Week 6: Fresh halibut, ikura and pizza!

With the northwest heatwave in full effect, it is feeling like prime time summer around here.  Pete will be shipping down his first fresh halibut of the season, which we will have available at our 4 weekend farmers markets: U-District,  Bellevue, West Seattle and Ballard.  Pete is also planning on making some fresh ikura onboard F/V Njord following their fishing opening, so look out for fresh 2 and 4 oz. jars of ikura as well.  Let me know if you would like a kilo and we can pack it.  We will be prepared with plenty of ice!

Summer farmers market meal: Tall Grass bread, Oxbow cauliflower, Seabreeze sausage, Mama Lil's peppers, Loki pink salmon, Willie Green's salad mix, Whistling Train carrots and Rent's Due Ranch blueberries.

If you haven’t tried the fresh smoked salmon primo from Pagliacci Pizza, you still have a couple more weeks before it is over for the year.

Fresh sockeye for dinner Sunday night.

I’ll post more when I hear how the fishing is going this week!

Fishing season is open!

Every year the boats take the three day journey up the inside passage to get to the fishing grounds to begin the season. Pete will be back in mid to late August, and Jonah plans to stay through September to catch fall cohos.

Jonah took some nice phone pics on the trip up with fishing vessel Loki Wednesday through Sunday:

Creeping up the vancouver island shore, strait of georgia.

Emerging from grenville channel straight into the sun.

Like a lake.

At anchor. Lord islands, AK. A good trip.

Jonah and Pete started fishing at noon today at Tree Point, south of Ketchikan. Both boats had a good trip up and have decent fishing with about 800 pounds on board of sockeye and keta salmon between the two.

Once done fishing, they’ll airbox the fish to Sea-Tac and we’ll be distributing it to our farmers market, restaurant and store accounts. Most weeks we ferry the fish directly Ketchikan-Bellingham layer iced in our box trucks.

Fishing is open a couple more days so it should be a pretty good sized shipment of fresh coming in later in the week.

First Bright Keta salmon of the season at Tree point, Alaska

Should hear more tomorrow from Pete and Jonah about how the fishing is going..and will be busy getting organized to receive and distribute the fish when it arrives.

The boats are off to Alaska!

Pete and Jonah got out on time (ish) Wednesday afternoon to make the journey up the inside passage to fish for the summer. This is Jonahs third year captaining fishing vessel Loki, and Petes 30th year (!) running his own boat to Alaska.

F/V Njord at the West Wall, Fishermen's Terminal

F/V Loki ready to leave for Alaska

For us, the leaving of the fleet officially marks the end of spring and the beginning of the summer season.

Jonah and Ben waiting to go through the Ballard Locks

They’ll be stopping on the way up at Tree Point, Alaska to catch our first fresh fish of the season.

Usually those first couple weeks we see some beautiful sockeyes come down.

Jonah is fishing with Ben Jaynes, his best friend and longtime deckhand.  Pete has two deckhands; Ethan has a couple years experience fishing out of Prince Williams Sound, and Brent has been working for us running the West Seattle Farmers Market as well as doing deliveries.

F/V Loki (left) and F/V Njord (right) going through the Ballard Locks

Stay tuned for news about how the fishing is going!