Tranquil Point Fishing
Abundance
2013-08-07 01:01:08
I have tried to let some of you know by PM that there is an insane pink and chum bite going on at Tranquil Point, here in front of Craig. PM's are not working for me right now. We have been getting well over a thousand fish a day, sixty or seventy percent of which are pinks. Chums and cohos are coming in by hundreds. Currently, we have to dress them all, which is seriously impacting our catch rate and efficiency. Dressed pinks are at .60, dressed chums are .65 at E.C. Phillips. I hear it is higher for chums, less for pinks at SPC. The reason I'm making this public is we need local support to get a round market going in Craig. It is like this every year here in late July/August. I know we are mostly coho fishermen around here, and I am coho fishing myself, I just am finding my chum and pink bycatch to be very valuable right now, and think it would be good for us to get round fish going on a local level. Nobody should be cleaning so many pinks. My hands are getting tired. Phillips also bought round coho in Neets Bay one season, they might be willing to think about it again. Just putting this out there, they are here if you want them. Give E.C. Phillips head office in Ketchikan, or any buyer really that you have a relationship with a ring if you think this is an interesting option.
Kelper
2013-08-07 01:16:08
The big plant in town told me "not now, but maybe". hmm..
Abundance
2013-08-07 05:04:08
That's the response I got from Trident and Phillips. Silver Bay gave that response to other people already. I should mention that .60 for pinks is what I was told on the dock this morning that the price had been raised to. It was .45. I hope the info was accurate. Chums were .85, and man was that nice while it lasted.
Kelper
2013-08-07 21:45:23
While you are at it, we need to get somebody to buy black rockfish here in Craig. Some really good eating fish just swimming around out there.
Hans2
2013-08-07 21:46:20
Just curious... if .60 for clean pinks is the going rate, what would be a fair discount for a slush-iced load of round pinks? Would you take .30 for them? .40? What is the point at which you would decide it is better for you to catch fish instead of clean fish?
Abundance
2013-08-07 22:52:26
Phillips was buying black rockfish at .25 a few years ago. I just sold them for a season as troll bycatch. I would take .40 in the round. I was taking .30 at Homeshore, but dressed was .45 then. With the extra fish you can fit in the day, and less hassle overall and extra weight from guts&gills, I would probably cave in at .30, but complain a lot.
Abundance
2013-08-08 23:58:59
Sorry fellows, but it seems the Phillips plant is still giving .45 for pinks. I don't know where the .60 dock talk came from, but I should have researched further before getting excited over it. And they dropped dark chum prices to .52. Still doing really well over here. Pink numbers are slowing down, but still holding above 500 a day. Chums and cohos are at a similar number in combination. Some collosal 20+pound tiger dogs in there, but mostly silver brights. Would be better if we didn't have to clean all of them, or take three hours off to unload and re-ice in town. Its probably too late to change anything this season, but the buyers and fishermen are taking note, and might get something going earlier next season. Every year in late July and into August, the pinks and chums and cohos come throught all the insde areas on PoW Island. I saw what that did for Hoonah, I wouldn't mind having a strong fishery for the little guys in here. Cohos are and always will be our mainstay, and I am loving how we can find so many at any odd place I care to go this year, but I can remember too many times that I starved around here. It wouldn't hurt to get a bit of catch diversity and options for the guys like me who like fishing close to home.
Kelper
2013-08-09 00:25:01
Word is that the ADFG is saying that the Klawock River hatchery is responsible for 45% of the coho harvest in SE. Seems crazy, but that's what they are saying!
I have no idea how you can clean all those fish Garrett and your hands still work well enough to post on the 'net!
Abundance
2013-08-09 00:53:58
Trick is to take a young deckhand who doesn't know any better, and throw a thousand humpies at him. He will be an expert by the end of the day. I only have to help him out on the pulls of seventy fish or more. Its what my Dad did to me, and it seems to work on any new hands. Catching quite a few Klawock fish right now, must be something right at that hatchery. Might be in here like humpies, if there are that many out there. Exciting!
Abundance
2013-08-11 01:43:18
Just providing an update. We have been doing quite well still, but the chums are getting smaller, and cohos have been diminishing a bit. Pinks are still rolling in the boat by the line full. I am still plugging the boat with dressed fish of some kind every 1 1/2 days. I know that this is an extraordinary year for all pink, cohos, and none SSRAA chums, but I am curious about what next season will bring. There were a lot of big dark chums when we got here, 25th of July, then they disappeared and where replaced by big brights for a about a week. Those got steadily darker, and now just disappeared and have been replaced by smallish brights. I will keep on watching the fish run, and will mark down when the fish die down, so we have an idea what the next seasons timings might be. I am hoping that there might be a couple of more pulses of fish, but we will see. A guy might want to check out, if you haven't already, the wild chum runs on eastern PoW. I know that we got kicked out of Chomondely Sound for catching too many seine fish, but we still have Moira and Kassan Bays. There are a lot of wild cohos, chums and pinks going into those, and a fellow is more likely to get Ketchikan to send a tender there. Cordova Bay is another spot to think about. I put my eighty flashers down there once at the beginning of July, and found eighty cohos and pinks and some chums. I know a guy who was (illegally) catching loads of chums for crab bait in the creek entrances there in October. Might be a good season long hole for us, is what I am saying.
Abundance
2013-08-18 05:18:51
Just providing another update: fishing has slowed greatly, and has reached the 50-100 chums a day point, and they are getting smaller. While the ones we are getting now are very bright, I think the major run has passed with this rain. Pinks are down to the 200-400 a day range now, but most are surprisingly bright. Cohos are here in good numbers, but of course everybody knows about those. I am enjoying getting the runtimes for these fish figured out, and I hope that this will be something to build on next season. About five of us are planning to fish here instead of Neets Bay or the ocean next summer, what with all of the cohos and pinks that we can get instead just chums or just cohos. It would be nice to be able to sell them round, and a few more boats calling the plant to complain about this would be nice. Anyway, I will keep on giving it a try and will see what comes up as the summer season approaches the end stage. I have hopes for the fall cohos. That price is extraordinary this year.
Salty
2013-08-19 05:24:09
Thanks for the updates. Glad someone is catching. Rain and wind have killed the bite here.
Abundance
2013-08-24 01:59:36
It has well and truly died here, all the pinks and chums are up in the creeks. A guy can scrape up a few, but not enough to make much more than a small bonus to the cohos. Catching just the record number of of cohos for this place and time now feels intolerably slow! There are still lots pinks out farther towards the ocean, but the local runs are mostly gone, for now anyway.
Kelper
2013-08-24 02:17:57
Garrett,
I was going through Port Real Marina today and it was full of jumping chums. Never seen so many big, dark chums getting airborne. I've never fished in there, but it might be worth a try!
Abundance
2013-08-24 04:16:40
I remember seeing that in Real Marina this time of year before, come to think of it. I think that they are still here in Trocadaro to, just too far along in life to want to feed. Its not worth fishing wild chums at this years prices without a very large coho percentage, but they might be there too. Thanks for the tip!