The Garrett's: October 2011

And More Fish Processing...

With all the salmon we caught, we froze about 60 fillets. We smoked and canned the rest of the fish, around 95 pints of smoked salmon! The first time I saw a jar of canned salmon, I thought... can that really taste good?? It does not look all that appetizing, but let me tell you... it is!

All the woman that went dip netting got together the following week (after the salmon had brined) and we canned salmon. In all we canned around 340 pints of smoked salmon. That is a big job!!

The fish in the brine.

Loads and loads of pint jars. These jars were in high demand. We went to about 6 different places that were all sold out. Called probably 10 more places... all sold out. Finally we came upon a store that still had wide mouth pint jars!

We had 6 pressure cookers...

and 5 smokers.

After the fish has been smoked and skinned we shred it and put it into the jars.

Brittani and her cute little lady!

Brittani and I were on pressure cooker duty. We had to keep the salmon at 12 pounds of pressure for 100 minutes. You can't let it drop below or let it go above. If it goes above for too long, your pressure cooker will blow up. This is serious stuff here folks!!

I opened the smoker to check on the salmon and got totally smoked out. I could not remember to keep my head to the side when I would open that dang thing.

Miki switching out fish.

Karen switching out fish.

This was a huge job... I can certainly wait a year to do it again! I am so happy I had a hard working crew of great chickas to show me the ropes and teach me how to can salmon. Plus... it's way more fun to do a huge job like this in good company!

It's a dirty job, but someones gotta do it.

Well after catching 350 fish... we had to clean, gut, skin, fillet and vacuum pack 350 fish! Whew... that was an all day job! But wow the fruits of our labour are amazing. Fresh Alaskan Salmon!

Ray and Kotah flew in to visit us while we were dip netting. We could not leave the last day of dip netting to pick them up at the airport because the fish had finally hit hard. We had a friend (thanks Chablis, and Gentri) pick them up from the airport and drop them off at our apartment so they could drive our car and meet us in Kenai. Well there were 2 huge wrecks the day they drove to see us and the road was closed until 6 the next morning. They were stuck between the two wrecks so they could not do anything but sleep in the car that night! Such a sad welcome!

We finally met up with them the next day in Seward. They came right in time to help us with all the cleaning and gutting. Once again such a sad welcome... but they were awesome for helping us!!

The men, discussing important matters...

Lance and Miki

Kotah and Ray

We had MANY coolers chuck full of fish.

Dip Netting

We had the opportunity to go dip netting in Kenai this year with about 5 families in our ward. It was an amazing experience I will never forget! To dip net you have to be a resident of Alaska. You are allotted 25 fish per head of household and 10 fish per dependent so as a household we were allotted 55 salmon!

As a whole group we caught around 350 salmon!!! Crazy!!

This was such a fun experience. It was so thrilling holding the huge net in the water and getting a fish in your net. I wasn't too great at getting the net back in the boat, or getting the fish out of the net. They are huge, slippery little suckers! Jathan on the other hand was a pro! I am just glad I was able to go and did not get nauseous being on the boat with the smell of fish and the sight of blood.

Jathan on the boat, getting his dip on!

Lance, James and Brittani.

Zanna on the boat making a funny face! She was pretty excited to go out with her daddy and catch some fish.

Our boat was having some technical difficulties, as we floated to the shore we saw these huge bear tracks in the mud. Creepy!

Brittani sitting on the boat next to all the fish guts and blood. Such a glamorous job.

We got the kids camping chairs and cute little fuzzy sleeping bags for the camp out. They were pretty excited about their new toys. They played in the chairs at home all day the day before and slept in their sleeping bags in their room that night.

Playing in the mud by our camp site.

Troop loves to wear Zanna's helmet. We need to find him one that is a little more suited for a boy!

Oh boy.... how can he be crying when he is surrounded by mud. Every little boys dream!

We took a trip into Kenai to get a bite to eat and see some of the dip netters from the shore. The kids (and Jathan) loved these huge carvings of Salmon.