Bristol Bay part 1

I've been thinking of how to put Bristol Bay into words. I have tried to think and think but nothing has really come to mind. I suppose I should start very basic and the rest will take care of itself.

Bristol Bay is in southwest Alaska. It is bordered by mainland Alaska to the east and north, the Alaska peninsula (which holds the Aleutian mountains and the Aleutian islands) to the south, and the Bering sea to the west. The average water temperature during the summer months is 3-5 degrees Centigrade (39-46 degrees Fahrenheit) which makes a big difference between Washington's coastal waters which sit at 12c or 54f.

There are a number of river systems in Bristol bay but there are six that are fished. These are the Naknek, Kvichak (pronounced Qwee-jack), Nushagak, Egegik, Ugashik, and Togiak rivers. The Nushagak is the most famous due to its King Salmon run which brings in sport fishermen from all over the world. The rest of the rivers are less known. Every year the fish come back to the rivers they were born in to spawn. The entire bay produces between 20 and 30 million Sockeye salmon each year. They are also home to king, pink, silver, and chum salmon as well as herring which are all fished for throughout the summer.

The entire fishing industry in Bristol bay is highly regulated by the Alaska department of fish and game. The fish are counted both coming into the rivers in the summers and going out of the rivers in the spring. Each year a prediction of how many fish will return is set and the amount of fish that should be going up river is calculated. This is called escapement. The Egegik river's escapement (which is the river that I fish on) is set from 800,000 fish to 1.2 million fish. They count and estimate how many fish are going upriver each day, make estimates as to how many fish are close to going upriver, and estimate how many fish are going to come still; from those estimates the department of fish and game determines if the fishermen are allowed to fish and how long they are allowed to fish for.

Fish and game gives updates to fishermen every day via radio announcements at 9am, 12pm, 3pm, and 6pm; these are called announcements. In these we are usually given information such as catch and escapement from the previous day, cumulative catch and escapement from the season, and opening times for the following day. Usually there is just one announcement per day but it gets repeated throughout the day.

I am proud to be a Bristol bay fisherman. It is one of the most prolific and well managed fisheries in the world. Both its fishermen and its managers are dedicated to sustainability and its location is one that protects it from excessive development.