2018 End of Season Update

Today is September 6th almost done with our last week. The 2018 season has gone by very fast. Mary and I would like to first of all thank our staff. They did outstanding this year. Great attitude and always willing to help out when needed. This year was very challenging because of the Silver/Coho Salmon. Normally we start seeing them around the middle of June and then have them steady the rest of the summer. This year we did not see good numbers of them until mid July. Then they would be good one week and not the next week. They seemed to peak the week of Aug 19th.

Halibut was again very good, we were right on average for what we have caught the last three years. The biggest one for the year was 227 lbs, it was caught over on the east side of Point Dundas along the shore in 120'. For the most part it seemed like the halibut fishing was better on the open ocean side this year than the inside waters. The other big story this year was the lack of pink salmon. Some weeks we saw no pinks at all. We normally have them by the millions and use them for halibut bait. The stomach contents of halibut was interesting this year, we saw many different things in the stomachs. I was amazed at how many crab halibut eat.

For weather what stands out in my mind were the two weeks in a row that we had 35 kt winds. Monday and Tuesday saw big winds and then we would have a few days of nice then it hit us again with big winds. The fog was another amazing thing to watch, it was so hot in Juneau in July that it created major amounts of fog, it was like a wall right at south pass. 10 - 15 degrees cooler on the other side of the pass.

We had no lower units ruined this year, we did have a few propellors damaged, but other than that we had a really good summer as far as break downs.

Mary and I were proud Parents this summer. We hope that all of our kids will learn how to work. Claire is the oldest and at 14 years old she worked this summer as dock staff. We were very proud of her she did great. Looking forward to next year seeing Nikolas take some more responsibility, he will be 12 next year. Jake and Paige are still in the playing stage, very fun to work with your family. Our Staff this year was outstanding. Thank you to all of our staff for the hard work and long hours you put in!

Kelly