#alaska salmon program

2014 saw relatively large returns of fish to their spawning grounds in Bristol Bay.  This led to excellent underwater photography opportunities of large schools of sockeye salmon and made our annual sample collections of adult sockeye measurements around Iliamna Lake a breeze.  

Going into the season I was all amped up, with a new quadcopter I had been working on for 4 months, two working camera trap rigs, and a new underwater housing setup.  

The season started off well at Lake Aleknagik.  From June to the beginning of July I was getting aerial shots and footage of sampling events and spectacular locations around the lake, shots of juvenile and resident fish species were pouring in (the salmon weren't in yet) and I was even getting shots of critters (mainly foxes) on the camera traps.  

When July rolled around it was time for us to head over and open up operations at Iliamna Lake.  The underwater photography would continue to be excellent throughout the year, with tons of salmon and willing resident fish getting right up to my camera. I did fly my quadcopter around a bit more until one sunny day on Chinkelyes Creek when the salmon were just coming in. I was taking some footage and then I, well lost it in the woods...R.I.P.  We searched for it for a a half an hour or so and then I said "screw it" and threw on my wetsuit and went to taking pictures of salmon.  Nothing would ever be captured on the camera traps again the rest of the season, bears in general were hardly spotted by anyone we talked to either at Iliamna or at Aleknagik which was quite unusual.  All in all it was a great year, just more successful in certain ways than others.

We're moving to Lake Illiamna tomorrow! I am currently packing up about 1/3 of my stuff because our plane has a weight limit, the other 2/3 I am going to leave behind to be shipped back to Seattle in October.

It's really exciting to be moving on, Aleknagik is an amazing place, but our camp is right next to a popular boat launch so sometimes it's hard to remember you're in such a remote place, especially on the weekends. Our next camp is on an island in the biggest lake in Alaska. I'm going to miss the people here at Lake Aleknagik, we've all become kind of a big family. 

I'm really happy to not have to chuck 2000+ dead fish out of Hansen Creek every day either, it was an amazing experience and I learned a lot (about science and my tolerance levels), but we are all getting to the point where the work is just monotonous and the creek smells so bad because of the maggots. 

Happy travels, my friends!