10/03/2026
Salmon-loving friends, hey dear ones -
A nip in the morning air & Salmon Love in your scroll… Welcome to Fall! Joel & I got the F/V Nerka safely back to Bellingham in mid-September. Within a half-hour of cinching the dock lines, we were home to Bow & passed out for 12 hours. We’re feeling more human now, back into a rhythm of land life, & our local cold storage has all of this season's catch safely in their care, so I'm ready to get our reunions rolling. I’ve missed you! Here's the annual end-of-season reflection email I sent out to our friends - long-form, using AAALLL the words. No regrets.
"How was the season?"
In terms of bountiful salmon gracing the fish hold, the season was good. The Nerka behaved well, doing everything we asked of her. The weather ranged from good… to okay… to “fishable”... to “This sucks.” The worst was always at the start of our trips, when we didn’t have any fish on board & the ocean tossed little Nerka around like a bath toy as Joel & I micro-dosed concussions. But commercial fishing is nothing if not a supreme lesson in the temporary nature of all things, including suffering. It made us all the more grateful for how well our good old girl rode at the end of each trip, lumbering back to Sitka with the ballast of our labors.
Anticipating a lighter coho run & poor weather, we let deckhand Amanda go in July, with gratitude for her work on deck & on camera - she captured wonderful glimpses of life at sea! We spent the rest of the summer back to our roots as a Ma-&-Pa team. Our spirits were high as we enjoyed this honeymoon cruise… but our bodies were tired, reminding us that this work doesn’t get easier in your mid/late 40s. Hot flashes while encased in head-to-toe raingear were an especially not-awesome development.
Every season presents a new scenario, something leaving shaking our heads, “Didn’t see that coming.” 2026’s was a 180 reversal: Where in 2025 we had plenty of coho but were short on kings, now we have fewer coho but far more kings. So it goes. While cyclical, every season’s salmon runs are different, as are environmental & fishery management influences. Unpredictable, & all part of the beauty of wild salmon & small-boat family fisheries.
Southeast Alaska’s 2026 king quota was higher than 2025’s, so we went into this season anticipating more than last year’s 4-day opening. July 1 on the Fairweather Grounds, 40 miles offshore, we crossed our fingers & aimed to do our best over Fish & Game’s predicted 10-12 day opening.
As it turned out, we had plenty of time. The king season closed September 3.
Why did it take so long to catch the quota? Fish & Game recorded ever-lower fleet effort - 400 permit-holders landed at least one king this year, down from 470 last year, down from the year before that. Far fewer devoted full-season effort for kings & coho. We never fished in a large fleet, never saw more than ten blips on the radar.
Fewer trollers fished the ocean for kings & coho this year because they could make far more money fishing chums in Sitka Sound’s “dog patch,” burning next to no fuel while catching hundreds of fish sold in the round - spared the labor of cleaning - when a processors’ price war ensued after Japan’s Hokkaido chum fishery collapsed. The chum fishery made the season for many of our ice-boat fleetmates… &, in turn, self-marketing freezer boats like us were then able to make our season out on a spacious ocean, combo-fishing kings & coho. This diversity of options helped us all make something out of what otherwise might've been a skinny season.
Which is to say - we have kings! Kings of all sizes; kings for everyone who wants them, all our longtime friends & for new ones, too.
Meanwhile, this wasn't a stellar coho year. We scratched out a lot of okay days, just by keeping our hooks in the water. The ocean was cold for most of the summer. At times, we fished in 49 to 50 degree water, far from coho’s preferred 59 degrees. That, coupled with continual high pressure systems & a summer-long lack of rain, may have kept coho further offshore. Fortunately, Fish & Game reported plenty getting inside to their spawning rivers… We just didn’t find as many as we would’ve liked out on the ocean. The good news is this colder water meant less shark activity, & the coho we did catch were, on average, noticeably bigger & healthier than 2025.
With a reduced coho stash & prioritizing our wholesale partners’ needs, I’ll limit this winter’s coho sales to folks already working with us. Folks who've purchased our coho in the past or talked with me about buying fish this fall, congrats - you’re in the coho-love queue! If not, thanks for supporting Burlington's Skagit's Own Fish Market, Bellingham's Community Food Co-op, &, for online shipping, Whidbey Island Seafood Company. Our gratitude to these beloved partners making the Nerka's coho & kings available to you as portioned cuts.
"How do I get the Nerka’s salmon this fall?"
I’m on weekly fish delivery duty now through March. Tuesdays are my Whatcom/Skagit delivery day. I submit the week's release request to the cold storage Monday morning. If you’d like to be on my route for a given Tuesday, thanks for communicating your order by the weekend.
Friends new to ordering from us, our salmon are WHOLE fish: pressure-bled, headed & gutted, flash-frozen aboard the F/V Nerka at -40 within an hour of landing. They should always taste like they've just come out of the ocean - even up to a year later. Sold by 50 # case, not portioned or filleted, they are ideal for folks who want to smoke or process their own fish or pool communal orders with friends, filling multiple freezers most cost-effectively.
"How much?"
You won’t be surprised that diesel was a hard hit on commercial fisherfolks this season. Fueling up the Nerka was one thing - we tried to mitigate that expense by sticking & staying in one spot, running around less than other years - but there’s no getting around the cost of shipping our fish from Sitka to Burlington. The barge line’s fuel surcharge has soared from 9% in 2025 to 22.5%. Longtime friends know our goal is always to work from a place of looking out for all of us, aiming to keep wild salmon accessible to all who want it, & we also know how many of us are struggling. Message me for pricing. If finances are a hardship, please let me know.
"Only by the case? Can I just get a single king salmon?"
I'll schedule two special weeks in early November for single king deliveries. I'll also have single kings available for pick-up at the Adrift Restaurant's annual holiday market in December. Let me know if you'd like to be on that list. Meanwhile, thanks to Skagit's Own Fish Market for selling our kings & coho as whole fish on request.
If the Nerka's catch isn't the right fit for your family's needs, one of our fleetmates could be. Don't hesitate to message with what you're looking for - there's a right fish for every person & I'm glad to make connections to other trusted fisherfolks.
As for this fall's sea-to-plate stories...
Cap'n J made some beautiful compilations of images from our season. Find those over on the Nerka’s Instagram.
Big news: the anthology I co-edited with Bow poet/Harmony Fields farmer Jessica Gigot came out September 22! Cascadia Works: Tend, Gather, Harvest, Restore is a collection of prose & poetry from 120 contributors on working the land & the sea of the Cascadia bioregion. They bring a diverse range of voices, from orchard workers, farmers, commercial fisherfolks, & field biologists to kelp harvesters, herring protectors, & watershed restorationists. Together, this collection creates a moving, powerful portrait of those with deep connections to the land & sea that sustain us & calls for reciprocity & wisdom in how we care for & steward Cascadia.
As Washington State Poet Laureate Derek Sheffield noted in his review,
“This varied, marvelous collection is special because these writers have done the labor or land and sea - they have farmed, fished, hunted, gardened, tended, gathered, and more - and they are also able to put that into words in unforgettable ways. From callused hands and sore backs, these poems and essays come glittering like light on sea water, like mica specking turned earth, as they reveal the extraordinary bond with place that is formed when humans do the physical work of the world.”
As someone who believes in the essential intersections of labor & conservation, I hope Cascadia Works finds its way to book clubs, class curriculums, & all who value authentic stories of food producers & environmental stewardship… which, dear ones, includes you. Thanks for helping welcome this book into your world. Cascadia Works is available to order now through EMPTY BOWL, linked in the comments.
Regarding stewardship: On August 20, the USDA released a plan to move forward with removing Roadless Rule protections for the Tongass National Forest (and all national forests). That means opening more than 9 million acres of the Tongass National Forest to road development & industrial logging & mining. Future wild salmon depend not only on responsible fisheries management, but also clean water, healthy forests, & intact watersheds. As the world’s largest remaining temperate rainforest, the Tongass nurtures 30% of Alaska’s wild salmon harvest - & roughly two-thirds of the coho we share from you.
The public comment period closes October 6. Thanks to SalmonState for making it so quick & easy to add your voice in support of the Roadless Rule in America’s National Forests, linked below.
Every fall, friends, you are so patient & generous, sharing your precious time with this annual essay. Thank you for bearing with my preferred communication - slow & wordy, personal & true. As always, we're grateful for your trust & the value you place on wild salmon, small-boat family fisheries, & knowing your fisherfolks. I hope you’re finding moments of hope in this changing season, with more on the horizon.
With salmon love & gratitude for all,
Tele & Joel
