so that you can put them on ice and salt them down for the trip back to town.  Once home you can fillet them or just package them whole.  By just packing them up whole the meat stays fresher longer in the freezer.

Just thaw them out for a couple of hours and clean them up, cut the backbone, and bake them in the over at 350 degrees for 20-25 minute. The bones will peel right out and leave fresh baked fish behind.  Easy as that!  This method insures that none of the fish meat goes to waste in the filleting process.  Saves time too.

They were at the river for nine hours and fished just over six hours (if I remember correctly) and caught 48 fish total each weighing between 5-7 pounds. At the minimum that is 240 pounds of fish ~ that's a lot of fish!

Oh so tasty too! Thanks for sharing the bounty with us all kid!