July From the Coho Grounds
Wow, there's only one week left in July. Where the heck did that month go!? We have settled into the coho fishing "grind" over here, and thankfully, have found some steady fishing, too! Today is "Day 10" of our current fishing trip, so in the next week we'll need to start thinking about a trip to Sitka to refuel, re-provision, and ship out this first load of cohos!
During coho salmon season, our trips are usually about two weeks long. I believe we made it as long as 18 days last season! But at that point, we start worrying about getting low on diesel or freshwater (or if we're lucky, the fish hold is getting full!)
F/V Fairweather does have additional fuel tanks that we currently aren't using. They are filled with... Semi unknown contents. Likely a mixture of old fuel and water for ballast. So, they need a little work to be useable. We hope to get them emptied, clean, and ready sometime in the next few off-seasons; that way, fuel can be off our list of "concerns" towards the end of a long trip. Problem is: when fuel gets low, and we find ourselves in some dicey weather, we could start "catching air" in the lines, stalling our generator, and then main engine. Not ideal!
We'd also like to install a water-maker on the boat in the not-too-far future. Between dishes, drinking water, and a *few* showers (maybe one per week?), our freshwater reservoir is down to the dredges by the end of a two week trip. Add another human or two to the mix, and we'd be out in a week! 😆
Fishing wise, it's been a unique July for us! Usually, we always head north of Sitka for July cohos fishing. But as you'll recall from our last email, the jellyfish have been out of control. Fleetmate reports informed us that the jellyfish were just as bad in mid-July as they were back in early-July, so we did something totally new (for us): left Sitka, and pointed south!
It took a few days, but we finally found a batch of cohos, and a groove to go along with it. New anchorages, new mountains to gaze at, and a new jelly-free lease on life! We've even had a few very good days of fishing -- we didn't break our previous most-coho-in-a-day record, but we came very close!
The only problem with having back-to-back good days of fishing and relentlessly good weather, is that eventually we have to take a day off to glaze fish. We stayed on anchor last Monday: crew worked their tails off all morning glazing fish, and then we all got to head to the beach for a bonfire and leg stretch that evening! Plus, we even found some wild blueberries. Yahoo! 🫐
A relatively short update for us, but (thankfully), there's not much to report! Our coho salmon season will remain open through September 20th, so we are only just getting started. More coho updates to come, thank you so much for being here. ❤️
With coho salmon love,
Jess, Caleb, & Monti
