Commercial Fishing for Wild Alaskan Salmon
Gus Cotten, in the crow’s nest of his new 42′ Ledford F/V Odyssey (on the left), chats with Tom Buchanan who is in the crow’s nest of his 42′ Ledford F/V Dolly B (on the right). Both boats were seining for sockeye in Resurrection Bay, Seward Alaska on June 22, 2018.
Refrigerated Salt Water (RSW) is now virtually mandatory in the industry for wild Alaskan salmon and Tom and Dave spent a good portion of the spring of 2016 modifying the F/V Dolly B to install a state-of-the-art (expensive!) RSW system.
Tom did his shopping at the Pacific Marine Expo in Seattle in November 2015 and put in his order for a 10 ton Integrated Marine Systems system.
He had to modify his fish hold and flying bridge to install the chiller, refrigerated water plumbing and hydraulics to run it. In the past we used ice from the canneries or, when at sea, glacial ice, and Tom has always delivered nicely chilled fish. When he made his first delivery in Homer however, the fish were still alive and jumping in the fish hold!
Nate has moved up from deckhand to Skipper! Read more on his skipper page.
