It’s late April and we may still have 5 feet of snow on the ground, but the spring shrimp opener is our precursor to a long and beautiful fishing season. Time to put away the snowmachine and skis, and pull out the fishing gear!
Shrimp pots prepared for deployment. We are allowed to fish 5 pots per boat.
Sunset view of Port Valdez. Our house/neighborhood is to the left of the dark spruce-covered hill you see on the left side of the picture.
Diana attaching a shrimp pot to the line with a long line clip.
Diana throwing the shrimp pot into the sea.
Shrimp pot making a splash. Do your job, Mr. Pot.
Line deploying, buoy waiting. Our boat name: Sea Ducktion. Get it?
Diana throwing the buoy into the water. Now we let them soak. We normally leave them 24-48 hours before we pull them back up.
24 hours later . . .
Reed trapped on the bow of the boat, watching as we pull the pots. She likes shrimpies too.
Diana using the mini pot-puller to pull the shrimp pots. All hail the mini pot puller. Before this we pulled by hand, and our hands bled. Literally. It was horrible.
Hand-pulling only lasted 1 day. We immediately invested in a pot puller.
First pot of spot prawns coming up.
Diana bringing the shrimp pot on board.
Close-up of the spot prawns we caught.
Diana freeing the spot prawns. 4 more pots to go.
It wasn’t a large catch, but it made a great dinner.
Our first spot prawn dinner of the year, an all-Alaska surf and turf. Grilled Spot Prawns with Char Grilled Venison Tenderloins and Three-Herb Chimichurri.
