HERRING! Part II

By the time I got finished whipping my friends at pickleball, the fog had diminished.  

 I couldn't resist taking a picture of the Chikimun across the channel.  My friend Stan owns and captains the Chikimun.  He comes down from Hoonah to pack herring for the fishermen and it's great to see him.  Stan played basketball and was in my classes in the early 1980's in Hoonah.  To be honest, I'm pretty proud to call him my friend.  He also seines salmon, fishes red and tanner crab, and longlines black cod and halibut.  I think he has troll and dungeness crab permits that he doesn't even fish.  I love it because he lets me ride along on the boat.

 I strolled down the docks to go visit Stan.  The herring and herring eggs have traditionally marked the end of a long winter for traditional peoples.  Herring and herring eggs are packed with protein and oil.  A hundred years ago and more, it must have been glorious to stuff those eggs into one's mouth after a lean winter  - maybe with a bit of seal oil if you were lucky.  In this picture, a boat came in with a pile of eggs (people put hemlock branches in the water and the herring lay the eggs on the branches).

It's a community event, and lots of people came down to get their share of herring eggs.  

Most of the boats are big 58 footers.  Here are three boats lined up with pumps and nets ready to go.  Unlike most netted fish,  the herring are surrounded by the net, but not brought aboard the boat with the net.  Instead, big hydraulic pumps are put in the water and the fish are pumped into the hold of boats that are standing by.  That's where the Chikimun comes in.

A boat with the net on the stern ready to go.

This photo doesn't give you the scale I wanted, but these are three big boats - 80 to 120 feet.  They can pack a lot of herring pounds.  They looked BIG standing where I'm standing, but the photo just doesn't give you the scale I wanted.