WE SURIVIVED THE BRISTOL BAY PEAK!
The past week has been the F/V Sofia's most productive yet. Mike and the crew are fishing around the clock, and have caught a ton of fish. Besides a few too many rounds of repairing ripped up fishing gear, there haven't been any significant boat problems. We are SO thankful that Mike and the crew got all the kinks worked out before the peak of the season arrived.
The Bristol Bay sockeye salmon run has already surpassed the predicted forecast of 40 million fish. As of July 15th, 33.5 million sockeye had been caught. Cumulative escapement is 7.6 million, giving a total run of over 41 million. This equates to roughly 164 million pounds of sockeye salmon. The Egegik River system alone, has had a run of over 12 million sockeye, 3 million over forecast.
Fishing is slow today, but we're hoping for another few strong days. Mike's hoping to fish until August 1st if the catch remains steady. After that, he'll have a lot of boat work to do before he heads home. We are really starting to miss him!
The crew slept well for the first time in awhile last night. They've been averaging three hours per day for the past couple of weeks. Fishing is now open 24-7 and will remain that way until the end of the salmon run.
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The time has come when sleep comes in two hour chunks and the deck of the Courageous is filled with fish. The crew is working around the clock, harvesting the world's best wild Alaska sockeye salmon to fill your freezers.
The F/V Courageous is currently in the Nushagak fishing district with about 650 other boats, waiting for the sockeye salmon to strike.
We've been super busy with preseason tasks the past few weeks, and now the F/V Courageous and its crew are on their way to Bristol Bay.