Evolution of a fish killer

What it's all about

This summer in Alaska I started fishing. Always a fan of eating fish, Alaska seemed a good place to start getting my own. Our friends Bob and Pam (thanks guys!) had already supplied a reel, Dave bought the rod and we picked up our licenses in Tok.

My first fish was a rainbow trout from Hidden Lake. Just a mile hike off the Alcan, Hidden Lake is small, but big enough for a pair of Trumpeter Swans, and deep enough for fish to live year round. It was really hard to kill that first fish. She was beautiful and so alive. Dave insisted I gut the second one. That was even harder. None, however were hard to eat. Rainbow trout are delicious! The next day we had trout cakes. All that good food just waiting for us under the water. I was hooked on fishing.

Trout

Our next, and several subsequent fishing expeditions were on Deadman Lake. Known to the local Athabascans as Big Pike Lake, we were hoping for a little bigger catch. Back East folks don't eat pike, but out here they grow bigger, and they too are delicious, very buttery. Every week or so we'd go out fishing to catch dinner. I started thinking of the lake and the pike as a lot like the grocery store. Except, of course the gutting and the killing. It was still hard to kill them especially as Dave was using the paddle blade.

The Pike

We improved on the killer technique one afternoon after admiring a billy club like thing of some other fishermen. It was kinda slow at the campground so I cut down, peeled a willow and started carving a club. Dave got all fancy, carved in a diamond grip handle and "Kelly's Fish Killer" was born. He then quickly carved up a simpler, more utilitarian version for himself.

Willow Fish Wackers

Now, prepared with all the necessary equipment we graduated to the big league. For our last big Alaskan adventure we decided to go to Valdez and fish for Coho, known as Silvers locally, Salmon. The silver run is slow this year but after three hours of casting at Allison Point I caught a 13.25 pound Silver Salmon. It took a few nervous minutes before I reeled it in and over to Dave. He grabbed the line, pulled the fish up onto the rocks and efficiently wacked it with his fish killer. I still have a hard time with the killing, and Dave again had to do the gutting and filleting. But I'm more than happy with the 9 pounds of salmon fillets are filling up the freezer.

The Big Silver & me

I can honestly say that fishing isn't all that fun. I love being outside and on the water, but I'm easily distracted from the casting and reeling repetitions by a duck, or a bird, or a mountain view. On the other hand, the killing and the eating, the gathering of the food part of it really speaks to me. It's doing the subsistence thing. Hooking a fish, wacking him upside the head, and then gutting and filleting him (or harvesting the roe if it's a she) isn't fun, but it really brings you down to earth, closer to the core. It's one of the things that a summer season in Alaska has given me a deep appreciation for.