Open Thread – Scenes from Setnetting the Kasilof (LKB)
Here are just a few pictures from my weekend at the mouth of the Kasilof River:
The constant, beautiful view from the beach is Mt. Redoubt Volcano — if you remember, it was the one spewing a bit in 2009.
Occasionally in the nets we catch more than just Red Salmon — here a King decided to join us as well. In the other net, we also got a few small flounder. Saturday on two nets after both tides, the camp ended up with 34 Reds, one King and 3 Flounder.
This is looking down in the direction of the actual entrance to the Kasilof and you can see all of the campsites. It really is a celebratory atmosphere and a very helpful community. When one group could see we were struggling with a net, they all jumped up from their campfire and helped out.
Now for the bird pictures…
We were treated to regular visits from a mated pair of Bald Eagles and a few of their kids.
Here is Big Daddy when he paid a visit to our campsite:
Yes, the dog was going insane.
As you can see, it’s easy to look at these immature eagles and think they are some other kind of raptor, like a falcon, or even a Golden Eagle. However, the first giveaway is that the adult eagles aren’t attacking them. Secondly, we had a ton of eagles living right outside of our room during our honeymoon at a bed and breakfast in Seldovia, Alaska. I got to see eagles at all stages of development. You can see the mottled appearance as the bird is losing his baby feathers and gaining his darker, adult feathers. The white head is the last thing to happen…at about two years.
It looks to me like this one might be a little older…it’s hard to see but I saw a patch of white feathers on the back of his neck. He was swooping and diving over our heads as if he was showing off.
One of the things about setnetting is it’s easy to tell when there are fish in the nets — the seagulls go after them like crazy:
Here’s a shot of Josh and a friend of ours as they use the four wheeler to put the net back in the water. The problem we had because of our camping spot was that we couldn’t use the four wheeler to pull the net at high tide…no room.
Driving back to my Mother-in-Law’s from the beach, the moon was absolutely gorgeous:
Couldn’t get to load when it was first put up, came through today.
What a wonderful experience, fresh air, food beautiful scenery and helpful people.
What more could one ask for?
Linda @ 4.1
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Well, folks, the school year is rapidly winding down (as is the energy of all the staff, but that’s another story). Today was the kindergarten moving up ceremony, which is always good for some surprises, some laughs and a few sentimental tears.
During the ceremony, each student was supposed to stand up, say their name and tell one thing they either learned or liked in kindergarten. We got the usual “I like to color”, “I learned my ABCs”, “I learned to count” and so on.
One little munchkin, however, stood up, announced his name and said, “I learned that the truth will set you free!” Since he was one of the smartest and most well-behaved kids in either class, I’m guessing that it was something he learned from his parents, not from the personal experience of a guilty conscience!
Sixth grade moving up is tomorrow morning…they’re not nearly as cute as the five-year-olds!
I like your little story about truth setting you “free”. That young man could have been taught right and wrong from his parents through personal experiences. I think we have to fear those people who cannot feel guilt because they have no “conscience”. It could be that their parents were too involved in themselves to bother teaching their children ethics and values which I understand is a big part of “conscience”.
That first photo is just gorgeous, Linda. When I first saw it, the clouds and lighting made me think it was a picture of an oil painting.
Forgot to say earlier — great photos, Linda. Also, nice to understand a bit more of the fishing culture in Alaska. Thanks!
Me, too Linda!
Leenie 17,come in,over. I hate to bugger your vacation,but,I am curious to know if you can use sign language to represent Useus Horribilis Mamacita (the female is deadlier than the male) with a trademark (TM) included? Can it be done? Can it,can it,can it?
Not to worry…kiddos are still in school until tomorrow and staff until Friday so vay-kay has not yet started (although the counting down has now switched from days to hours!). 🙁
Here’s a website that has a super sign language dictionary:
http://www.aslpro.com/cgi-bin/aslpro/aslpro.cgi
There’s one generic sign for bear and the names of the specific species are spelled first, if necessary. I always tell my littlest kids that you have to make a scary bear face when you do the sign. Then I try really hard not to laugh at how cute five year olds are when trying to look scary!
As for the ‘deadlier than the male’ part…that could be added in any number of ways, depending on context, how creative I’m feeling and exactly what (or who) the ‘mamacita’ part was referring to. 😉
Sarah(TM) Palin.
Actually, I’d forget the bear idea and just go for signing ‘crazy b**** from Wasilla’.
Much more to the point and doesn’t disparage a respectable and admirable animal species!
Point well taken,I shall now flog myself every day until Satan shall get behind me.
Here is a Link to play a song called: “I Knew An Ol’ Guvnor.” It was written at the time Sarah was selected as a VP candidate for McCain.
http://tinyurl.com/3jogblw
It’s based on “I Knew I An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly” by Alan Mills and Rose Bonne.
Michelle Bachmann featured in RollingStone…I’ll bet you can guess how she came out:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/michele-bachmanns-holy-war-20110622
Read this article!
Quote:
Here’s the difference between Bachmann and Palin: While Palin is clearly bored by the dreary, laborious aspects of campaigning and seems far more interested in gobbling up the ancillary benefits of reality-show celebrity, Bachmann is ruthlessly goal-oriented, a relentless worker who has the attention span to stay on message at all times.
“a relentless worker who has the attention span to stay on message at all times.”
Which makes her far more dangerous. She’s also more skilled at hiding Teh Crazy and Teh Stoopid than Palin.
Courtesy of Move On, this is WELL worth a look:
http://s3.moveon.org/images/with_dims/fb-status-420×420.gif
You’ll enjoy it, and probably want to pass it on.
Good one!
Thank you for the pictures! I am starting to understand.
Looks like the fishing was good, and the weather very cooperative!
Bald eagles don’t have their adult plummage (white head and tail) until their 5th year. Until then, they look sort of spotted and mixed.
Also worth noting that the females are larger than the males. All raptors have bigger females.
Hope you have happy eating all winter, smoked, canned or whatever!
SP has quit her bus tour. I guess she can progress the tour better by not being on the tour.
She’s quit? I thought she was just taking a break and would continue through the midwest. Is that wrong, or did she quit again?
No, she quit AGAIN!
Now that the attention is on her for “quitting” her tour, she’ll be back again just to show how no one can second guess her.
One of the news folk quipped today that the only predictable thing about her is that she’s unpredictable ….. heh.
Yep and she just tweeted that she hadn’t heard that she quit her tour. She’s playing the media like fools. She waits until they report something about her then she does the opposite, always staying one step ahead. If the media would not report on her she would probably explode–how I do wish they would try to ignore her!
Palin: a quitter you can count on.
LKB- you look like you are having good clean,fishy fun. Beautiful pictures,thanks a bunch for the time and effort you put in for us.
A few salmon are starting to show up in the southern part of Norton Sound, down by Unalakleet, Shaktoolik and Koyuk. The first fresh salmon is so delicious and we’re hoping for a few at least. Fishing with a net is so fun. I especially like to hold the float line to feel the fish wiggling around in the net. It’s a good way to know you have something caught in the net.
Read your post to a friend who is going up to Anvik to fish next week. Thanks!
I hope he has good times fishing in Anvik. That part of the Yukon River is awesome. Hopefully the mosquitos are not out in force. Lots of bugs in that part of the country.
The first picture there, Linda, looks like something straight out of myth and dream and fantasy. I can imagine flying those skies…
*right click. save*
It’s going in my Moment of Zen folder
(hat tip and wave of the wing to AKM, who inspired said folder, and keeps it well-supplied, also, too).
We’ve been lucky to catch some afternoon thundershowers here in the forest lately, so the drought is not as severe as it has been. DH Happy will probably even get to mow this week, for the first time this month.
I’m getting ready for the American Library Association annual convention in New Orleans Friday-Tuesday, thanks to a scholarship from my school district. The biggest challenge so far is narrowing down my choices of sessions/workshops/meetings to attend. The schedule is Packed with so many wonderful possibilities, but that’s a happy problem, eh? There will be a librarian flash mob one evening; if it involves music, I’ll be able to check That off my Bucket List! 🙂
On a more serious note, Happy and I find ourselves in the fight of our lives with Bank of America. We were hoping for a mortgage restructuring to reduce our payments by 25%, but have been informed that after jumping through all the hoops, our monthly payments will be Doubled. A penthouse on the beach rents for the monthly payments the bank wants for our little House-that-Jack-built on an acre and a half, 20 miles inland from the Gulf beaches. There’s no way we can afford that, and no way that our dear forest is worth that much, much as we love it.
We had planned to retire North within 10 years with a modest profit from the property. It breaks my heart to think we might have to just walk away after 22 years and start all over again. A week ago, my glass was half full but BOA knocked it off the table. Smash! Crash! Shatter! We must have done something Really Bad in another lifetime.
Good thing we’re tough old birds, even if we’re not Too Big to Fail. We’re meeting with attorneys, hoping we can work this out.
But looky here. *sweeping up broken glass for recycling*
I’ve got these old mugs, and a tall drink of water, and enough to share.
I give thanks for the new day and all its goodness, for the love of my family and friends, and for themudflats.
Just Like Starting Over:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IXX5gFBkfY
L’Chaim! To Life!
L’Shalom,
thatcrowwoman
Hugs, thoughts and prayers are winging their way to you right now. I hope BOA gets a booty kicking from your attorneys. If that doesn’t work, just let me know and I’ll drive right down there and do it myself!
The flash mob sounds like a rockin’ good time and I wish I could join you for that. It’s on my bucket list too, also.
At first you see only one librarian, but then from every direction you hear the sound of “shhh!”and before you know it the room is filled with librarians, too many to count, and books are being reshelved and catalogues are being updated, all silently and with unquestionable authority. Your card is stamped, you are fined for your overdue books, and then . . . they are gone. Stunned, you can only wonder “what just happened here?”
Librarian flash mob.
I am so sorry to hear about BOA’s behavior. I am not surprised, unfortunately.
I know the DOJ is investing the overreaching and greed of the three major mortgage lenders, but change is coming too slowly. Remedies are not coming fast enough and fail to compensate the emotional damage actions like BOA’s cause.
I’d read a financial advice column last year that warned consumers not to call their credit card companies to seek lower interest rates (a practice that was regarded as savvy just a few years ago) because that raised your profile and often the companies would not only deny your inquiry but would also raise your rates. I wonder if that is what happened on your mortgage. Just asking for anything seems to trigger retaliation.
But you don’t have to do anything at all to get victimized by these companies.We’ve had an American Express card for decades, but were notified at the end of last year that they were lowering our card limit (which we were not in danger of exceeding by any form, shape or way) to just a few hundred dollars above our current balance. We’d never missed a payment, always paid it off or paid more than the minimum. However, out of the blue, we got served notice that they were lowering our credit limit. Thankfully, they did not raise our rates (yet), but you can bet we do not use that card any longer and are paying it off as quickly as possible. Still, their action has damaged our credit rating and we are getting notices of rates being raised on our other cards, our rent, et cetera.
Greed is an ugly motivator and many of our largest corporations seem to be driven by pure avarice.
It truly saddens and, well, angers me, when the GOP and TP people rant about how we need to deregulate industry, particularly the financial markets, because they don’t seem to realize why we had to put regulations in place. It was because, without oversight, greed reigns.
Without limitations, there are few reasonable, humane, or even decent interchanges with big business. Being aware of the history of most regulation makes one quite thankful for it. It usually takes overreaching or horrendous conditions to initiate regulation. We has to ask why and think about the consequences of any major action, but the GOP and TP radicals seem to be simplistic thinkers or are easily duped by those industries who want free reign to ravage the marketplace, environment, or the economy.
My sympathies are with you and your husband, thatcrowwoman. My husband and I can truly identity with your challenges because we are facing imminent retirement with our savings having been wiped-out, no home ownership, and a possibility that his public employee retirement benefits may not be available thanks to poor investment decisions by the state GOP legislature and their appointees in past and current years. Kansas teachers, firefighters and police (and all public employees) face uncertainty as regards their future after retirement.
I, like you, have faith that things work out, that we will get through it all somehow, but the sheer terror of being a burden on our daughter or being homeless is a real and present fear thanks to the greed of corporations like BOA who feel no obligation to be fair or decent and who are willing to do whatever they can get away with to maximize their bottom line. I see my husband being worn out by years of stress in public education, and I worry about how we are going to sustain even a very modest lifestyle.
Thankfully, we have always been in a situation where the following applies:
“I have done so much, with so little for so long, that now I can now do almost anything with nothing.”
Blessings be with you. May your strength, dignity and faith sustain you. (May you also kick the poop out of BOA.)
{{{{{thatcrowwoman – and all of us who face an uncertain future despite having worked and played by all the rules all our lives}}}}}
P.S. Just have to share our most current “signature” to our emails with you because you consistently remind us to look to the beauty around and within us, to see the most positive aspect of our situations. You, thatcrowwoman, are a blessing and our prayers and thoughts are with you.
“May the sun bring you new energy by day, May the moon softly restore you by night, May the rain wash away your worries, May the breeze blow new strength into your being, May you walk gently through the world and know its beauty all the days of your life”. – an Apache blessing
“Greed is an ugly motivator…” is so right on a salmon’s head. It’s a shame that a few greedy men got ahold of the CDQ program here in Alaska.
Sending glowering thoughts to that nasty bank, and winds of tranquility dripping with rain to you. I have no idea what that last bit means. Too tired to think!
(((((((((( thatcrowwoman & DH ))))))))))
Prayers, hugs, and warm wishes headed your way. Skank of America sux!
Seriously, how can they do this! I recently met a retired policeman from NJ, who had moved to FL and bought a home. The bank repossessed it – he said they didn’t even want to talk about it at the bank. Wouldn’t even discuss a compromise. You’d think with all the houses on the market, that they would be willing to cut some slack. Good Luck, CrowWoman!!
I like your spirit!
The CEO of BOA should contract a terrible, incurable virus that makes his tongue turn green with purple spots, long, curly carrot red hair sprout on the end of his nose, his ears grow to the size of dinner plates and continuously flap like wings, and his knees bend backwards. Oh, and every time he opens his mouth to speak, nothing should come out but the ahh-ooo-gaaaah sound of an old fashioned car horn.
Or maybe he should just grow a heart and stop destroying his customers’ lives.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
On another note, the idea of a ‘librarian flash mob’ does intrigue me and you MUST give more details after you’ve experienced it. The librarians in my school have covered quite a range of literary and social skills. When I first started at the school 12 years ago, we had a woman who should have retired years earlier and who tortured students with reams of indescribably tedious worksheets on the Dewey decimal system. The kids grew to hate library time and, as much as I love to read myself, I can’t say I blamed them. On the other hand, our previous librarian was a woman who shared her passionate love of literature with students and staff alike, and inspired us all to become better and more frequent readers. She also had a wicked sense of humor and often got us in trouble during staff meetings with her straight-faced sarcastic zingers that made everyone around her struggle to avoid laughing. Our current librarian is hovering somewhere in between, although she’s warmed up substantially since she began last year, so there may be hope for her yet.
Somehow, I’d bet you would be most like the inspiring one with the zingers at staff meetings! 🙂
Sorry to bust your bubble leenie17, but adults without compassion or empathy cannot “just grow a heart and stop destroying ….. lives.” Heartless people look after themselves and their cronies. They can’t even trust each other. That’s the way it’s been throughout the history of Man.
Hope everyone is surviving the heat where ever you are! It was 94 degrees here yesterday, and after book club I went to the Post Office to pick up the mail. I seemed to cool down immediately when I saw I had a package from North Pole, AK! My son had sent me a copy he came across of the 100th anniversary of Bethel. What a treat to see folks we had known out there: Nora Guinn, the beloved judge, Eddie Hoffman, the fellow who delivered our fuel, Peter Twitchell, whose wonderful sketches graced our pamphlets at Cooperative Extention Service, etc. And the photographer and co-
editor was Jim Barker, the brother-in-law of my boss! I must say, I just walllowed in nostalgia! I left Alaska, but Alaska has never left me!
I had the feeling that set netting was an allocated space type of thing (for want of a better word). I guess I got this from hearing that Todd Palin’s “space” in Bristol Bay had been handed down from his forebears. (This is confusing, since I think it is his mother’s side of the family that is Yupik) Would appreciate clarification (UgaVic, InJuneau, anyone?)
Todd Palin’s “space” is calling a ‘fishing site’ and those are mainly for commercial fishing. Yes, the sites are claimed by fishermen and often passed on through the family.
Thanks, Unk!
I have an unsettling feeling…like the still before the storm. Do you think Madame Paylin is readying for another PR blitz (where the media will happily follow her reporting on her every burger and fry and other news worthy items)? Or is she tweeting and posting away to no avail as the media has finally learned to ignore her?
I am hearing totally unconfirmed rumors that the tour has stopped, $arah is back in Alaska, and both Palin houses in AZ will be rented because of problems for the Palins looming on the horizon. I have NO idea if they are correct or not but I thought it was an interesting tidbit.
My heart is aching at the thought of that wonderful family encountering difficulties.
Oh, never mind…it’s just a touch of heartburn from dinner! 😉
Who cares?
Stop giving it oxygen – it will stop bothering us.
It’s called a “personal use” fishery — anyone who is an Alaska resident can participate if they have a fishing license and a (free) permit.
The beauty of it is the “haves” (those who own the toys) need folks to occupy the campsites and help with the nets. That’s why it’s such a community event…share the labor and share the fish.
People in Rural Alaska call “personal use” fishing subsistence fishing.
Thanks – I was a little confused. A friend of my daughter has a commercial setnet permit for upper cook inlet. I did not realize there were commercial and personal use permits using setnets.
That’s a good way to feel connected to the people around you – “share the labor and share the fish.” It’s too bad that the lack of salmon returning to the rivers in Western Alaska is a problem because that was the base of the Natives cultural and traditional use of the salmon resources. Now the few with the jobs, gear and equipment are dominating the subsistence arena out here in Rural Alaska. Boats, motors, fishing nets and fuel cost big bucks these days. It’s like a double whammy – high paying federal dollars job provides the means for a handful to enjoy not only material things but also ‘living off the land, rivers and seas’. These people do everything they could to protect their own personal priorities. It’s downright selfishness and greed.
Along with the catch, these beautiful settings make the work that much more worth it.
I hope everything turned out for the best with the ER/CT trip.
Thanks for the pics. I hope you got your fill of fish.
You should explain the differance between a setnet permit and a dipnet permit and how you came to have a setnet permit. Setnet is a long net resting in the river. Dipnet is a five foot diameter net held in the river, held by the fisher.
I see 4 wheelers, Trucks, suburbans, on the beach. Is this a subsistance fishery??
Urbanites living on the road system in Alaska have to have all those things to be able to get out to the subsistence areas. Some towns in Rural Alaska also have a road system which is very limited like perhaps to the airport and the dump for garbage. Using 4 wheelers, trucks, etc. makes a labor intensive job a little easier. Subsistence is a labor intensive job especially if you want to put away quality food.
No, a setnet is a gillnet that is anchored on both ends.
Commercial fishing requires a limited entry permit. Subsistance setnetting does not.