Arctic Adventures: Volume 38—Dipnetting Take 2

In the summer of 2021, Justin & I went dipnetting for salmon with my Uncle Fred here in Alaska. It was to be my uncle’s last trip, as it is no easy feat if you are in your 40s, let alone in your 70s as he is! While I promptly decided after dipnetting in 2021 that I was one and done, Justin was keen on filling our freezer with salmon whenever he could squeeze in a trip. The summers of 2022 and 2023 were just so incredibly busy, but this summer, a friend of Justin’s said there was an open spot on his privately chartered boat at the beginning of July, Justin said aye aye captain & anchors away!

As per dipnetting trips, it’s a fast & furious trip. Justin was only gone for less than 48 hours, with at least 20 hours of that time allotted for the driving! Justin is still a “novice,” but he learned a lot on this trip, especially hanging with the captain to sharpen his skills. As a reminder, dipnetting for salmon is done via a large net and pole. The boat is going backwards in the river with the current, and the salmon are swimming upstream against the current. Voila! Salmon swim into the net. The first 2 times Justin put his net down, he didn’t catch anything, but over time he was able to get the hang of it more. 

The team of 6 people spent about 5 hours on the boat and caught 179 salmon! Every Alaska resident has a certain limit for their household, and ours is 35. Everyone worked together to make sure everyone got their limit. Plus, the team caught 25 salmon for my uncle, as is allowed for elderly folks who can’t fish for themselves. 

Justin paid to have the salmon filleted & vacuumed sealed—a huge time saver. In total, he came home with 85 pounds of salmon filets!!! He brought home the bellies too, and Uncle Fred did all the smoking of those!

Thanks to these 100+ individually wrapped filets and considering we’ve already eaten it for dinner at least 5 times in 3 weeks, you betcha salmon will be a regular staple on our dinner menu for at least the next year.