Dipnetting on the Kasilof River opened Tuesday. By the late morning, fish camps already dotted the shores as people hauled reds out of the water.
On the outskirts of where fish camps are clustered near the river mouth, D Reed is fileting sockeye salmon. Those fish are also called “reds.” Reed’s from Anchorage and has dipnetted in Kasilof for about five years. He used to not like dipnetting, but says he’s come to appreciate how easy it is to put a net in the water and “let the fish do the rest.”
“I’ve fished Kenai, fished Kasilof, fished Homer — I fish wherever I can catch a fish at. I’m just a fishing fool,” he says.
Atop an ironing board-turned-cleaning station, Reed wields a knife deftly. He throws the fish innards — eggs, guts, etc. — to a greedy congregation of gulls and bald eagles that watch his every move.
When it comes to siphoning off the perfect filet, Reed says there’s not a whole lot to it.
“Oh, just like I’m doing now,” he says. “Just one side and then the other. Try to just bust through that rib cage. Make sure you’ve got a nice, sharp knife and it should be pretty easy.”
Catching and cutting up the fish is only the first half of the salmon equation. When it comes to eating what he’s caught, Reed says he keeps it simple.
“Salt, pepper, some butter and some olive oil, that's it,” he says. “I like to know that I’m eating salmon.”
Farther down the beach is Sassa Peterson. She stands hip-deep in the river, in a near-straight line of dipnetters all holding the end of their long metal nets. The wide circular mouths of the nets bob with the current, and the scene’s occasionally interrupted by an excited outburst.
“He got one!” she shouts watching a fisherman next to her.
Peterson’s been dipnetting in Kasilof for 20 years. At around 1 p.m. she guessed she’d already caught 10 or 11 fish since her net first hit the water around 8 that morning.
Peterson lives nearby and is a Yup’ik faculty member in Kenai Peninsula College’s Alaska Native Studies program.
“For my first fish, I like to use every part,” she says. “Even the guts I put in my garden if I don’t make them into a Yup’ik delicacy, which is tep’a — stinkheads.”
She teaches a unit on fishing at the college and says she always encourages her students to get out and fish. Fishing, she says, is as much about learning traditional Native values as it is about filling a freezer and having fun. It’s customary, for example, to give the first fish caught to an elder. The first fish is special in other ways, too.
“There's a Yup’ik belief that when you catch your first fish you thank them,” she said. “Thank, you know, thank God our creator for your first fish and you thank the fish itself: ‘Thank you for presenting yourself to us.’ And when you're bonking the head you say sorry.”
A fisher participating in the Kasilof River’s personal use salmon fishery must be an Alaska resident, have a valid sport fishing license and hold a permit. The head of a household may catch 25 salmon. Each additional household member may catch 10 salmon each.
Kasilof River dipnetting is open 24 hours per day, seven days per week through August 7. Detailed fishery regulations can be found on ADF&G’s website.
