Another Alaska Question.....What do do with the fish?

Is this your first trip to Alaska? Are you traveling with anyone else? I went with my wife and another couple in 2006. The other couple did not fish. This was my first time up so wife and other couple wanted to sight see, I like to fish but also wanted to see the sights. I fished from Glacier NP, Muncho lake, Kulane NP all across Alaska where ever we stoped to camp for the night. Ate fresh fish 3 days a week, lake trout, rainbows, dolly varden, grayling and salmon. We met 2 other couples in the Yukon that we traveled with us to Alaska. They fished also but caught very little so my catch went to feed them also. It was a great trip. I have wanted to go back and do more fishing but do to heath, and family situations have not made it back. I found being my first trip and wanting to see Alaska the rainbow fishing was fantastic, few fished for them because most wanted salmon. When up on the Russian river met several guys that carried freezers in there Class A's. If I ever make it back to do more fishing I would just eat what I caught and give the rest away to others in the camp ground. I do have a smoker and may take that to smoke some fish and Ninichik clams.

I appreciate the complements, but you don't really need to follow me. The folks in Alaska, especially the sportsmen and women, are just endless sources of great information. This is where I got my information. A smile, a complement and a question, and you can make a friend for life. This is one of the reasons I love Alaska so much. We correspond all the time with friends from Alaska and across the lower 48 that we met in Alaska in our travels. If I were 20 years younger, I'd be a permanent resident up there, but the one thing preventing it is their health care system. Adequate for summer and even winter visits, but thin as far as state-of-the-art high tech treatments. Most anything beyond basic care requires a flight to Anchorage or for the more complex issues, on to Seattle. Emergency services in the bush is long and coming and fairly basic if you can get someone there at all. Not withstanding, I still love the place. We even flew up in 2011 for 2 weeks to see the start of the Iditerod. Needless to say we're big fans of The Last Frontier. Just be careful on your first trip. The place is absolutely addicting.

Hi from AZ. . . this is a great thread ! We actually might get to Alaska in '15, so I'm enjoying the info & associated stories. AND I too may be following Pigman around, now THAT'S a serious fisherman. thanks for all the posts, Craig

Big Katuna wrote:
You don't really need a pressure cooker to can. A big pot works fine. You can buy a big canning pot at Wally World.

Fish that is canned "jarred" needs to be cooked at 15psi for 100 minutes minimum. So a pressure cooker would be required.

Alternatively, you can find multiple fish processing facilities that will clean, vacuum seal, flash freeze, then ship your fish to you. They'll even hold them until you get back, and then send them to you.

These facilities are everywhere across all popular fishing locations in Alaska.

Sorta off-topic, sorta not: I can't resist bragging about a major score I made just this morning:

For fifty bucks, I just bought the whole canning outfit of a fella that at 86 has sold the boat that he used to take to Alaska, where he'd can all the fish he caught. Kit includes not just a primo pressure cooker with its various tools, but also two full cases of cans/lids AND the machine that stamps the lids on. All I need to do is get the p.c. gauge checked at the County extension office and I'm in business. Not goin' to Alaska anytime soon but there's plenty of fish here in Puget Sound. Not to mention venison in the woods...

SCORE!

Good story......:C Don,t think I'm going to be doing that fish head trick though:E

I really am enjoying reading all the canning info. In my years in rural Alaska, I never canned a single fish. Here are a couple of photos of one of my fish camps I set up on the lower Yukon River, not too far up stream from the mouth. I was commerical fishing for Kings this summer and put up some eating fish for the winter.


I favored living in a wall tent in the summres, when possible. Actually very comfortable, with a wood stove inside, cots, etc.

The sheet of plastic was just to throw over the fish and my smoke fire, if it started to rain, as rain will ruin the fish. Another way to preserve the fish, was used especially for the heads, was to go down by the water and dig a hole about 12 to 18 inches deep, but above the river water level, and line the hole with goose grass. Then add a layer of fish heads, more grass, till it was full. More holes if you needed more fish preserved. Leave to ferment for a month or more. When hungry just run your hand down through the top layer of sand and grass and pull out a couple of "stinky heads", rinse them in the river and with some pilot crackers, lunch was served. Diffidently an acquired taste, as with some strong cheeses.
The locals had done it this way for thousands of years and survived. Now a few did get sick and I suspect died in the past from botulism.
After I moved to Nenana and became a city slicker, I just used a large home freezer.



The Yukon is probably close to a mile wide down this far. My wife took this photo of me running my drift net. I had borrowed this fishing spot from a good local friend as he was using a different site that summer. The drift was about a couple of miles and when fishing 24 hours a day, it was hard to stay awake. So I would hire one of the older boys in the near by village to ride along with me and wake me up at the bottom of the drift. Then take the kings out of the net. and run back upstream to set the net again and repeat the process.

I also borrowed a few dogs from my buddy, to tie out back of my camp to be bear warning devices and to protect my fish. They sounded the alarm several times, but the bears high tailed it out of there, before I had to deal with them. I provided the dogs with room and board for the summer, and the owner let me keep them for free. Almost a Huck Finn type story. Very few bears are interested in tangling with some Eskimo sled dogs that are half domesticated and weigh about 100 lbs each. LOL

Thanks for all the great information......Pigman..If you see a silver regualr cab 3500 with an old Lance camper on it that seems to be following you around....That will be me.:D

tonymull wrote:
I have also eaten salmon with some of my friends who were Eskimo. Their method is to fillet the fish leaving the two fillets attached at the tail. Then the fillets are scored many times about every inch or so. This allows it to dry very quickly. They place it on racks out in the wind and sun with a slow, smoky fire just on the downwind side. The smoke lends some flavor and keeps the flies off as the salmon air dries. They loved it...me, not so much. But it does keep for several months just wrapped in wax paper, unrefrigerated...however the average high temperature out on the Kuskokwim is probably in the 60's during the summer.

This is exactly the same method described by Lewis and Clark in their journal entries about the practices used by Columbia River tribes during their salmon harvest seasons. L&C also used the same method to dry elk and even horse meat for transport during their travels.

For longer term storage of salmon, the tribes pounded the air-dried fish into compressed masses, which they then stored in baskets made for the purpose.

I have also eaten salmon with some of my friends who were Eskimo. Their method is to fillet the fish leaving the two fillets attached at the tail. Then the fillets are scored many times about every inch or so. This allows it to dry very quickly. They place it on racks out in the wind and sun with a slow, smoky fire just on the downwind side. The smoke lends some flavor and keeps the flies off as the salmon air dries. They loved it...me, not so much. But it does keep for several months just wrapped in wax paper, unrefrigerated...however the average high temperature out on the Kuskokwim is probably in the 60's during the summer.