Uganik Island Local Custom Tips by herzog63

Fishing Dog

Alot of fisherman like to bring their dogs along. It's funny how the dogs learn to not step on the fish and stay out of the way! My Captains dog was great she would come out with us and just stay completely out of the way. Sadly the dog was hit by a car just a few days after we returned to town. She wasn't used to the traffic.

The Tender

You can read about the tender in the "Making the Delivery" Tip. The Advantage was the name our tender for the whole summer. They were our life line to the outside world. Getting a week old newspaper was a real treat!

Delivering to a Tender

The Tender is the bigger fishing boat usually in the 45 foot range that goes around the island buying salmon from smaller operations like us each day and they deliver the fish to the processors. We were too far from the cannery to make such deliveries with our small boat. We would also place our grocery order with the tendor and they would make our food deliveries once per week.

Another Get together

This get together was one of the funnest ones as we went to the eastern end of Uganik Island which is at the head of Terror Bay! Just hearing that sends shivers through my spine!! LOL We spent the whole day here drinking beer and eating lot's of food!! The stories that were told were funny too. I'm kind of a quiet person that doesn't tell stories well in front of a lot of people but I sure love listening to stories especially from fisherman....You know about 80 percent of what "they" say is exagerated!! LOL

Showerator

The Showerator was our combination Refrigerator which would keep Beer and Soda at about 45 degrees F. And it was also our shower!!! I didn't take too many long showers but I did take one every day!! 30 seconds was long enough for most days!! Lather up and rinse off!!
Oh yea and it was our source of drinking water!!

Getting together during a fishing closure

The Department of Fish and Game does peroidic closures during the summer to insure that enough Salmon escape from the fisherman to ensure that there will be enough of them to make it to the spawning grounds and complete the cycle of life. For the fisherman this is the time to repair nets and do maintenance on the boats. If that is complete then it's time to get together with other fisherman and have a barbeque!! I enjoyed those times!!