Dear Alaska Gold customers,
Here is the Board chairman of our fishermen-owned co-op Tad Fujioka on the importance of king salmon and what makes our hook and line-caught king salmon special:
“I’ve been sportfishing ever since I was old enough to hold a pole. I think I caught my first king salmon when I was about five years old, and I’ve continued to catch king salmon every year since.
When my oldest daughter was born, she had a medical condition that left her very vulnerable to lung infections. The doctor that sent us home said ‘Whatever you do, keep her out of a group daycare situation since her lungs haven’t developed the way she should have. As much as possible you should keep her isolated from other people, particularly other little kids.’
At the time I had a regular office job doing engineering work. My wife and I both cut our hours back to half time, so that one of us could be home with our daughter all the time.
When it was my turn to be home with her, it was - what can I do with you? I can’t take you to town, we can’t hang out with friends, but I can take you fishing.
So, I put her in a front pack and we went sportfishing quite a bit that first year and a half. At some point I remember flipping through my boat log and realizing that I’d been out in the boat more than 100 days in the past year- mostly with my daughter.
I thought hm, well, if I’m going to be fishing this much, maybe I ought to get a troll permit, and I can make some money doing this. That was 2010 and I have been trolling ever since.
There’s not a lot of safe space for a toddler on a small commercial fishing boat, so that first year I put my daughter in a fish tote; they are about the size of a playpen and typically used for storing fish and ice. She’s been fishing with me intermittently ever since. Now she’s a teenager – a high schooler – and she has a much busier schedule than she did when she was an infant. But she still goes when she can […]
I got into engineering because I like problem solving… and I find when I’m trolling, I’m solving problems all day long. When I am trolling, I am constantly analyzing data in various forms- that’s something that engineers are used to doing. When you are on the water, you’re looking at data in real time. What you see out the window, what you are catching- or not catching, what you’re hearing from your friends about their catches; the weather forecast, stage of the tide, fish prices, Fish & Game’s regulation changes or anticipated changes all influence your decisions. Trolling has been a real good chance to apply my data analysis and problem-solving skills. I develop more solutions in a day of fishing than I did in a week of engineering.”
Tad continues by noting how special our king salmon is: “[h]ook-and-line fishermen can’t compete with net fishermen on volume, so we take incredible care of the fish that we do catch. Troll king salmon in particular are so special. They’re the most valuable salmon caught anywhere in Alaska.”
The above story came from a feature by the conservation organization SalmonState on the importance of king salmon. SalmonState works to ensure that Alaska remains a place where wild salmon and the people who thrive on them thrive.
BTW, check out special pricing on our website for 10-pound boxes of king salmon.
Here's to summer!
The Folks at Alaska Gold Seafood
