It's actually a long story, but I'll 'cut to the chase scene'.

My fishin' buddy, Jim, was down in Whittier (60.46.23.00N, 148.41'02.00W), last Monday showing his brother and his brother's wife 'around Alaska'. While they were waiting for their ship to come in - literally - Jim noticed a guy catching herring (Clupea pallasii) from shore. Jim's from the upper midwest and isn't familiar with a lot of the 'small town' things that go on in Alaska, and didn't realize that people catch herring from "the shore" (more often from a dock) at most of the coastal towns.

Jim is a fishing fool.

Let me repeat that for emphasis.

Jim is a fishing fool.

I've never known anyone that is as big a fishing fool as Jim is. So when he saw someone catching something - SEVERAL AT A TIME  and FROM THE SHORE OF THE OCEAN - he immediately had to try it. Of course that meant asking his "Fish and Game friend" - that'd be me - about this 'catching herring from the shore thing'.

When he asked me about it, I told him "Sure. That's done all the time." When he asked if I had ever done it, I said, "No. I've always wanted to, but I just never got around to it." He then says... "Let's go to Whittier tomorrow and 'slay' some herring."

I was actually planning to fly out to Skwentna (61.57.310.00N, 151.10'52.00W) to help a friend with his cabin, but when he couldn't get free, I told Jim, "I'm free to go fishing. Let's go tomorrow." Since he'd been hounding me to go fishing instead, his response was instantaneous - YES!.

Whittier has only been accessible by car for about 10 years. Up 'til then, it was only accessible by train through a tunnel through the mountains, and by boat and plane. About 10 years ago, they decided that since the train only went through the tunnel twice a day, they could let cars drive on the railroad tracks the rest of the day. Of course there was a lot of controversy over it, but in the end, the government got its way as it always does.

So now, cars can go through the tunnel ONE WAY ONLY. At the top of the hour cars come out of Whittier to the Seward Highway, and on the half hour they go into Whittier. The tunnel closes at 2300 and opens at 0500 I think.

Since "my side of the tunnel" was a 2-hour drive from my house, and since we wanted to have all day to fish, we figured we'd have to leave my house at 0605 headed south for Whittier. That meant getting 'geared up' for fishing for herring.

Drinksgin - Here's the answer to your question: "How do you catch herring?"

Sportfishing in Alaska, you can use a couple of 'special' fishing methods and means IF you are fishing in salt water:

1) You can snag fish, and
2) You can use multiple hooks on a single line.

Those would be BIG offenses if used in freshwater sport fishing. So, a herring jig consists of a length of line about 6 feet long with a weight at the bottom end. At intervals of about 1 foot, you put #8 or #10 GOLD "egg" hooks on leaders of about 6". That's it. The herring WILL strike the bare hooks. Some commercially-sold jigs have little beads and other "fluff" added to them, but that's not necessary.

Back to the story: Since my daughter works at Sportsman's Warehouse, I we there to get a mess of snelled #8 egg hooks, and then commenced to make up a couple of "herring jigs".

Jim arrived at my place at 0550, and we were headed out my driveway in my 1985 Toyota 'something' King Cab with the "little green boat" on top,  at 0605. We arrived at the tunnel entrance at about 0810. Here's what the surroundings look like.





Phone just rang and I gotta go. News at 11...

Paul

Interesting, the only ways I had heard of catching herring was with purse seines and trawling.
Is there much dry curing and smoking of herring in Alaska?
I have had the dry cured and smoked herring a couple of times, some was pretty good, some was very good.
The canned herring I have tried was not much, although I suppose the tiny brisling sardines from Scandanavia are herrings and they are quite good in sild oil and a 2 layer pack.
I have caught sunfish, very small ones, from  a super overcrowded stock tank on bare gold hooks.
Please continue.

Off the top of my head I don't know of anybody that smokes or dries herring. Given how oily they are, they should be very good prepared those ways. Now that I have figured the catching out, I'm going to have to try them several ways. The way I like herring BEST is 'unborn'. In other words, roe. More specifically, roe-on-kelp. (The Japanese pay BIG bucks for this delicacy.) The herring spawn en mass up in the intertidal zone on kelp. We then go out and get buckets-full of it. Then, the BEST part is taking that roe-on-kelp and dipping it in seal oil. If you don't have any seal oil, you can substitute rendered bear fat or in a pinch, vegetable oil. With seal oil, it is divine! Both the roe-on-kelp and the seal oil are difficult for me to get these days.

On with the story...

Here is Jim rigging up while we waited for the tunnel to open for the 'going in' direction.





Here's what it looked like 'on the other side'.
From the boat "looking out":


And "looking back":






(These were all taken with my cell phone, so they are not the quality of my regular camera.)

When we got through the tunnel, it was HOWLING! At least 30 knots.  :eek:The whole inlet was in whitecaps. I couldn't keep a ballcap on. We decided to try from the beach to start with.

Here is a Google Earth view of ALL of Whittier from the tunnel entrance on the east to the 'edge of town' on the south and west. The inlet is the 'big black thing'.


Here is a closer, annotated view of where we were fishing.



There was already one fellow there and he wasn't doing bad. Every third cast or so he'd bring in one or two. However, they often got off right as he got them to shore. It was especially tough to land multiple fish successfully.

Jim got going quickly, and I decided to watch a while. However, when Jim landed his first, I went back to the truck and rigged up.

Slowly people trickled in. I don't know what it is about Asians and fishing etiquette, but they think nothing standing RIGHT NEXT to you when there is a 100 yards of shore or river bank to fish. Two of them - separately - came and started fishing within THREE FEET OF ME! ONE ON EACH SIDE! When I moved, they just continued to fish right beside each other. OY!

Not very long after that, some larger ocean-going charter boats showed up and started fishing for the herring. They were after bait for use in the 'outside' waters for salmon. The silvers (coho salmon, Oncorhynchus kisutch) were "in" and it was Friday afternoon on a sunny day. Whitecaps weren't an issue for the bigger boats. They were an issue for The Little Green Boat (LGB).

I hadn't actually anticipated using the boat. From what Jim had told me he had seen, I thought we would be fishing from shore. But given the rudeness of the throng that had descended on the beach, and the poor catch-per-unit-effort from the beach, if we didn't use the boat we weren't going to catch any fish.

Besides the whitecaps issue, I hadn't brought an anchor 'cause I didn't think we'd need it. Ultimately we didn't, but....

The way the wind was blowing, the harbour and breakwater were creating a wind shadow right where the herring fishing was best. I thought we could get out off-shore and avoid the yahoos on shore and be able to avoid the "big" waves (whitecaps). I knew however, that we would get blown around for sure, and therefore needed an anchor. I found a little hardware store in town and bought an anchor and 50' of  anchor-line. The cast, 15 lb anchor ONLY cost $55. They knew if anybody needed any gear there, they were at the merchant's mercy. There was no mercy.

Then we had to find a boat launch and a place to park the truck. $5 for 'kayak' launch, and $20 for parking. Sheesh! Nonetheless, we were on the water about 1030. We motored (little electric trolling motor) over to the "herring hole". Water was too deep for the 50' of anchor line AND, the combination of all the "big" boats and the waves was just too much for the LGB. We had to tuck tail and head for calmer water.

As you can see from the satellite photos, the Alaska Ferry System ferries docked close by. It was completely sheltered in that area, so that's where we headed. We found a "fishy looking" place and set the anchor. We immediately started catching little (1-poundish) "gray cod" (Microgadus proximus). It was fun - we were catching fish - and we kept the largest ones - maybe 2-pounders. In about an hour, we had caught something like 100 of them.

In that hour, the wind calmed down a bit, and more importantly, the harbour master came and told us we had to move because the ferry was coming in. Since the wind had calmed, we headed back around to "the beach". This time we didn't even try to anchor up, we decided to just head over to the north end of the beach and drift through the 'herring hole'. That was very productive. We started catching herring immediately. Most of the time we had 3 or four fish on at once. Each of us. Of those two or three would be herring and two or three would be Pacific cod (Gadus macrocephalus). Once I actually had seven fish on seven hooks at once. Most of the time if there were more than 3 fish on at once, some got off before we could get every one in the bucket.

As the day wore on, it got calmer and calmer. We decided to turn the gray cod loose, and the gulls and bald eagles had a small feeding frenzy. It was amazing to see the gulls swallow whole a 15" fish bigger around than their head, and it was cool to see the eagles swoop in and grab them and fly off to a perch to tear them into 'bite-sized' pieces.

We beached the boat and 'loaded up' in time to catch the 5 o'clock 'outgoing' tunnel opening, and were back at my place by 1930. When we counted them up, there were 102 herring.



I'm sure we lost at least that many that shook off at the boat. It took Jim and I two hours to scale, gut, and 'dice' them into pickling-sized chunks. They're "cooking" in the pickling spices as we 'speak'.

We also brought home some of the bigger cod:


On the way out we stopped to get a picture of Portage lake:


I think I'll go back for a little more herring fishing in Whittier. Catching fish CONSTANTLY for 3 hours is just too much fun. If I do, I'll smoke and dry some of them.

Paul

I hate you!!!!!!!!!
Really, try salt curing some and then smoke them dry and give us a taste review.

I went to my old recipe file box, on the mullet[another oily fish], I removed the head and tail as soon as I caught them, then put them on ice, went home and gutted them, carefully scraped all the black from the abdominal cavity, split then so they laid out book fashion, then put them in a cold pickle of canning salt strong enough to float an egg with plenty of mixed pickling spice, sliced onion and some more or less hot peppers, say anaheims.
After 4-5 hours, I dried then, rinsed them in cold water and then either cold smoked them for 3 hours or more, 100-120' , for freezing. or  hot smoked them [at 250' or more] until they flaked done then gobbled them up on the spot!!!!
I have no idea if this would work on herring, but it does work on mullet.

That sounds like a good recipe/procedure. I find it difficult to believe herring wouldn't be REALLY good dried and smoked. I'll try it if/when I get some more herring.

When you say,

QuoteI dried them, rinsed them in cold water and...

Do you mean 'patted them dry with a paper towel', then rinsed them?

Paul

Yes, and again after a fresh water rinse, before starting to smoke them as I wanted to smoke them, not steam them.
For drying, I would start out with a dry cure, similar to what you use on pork , let it work about an hour per 1/4" thickness, wash it off, dry with paper towels and then smoke until it is the color that suits you.
I have dried, cured and smoked a lot of things, even shrimp and crayfish[after peeling, of course] some came out good, some made it straight to the dog's bowl , and occasionally from there into the garbage if the dog would'nt eat it!
One thing that came out better than I thought it would was the little blue salt water mussels we have here, steamed open, lightly salted with seasoned salt and then smoked on the shell they were a bit chewy but had a nice flavor.
Never know until you try, RJ , you could try with your available products, tongue, kidneys, hearts, mountain oysters, just let your imagination run wild!

Moved posts #s 3 to 7 from Davidlt89's thread titled "Got a little fishin in". I got my posts stuck over there by accident.

Paul

I suspect that the "little blue mussels" are Mytilus edulis. They are very good regardless of the way they are prepared, but excellent smoked.

I LOVE tongue. I take it from every big game ungulate (cloven-hoofed) I shoot. I pressure cook it, peel it, and slice it really thin for sandwiches. Even a moose or buffalo tongue doesn't last long in my house. I've not tried it smoked, but it should be delicious.

The recipe/procedure I use for pickling these herring is:

For 1 quart of herring:

Stage 0ne.
1 cup salt (your choice, but non-iodized is generally considered better than iodized),
1 quart of vinegar - use what you like. I buy a gallon of cheap white vinegar for this initial stage.
Cover steaked or filleted fish with this solution and put in refrigerator for 5 days, stirring at least once per day.

Stage 2.
One sliced onion - Again use what you like. I liketo use red ones just for 'color'.
3 cups of sugar - I am tempted to use brown sugar, but I have not tried it, so do so at your own 'risk'.
4 cups of vinegar - same notes apply as above.
1/4 cup of pickling spices.
*If you like, add other spices like peppers*

Drain the fish from Stage One; rinse them well 3 times; clean container WELL for reuse.
If you slice the onion, alternate layers of onion and fish in the pickling container. (It's best if this container is glass or crockery.) Heat the vinegar sufficiently to melt all of the sugar. Let cool COMPLETELY. DO NOT COOK THE FISH. You can add the pickling spices to the vinegar/sugar concoction while its hot or after, I don't think it really matters. When cool, pour the concoction over the fish/onion. Refrigerate for 5 days, stirring at least once per day. Eat.

The long pickling times I THINK are necessary to allow the vinegar to dissolve the bones. If you use fillets, there shouldn't be any bones and they should be thinner than 'steaks', so "standing" times might be lessened. I like 'chunks' though. I have used this recipe for salmon and northern pike.

Paul

That sounds as though it might work on carp and suckers, a nice tasting fish with a BUNCH of y bones in the meat.
Up to now, the only way I have found to make the bones safe is to pressure cook the fish, which does not do much for the flavor and texture.
Pretty much means you just make fish cakes of them.
I shall get a sucker at the local fish market and try it, soon.
Thanks
PS. on the pike, did it dissolve or at least soften the y bones?

It completely dissolves the y bones in the pike. In the herring, it's goign to have to dissolve the ribs and the spinal column. I know the commercial pickled herring chunks - not fillets - don't have any noticeable rib or spinal bones, but that's commercial processing. It will be another 9 days before this batch is ready to eat. I'll let you know then how it worked on these small fish.

Paul

I looked up "edulis" sure looks like the mussels I raked off the pilings and smoked, as I said, nice flavor, just a bit chewy, although not nearly as much as the horse clams I tried, they really need a grinder and pattie recipe, either that or settle in for a day's chewing on each one.

:D

Awright, it has been MORE than 9 days, how are the pickled herring?
Come on, we're waiting!

They turned out great!

I've eaten about half of them. Any time I want a snack I just grab a jar and take two or three chunks. The bones are still visible, but I can't detect them when I eat it.

I probably wouldn't change anything in the recipe. It produces a product that tastes and looks good.

Paul

Now for some suckers, the fish place usually has big mouth or black buffalo, some red horse suckers would be nice, but I do not know if they are found this far east.
Another very good flavored sucker is the carp sucker, a small specie, and not likely to show up in the market.
If I caught a carp it would be a good candidate for the pickling, too.