A Salmon Family, in Sickness and in Health ~ Salmon Life

Constellations return with the silvers. When cohos begin to surge in the creeks, the night sky again spreads over the mountains of Kodiak and real, actual darkness graces the night. But the return of stars does not mean the return of quiet. Just as those athletic fighters of a fish muscle up streams and make anglers work to bring them ashore, we Alaskans hustle to savor the last streaks of summer light before we acknowledge that, yes, it is mostly gone until next spring.

Late summer, early fall: the season of cranberries, of spent fireweed, of silver salmon.

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For the Dela Cruz family of Kodiak, it’s the last weekend before school begins. They’ve been busy fishing and putting up a home pack since the sockeyes returned in late spring. “It was good fishing this year,” says dedicated sports fisherman Randy Dela Cruz. He looks towards the slow rapids in which a plump coho bobs near the bank of the Pasagshak River. It is tied to a rock with a string that is looped through its still-breathing gills.

"It was good fishing this year."

Wide-eyed seals bob in the surf where the Pasagshak River meets the bay. A black dog whines at the long-lashed creatures and barks at the silvers being hauled ashore on fly rods and reels. The sky reflects blue on the large cove of Pasagshak Bay, which although capacious is still but a blip within the much larger Ugak Bay on the northeast side of Kodiak Island. This is road-system fishing, so the Dela Cruz family is not alone on the sandy bank. But it is Alaska, so the wildness still makes the heart pitter-patter in time with the flicks of the returning silvers’ tails.

“They are coming up the river!” Randy shouts at his 12 year old son, Isaiah, on the other side of the bank.

“I see them!” Isaiah hollers back, whipping his neon fly line just in front of the noses of the swimming salmon. Shortly later, Isaiah runs back to the mouth of the river, empty handed.

The fact that Isaiah is on the river bank at all is a success story. This August 31 was the two-year anniversary of his liver transplant. Standing in the sand, he wears a hood and a long-sleeved jacket even though it is nearly 80 degrees, since immune suppressing drugs make him particularly susceptible to sunburn.

His seven year old sister, Ava, uses the slim shadow of her fishing mother, Aubrey, to shield herself from the unseasonably warm sun. Ava wears hot pink camouflage waders, but you should take her fishing skills seriously. She was the first in the family to catch a silver this year, at the annual kids’ pink salmon derby on the Buskin River, nonetheless.

“After the transplant, Isaiah couldn’t fish for a year,” Aubrey says as she watches her son flick his fly rod. During that year, rather than suffer the anguish of watching his family floss reds without him, he often would stay back in town with friends.

At his one year checkup, he had one question for his doctor: “Can I go fishing?” The doctor assented, and to celebrate his family headed straight out to Pasagshak for a weekend of camping and salmon fishing.

The doctor did approve fishing, but he still couldn’t go to Saltry. It takes an hour on an ATV to get to this favorite fishing spot. “At his second year checkup, he asked the doctor, ‘Can I go to Saltry now?’” Aubrey recalls. “I told the doctor that it’s far from the road and there isn’t cell reception in case of an emergency.” The doctor listened thoughtfully. He let Aubrey know that it was as risky for Isaiah to go to Saltry as it was any other 12 year old boy. That next weekend, Isaiah rode behind Randy as they forged through streams and bounced through potholes the size of ponds in order to fish their limit at Saltry.

The salmon scales on the toes of Aubrey's waders flash like jewels.

Randy reels a silver to shore. It’s likely a fifteen pounder. “My veins start to pop out on my biceps when it’s twenty,” he jokes. Salmon fishing consumes the Dela Cruz family’s weekends in the summer and fall. They are solidly a sports fishing family, but salmon partially fuel their day jobs, too. Aubrey works in the office at APS, a fish processor on Kodiak’s waterfront, and Randy works at Petro Marine, where seiners fuel up on their way to the fishing grounds.

Aubrey walks towards Randy, the salmon scales on the toes of her waders flash like jewels. She adds another silver to the bobbing string. At the end of the day, they will grind some of the salmon and freeze the rest. Aubrey likes to make fish balls from the ground salmon. She dices green onions, carrots, and celery and mixes the vegetables with some fish, eggs and cornstarch. She fries the patties and serves them with sweet chili sauce.

As for Isaiah, his favorite preparation is teriyaki king salmon. He also likes fishing for kings the best. “They are easier and more fun to catch than anything else,” he claims.

Based on his gleaming braces when he hauls the coho ashore, Isaiah is happy to land silvers, too. With that, the family has reached their limit. They will leave with two silvers each in addition to the proxy fish they caught for elders back in town.

The family begins to put salmon in a cooler and prepares to leave. School begins on Tuesday. Several weeks of silver fishing are in front of them before the fish become sparse and the days too short to drive out after work. “For us, it’s a family affair,” Randy says.

Fireweed seeds blow like feathers in the breeze as Isaiah takes out a serrated knife and cuts his coho’s gills. He crosses the river with a string of silvers. The blood flowing from their twitching gills looks like stripes in the blue river.

"For us, it’s a family affair."

Salmon Life

A Salmon Family, in Sickness and in Health

The Story of The Dela Cruz Family

Here on the Rocks

Sewing (and Sharing) with Salmon

A Salmon Family, in Sickness and in Health

The Story of The Dela Cruz Family

Here on the Rocks

Sewing (and Sharing) with Salmon

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