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.

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.

The fish are carefully being loaded into big totes. While loading the workers make sure that the heavy glaze stays in tact.

In the mean time Vi, who works for quality control takes the core temperature of the fish. She carefully drills a tiny hole in the fish in order to insert the thermometer.

She is happy to see that our fish average a very cold temperature. This is guarantee for a good and consistent quality of our fish.

10 days of fishing for kings in tough weather. It is quickly forgotten when delivering these gorgeous fish on a beautiful sunny day in Sitka. The fish were so big, Wolfie could barely hold one up. These fish are truly the best.