Pacific Marine Expo 2010

I attended one day of the Pacific Marine Expo with my dad this year in Seattle, Washington. It was a whole convention center packed with everything from cooling systems to life rafts for emergencies. It was definitely only interesting for those actually shopping for items such as these. There were also brokers selling and taking on ships to sell.

A comment i made to my dad is that you can tell a fisherman from the way he dresses and the facial hair he has. This room was full of grizzly looking men with beards. Every aisle we walked down my dad ran into some he knows and has known for years.

Below is a picture of the Qwest convention center from an aerial view.

Below is a picture of my dad and I standing behind a booth display.

The next day we attended the dinner for his Insurance. Once a year i guess they get all the fishermen together that have had this insurance for some time and feed them a whole meal. We both had the Filet Mignon. We received a salad, our steaks with potatoes, and steamed veggies accompanied with white and red wine and followed by dessert.

Here is a picture of us below following our feast.

Frozen Fish Help Global Warming

KUOW news ran a story today about the pros of buying and selling Frozen at Sea Salmon.
A lot of local Washingtonians would rather buy local salmon than support out of state fishermen. However, most of the King salmon and silvers that go straight to our restaurants come out of Alaska. The Pike Place market in Seattle, WA provides fresh and frozen salmon all from Alaska.

Did you know that fishing is already a low emissions industry? Greenhouse gases matter to us! When you account for Salmon being flown to its next destination instead of shipped by boat, the carbon emissions increase. Alaska Air is the only airlines coming out of Alaska. They promise lower emissions. They are using a newer fleet of airplanes in order to decrease their emissions while delivering their services.

Freshly caught, not frozen and shipped salmon, is what we would call in the industry "ice fish". It is more likely to perish and so it has to be sent by plane immediately to keep the product fresh. This makes the "fresh" cost more to our environment, another reason to buy Frozen at Sea Salmon. Iced fish are caught the same way as FAS fish and immediately thrown into a fish hold being packed with ice. They can be eaten right away and are served in restaurants all over the world.

Helene York with Bon Apetit Management supports FAS salmon and their low carbon emissions. At first they were skeptical about the quality of the fish being previously frozen. However the chefs have tried high quality FAS salmon and are convinced that it is an amazing product. The freshness is frozen in at the time the fish is caught and it makes for a wonderful product and in the long run that will last a lot longer.

To see the transcript of this story go to KUOW's website.
Do you agree with the points made in this article? Or do you have another opinion to share here? Leave us a comment.

And we are back!

Sorry about the delay everyone! It has been a crazy two weeks. Transitioning jobs and such means less time for blogging and sharing with you all. Now that we are back and we are entering into the holiday season where stress is bound to increase and people will start spending more time in the mall or in front of their computers buying things for family members.

I am going to share some recipes that you can replace those traditional Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners with. These are healthier than the average dinner because guess what, the core ingredient is Salmon!

First of all, if you are going to cook fish you need to start by buying it as fresh as possible. If it was previously frozen salmon, then your chances of great flavor increase. However, if the store has already thawed this fish for you, make sure you are not going to freeze it again. It also may be a good idea to buy a frozen chunk of salmon and thaw it yourself.

Here's a recipe that looks really good and simple to make. Salmon is easy to bake, you just have to treat it with a little bit of care. You should always make sure that you have some moisture in the pan. Salmon is easy to dry out fast.

Soy Glazed Salmon with Watercress Salad

This recipe is straight from Martha Stewart

Ingredients: (some of this is from the salad part)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
4 teaspoons honey
2 oranges, peeled cut into segments and juice squeezed
coarse salt and ground pepper
1 teaspoon rice vinegar
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
4 salmon fillets (approx. 6 ounces)
1 bunch watercress (3/4 pound) trim thick ends
1/2 small red onion

Directions:

• In a small bowl, whisk together soy sauce, 3 teaspoons honey and orange juice; add salt and pepper. In a bigger bowl whisk 1 teaspoon glaze, 1 teaspoon honey, vinegar and oil and set aside.
• Heat broiler, with rack 4 inches from heat. Line baking sheet with foil. Add salt and pepper to Salmon and broil for 5 minutes. Remove from oven, brush with glaze and then broil until opaque throughout, around 2 minutes, brushing with glaze once more.
• Add orange segments, watercress and onion to dressing and toss to combine. Add salt and pepper.

This recipe is said to take about 20 minutes to prepare. I would pour the glaze over the salmon before hand and allow it to soak up the flavor before putting it in the oven. It makes the salmon more moist and brings out more flavor. As for the Watercress salad, this is a very healthy alternative to anything you may find on a Thanksgiving table.

More from the Seanna

This is Camille, i also have my own blog at Travel spots and Polkadots. I just wrote a post on my blog about the history of fishing in my family and a bit about how long my dad has been fishing on the Seanna. If you are interested in that go check it out by clicking the link above.

Did you know that we are buying a new boat? Well its true. The Seanna will no longer be the boat in which we use to catch our fish. So i thought i would write a post and also say our goodbye's to the lovely Seanna. She has been our summer home, our source of income and a good friend since 1987. She will be missed.

Its amazing to think how long the Seanna has been around. She was built in 1945, the name Seanna means a gift from god and the origin is Gaelic. However is more commonly spelled Seana with only one "N".

Seanna Seafoods Commercial

Did you know that we have our own video? We were also featured on a German television show. Our video is on our website for Seanna Seafoods. We are going to post it here so that you can all learn a bit more about what goes into trolling.

Some of you may be involved in a fishery while other may have only just heard about Alaska Fisheries. Many fishing families take part in more than one area. It is a very stressful industry. Most of the money is made in the summer time, and if the season isn't a good one fishing families must rely on other types of income. The Seanna itself spent many summers in Southeast Alaska as a purse seiner. It held of up to five men (and women) a seine and a skiff.

To check the video on the Seanna and how we support our fisheries, go here.
To check out how Purse Seining works on a boat local to Sitka, Alaska (where the Seanna also fishes out of), click here to see the Pillar Bay in action.

Here is a picture of crew from 2008.
Camille on the left and Anthony on the right.

F is for Fish

Above we have crew member Kinsi holding a beautiful king salmon.

You can tell a king salmon (Chinook) from a coho (silver) by the coloring. King salmon have black around the tips of their mouths and they are also covered with more spots on the their tail. They also seem to be a bit more gray in coloring through out. Their other name is Chinook. They don't call them King's for nothing, the biggest king salmon ever caught was over 80 pounds. Can you imagine?
I believe the biggest King salmon we have caught is around 30-50 pounds and that seems gigantic.

This chart is from bluefish

They have a lot of information about fishing and salmon populations through the history. If you are interested in learning more, click the link above. Here is a chart with all types of salmon on it. The pictures can be a little bit helpful, although Chinook (king salmon are usually larger than the rest of these fish.

Salmon Factoids:
The largest king salmon caught was 97 pounds and 4 ounces. That was in 1985 by Les Anderson. The biggest coho salmon caught was 26 pounds by Andrew Robbins in 1976. The largest sockeye salmon caught was 16 pounds by Chuck Leach in 1974.
These are the types of fish caught when Trolling in Southeast Alaska. These are also the best types of fish to be frozen at sea and sold in super markets and sushi restaurants.

Check out this big salmon on How to fish for salmon

Finished Trolling for 2010

We finished up trolling this year in September and have now moved on to long lining. We have a lot to share with you a few pictures from our Coho and King salmon season. The fishing was good and a lot of fun was had! The Crew members consisted of Captain David Clarke, Crewmember Kinsi Clarke and second crew member Mariah Warren. Now on to the next task: the selling of the fish!

Here we have Kinsi hiding behind our beautiful coho salmon. The conditions are perfect for FAS (Frozen at sea) salmon! The weather was mostly good, friends were made and hopefully we can keep you updated on the latest in Alaskan fisheries and the ins and outs of what we endure.
For now, we will be sharing some fun photos from our fishing trips.
David Clarke, Captain and owner of the Seanna.
She is a beautiful old wood boat built in 1945. Here is a picture of the boat from the side sitting in the Sitka harbor.

Below is a picture of Kinsi and Mariah from left to right. Holding up a medium sized king salmon. They are standing in what is the aft of the boat where the actual fishing happens. There are two lines of trolling wire that run towards the back of the boat into the water with fishing line and hooks attached to them. These are pulled up out of water by a hydraulic system. The crew members take the snaps off the line and pull each fish individually on board (using a gaff hook).
Then each and every fish is cleaned as the first part of processing. Shortly after they are put into the fish hold where they are frozen at temperatures that can be as low as -30 or more.