I used to work for Nelbro in Naknek starting in 82 working freezing herring. With trapping over and not much going on in the village in April it was quick money free plane ticket down and back and room and board.
I worked lightering out the frozen boxes of herring or salmon to the Japanese tramper ships parked about 20 miles out.

The crab fleet was done with crab and tendering herring and was doing the hauling of the frozen product to the jap ships before summer salmon season started, I was on alot of the boats you see on deadliest catch, they would then switch to tendering salmon for the summer.

I would go out with one boat and offload and jump on another boat and do the same run again. sleep when I could and work very long hours.

I was only allowed on the Jap tramper once a Korean buddy took me onboard and we ate. The benches were so small my knees could not fit under the table. We had beefsteak that was aged or something.

At the end of each load they would give us back our trash, plastic wrap and pallets to dispose on shore, we would usually gather up a stack of American playboy magazines from the gally and send them up on the crane. They would grab them and all run away and be pretty soon we would get a load come back of a few cases of Saporro beer and/or a case of Suntory whisky.
Good times were had those days.

I set net salmon on the cutbank once. Bears were a problem eating out of the nets at night. When they take a fish out of the net they tear a four foot hole.

I would then return to the Yukon and get ready, I ran a tender boat for salmon it was just 27X9 aluminum herring skiff with a electric deck crane and a home built wooden cabin.
We bought King salmon at $4.50 a lb and always paid cash. I used to stuff 30 k in 100 dollar bills in my coat pocket and take off for a 12 hr period that would fill my six totes of kings.

Enjoy it while its there and have a great season. I aways loved making a living on the water in the summer.

Thanks Yukon Jeff, the days of cash buyers were something indeed.

Cash was king then. You didn't get any fish without it.

It was common to get airplane drop a brick of cash wrapped in plastic into the river for me to retrieve with the boat for buying cash right before an opening. I never knew how much was in it as I turned it over bossman, but I would guess a few hundred k

Cool stories. Thank y’all for sharing them.

Worked on a tender in the bay once. One fisherman always had less chums than the rest so one day my friend Richard told him “if I find any chums in with the reds you’re gonna sort em all again “ Guy thought he was bluffing and said “Yeah, no problem “. First bag - buncha chums. Richard proceeded to dump the next 12 bags on deck and make them sort . The guy was red hot angry but contained himself. And he never came back

This is the other tender Fayette from kodiak trading out with us now as buyers

Some reading I brought up from the basement of my late father had in box.All 1950 and great writing
Interesting how alot of views still echo today. And the minds of post WW 2

Setnetters delivery
Sockeye/ Red salmon
Seen only a few kings and like no chums but two lost pinks
The goal post on each side are hydraulic rollers
This man is in late 70 s and whacks them

Drift netters
Boats cannot exceed 32 feet

After looking at the last picture in the background I see a forest fire to the north.
Two weeks ago was smokey all over

I notice that in the stores here for the last year or two there has been quite a bit of sockeye offered. No kings which is the reverse of what it used to be. How much are those set netters getting paid per pound?

Easy to miss it on sunny days with a slight breeze. I grew up fishing in Togiak. Long openers, long seasons, some big reds though. After the season was done in Nushagak some guys would come over to either put a cherry on their season or try to save it. If they didn't have larger webbed gear the big Togiak reds would bounce off their Nush gear alot of the time.

1.15$ # plus extra .20 cent ice so far posted
Bigger reds this year almost 5# average

http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/static/applications/dcfnewsrelease/1403372703.pdf

They seem to be having a pretty good year

hey Patrick was god to see you even if only for a minute at the PO it was a crazy year for us the 5 boats in the family all hung it up this week my son finished up last as usual. He came in this morning everyone is smiling good prices and tons of fish holy crap for those that haven't heard we broke the all time record run in Bristol Bay and had an all time record catch of over 2.46 million fish in a single day here in the Nushagak where I reside and otter3006 spends his summers

Yes otterman qood to see you and hear all had a great season
It was another giant run for sure. Looking like this week will be over and some rest and dry land.
Going to be some fat wallets leaving here. The good old days is what they will be saying about 2022.

I quit fishing about a week ago, still sockeye coming, but have other things to do. I fish the Ugashik District, what a crazy year, early and lots of fish. It was a record year for us, but we still don't really know what the price is we will receive for our sockeye.
What is the price in Kodiak compared to this same time last year; I am very curious to know? Actually, I'd be interested to know the same information from other regions as well; Cook inlet, southeast, etc..

This Youtube clip is actually during the last week of June and was pretty typical fishing for about a week.

[video:youtube]https://www.youtube.com/shorts/--ycnXnVK2k[/video]