Salmon for the Freezer

July 21st (Sunday)

We were up at 06:00 and headed out salmon fishing. It was such a beautiful morning to be out on the water. The sky was mostly clear, the wind was calm, the sea was glassy, and we were alone; alone in a spectacular spot, surrounded by beauty, and trolling for salmon while watching the activity around us. 

Over the time that we have been here the level of activity has definitely increased each day. Every time we are out we see more and more fish jumping, more areas of disturbed water from the baitfish surfacing, and more salmon porpoising. This is something that although we have seen a single salmon do it from time to time, today we saw groups of salmon, four or more, doing it several times in a row, and we saw it multiple times in the little while that we were out. 

They surface as though they are coming up to breathe just like a porpoise or whale does; head first, then back, and you can see a good inch or two of the top of them along their back and fin, and then finally the top half of their tail fin. It is really neat to see a school of them swimming along doing this. It is so rare that you get such a good look at them, since when they jump its all over in a matter of seconds, and unless you happen to be looking in the exact spot all you see is a splash. 

We had even more fishing action this morning than yesterday, and caught and let go several before we got the two that we wanted. 

On the way back in we stopped to pull up our prawn trap. Our trap was the fullest we have ever had our prawn trap, although they were not all prawns. In fact, we only had eight big prawns, but it was enough for a good addition to dinner and the pleasure of getting to see everything else was more than enough. We had three of the spiny starfish that we have had before, and one in particular was quite big.  We also had a lot of large shells, and they were all hermit crabs!  We have never pulled up hermit crabs with our prawn trap before and this time we got 14!  They were so cool, most of them were surprisingly active and came out of their shell quickly after being set down, some of them were quite big and they were all very hairy. They were Hairy Hermit Crabs so a very appropriate name. They were in three different types of shells, and one in particular was very spiral and pretty. 

The creatures of the deep that were in the trap.

 Hairy hermit crab.

Back inside the Lagoon we pulled up our crab trap, which had now been in for a couple of days down close to 300' and all we had was one small female Dungeness. Very disappointing, but the disappointment was muted and forgotten with two salmon and eight prawns in the boat. 

After dealing with the salmon we put one whole fish carcass into each of our crab traps, and put them out for one final try. It doesn't hurt, and since we had already saved all of the parts from the fish carcasses that we wanted for bait from yesterday we thought we might as well use these ones now. 

We packaged up our beautiful salmon meat, and I pulled everything out of our freezer and packed it as best as I could. It is now full!!!  We have 13 meals of salmon, 11 of ground fish, 1 of crab, 1 of Trout, and 2 of pork chops. The pork chops are the last of the meat that we brought with us from Vancouver. That is 28 meals in our freezer, which I think is quite good considering how small the freezer is. 

We decided to go to the lake for the afternoon, and it was amazing how easy the trail was without a kayak on our heads. We laid out our beach blanket and relaxed.  We went swimming in the lovely water, and relished in the luxury of being able to submerge in fresh water. Such a luxury especially with how pleasant the temperature was. What a beautiful spot. 

Sashimi salmon on rice, with prawns and cooked salmon; a end of a great day