Looking for local fisherman recommendations (Metlakatla: to buy, price, shop)
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Well, perhaps the OP can come back and answer a few questions I have for them.
1. Why on earth do you think it would be cost effective to fly up, rent a place to stay for a week, buy the fish, lease processing and freezer space (which you wouldn't be able to do anyway), and then schlep it all back to St. Louis to the tune of fifty bucks each for the fish boxes? That's after you buy the boxes and the dry ice to pack them in. And as I stated before, the boxes have to be airline approved.
2. Even if you could rent processing space, why do you think that it is not against the health codes for you to provide your own packaging?
3. Why are you making the assumption that the big, evil fish conglomerates (actually, they're just processing plants providing a necessary service) or other processors and the individual fishermen are somehow at odds with each other to the extent that your buying directly from them would "help them out"?
4. Are you a pure idjit or just a typical greenie urban liberal with a negative brain cell count who thinks that your pseudo altruistic ways are going to help out those poor fishermen tyrannized by that evil Trident et al?
5. Why aren't you aware that Anchorage is not a commercial fishing mecca?
Now, I do believe in the principles that you're trying to convey in your post--eating locally, sustainably, etc., but the Alaska fishing industry in hardly some oppressed 3rd world style occupation that needs saving by pure hearted urban liberals (all while saving a buck in the process).
I think Danny's right and that you're trying to by-pass the middleman.
And your post sort of had a ring to it as if you considered what you're offering to be a favor...was that how you felt about it too?
Heh...this has really gotten under your skin hasn't it Met? But I can see why.
I am assuming that these are people that just don't have a clue and they really are the "urban liberals" as you put it.
BTW...I did have a legitimate license. Not sure I would get one nowadays with the operation I had then. I called it "Ancient Mariner Seafoods". Basically I would go down to Homer...run down to outside of Seldovia or so and lay out a short long line for cod. The I would run the line and if the weather was good just hang of the end of it while I fileted the fish, washed them and bagged them. I had a little candling table set up to spot worms.
I found that I had to get away from Katchemak Bay to stay out of the wormy cod.
I could sell all the cod I could catch in 10 pound bags of fresh cod to people in Anchorage. Still...it wasn't worth my time and I quit.
Heh...this has really gotten under your skin hasn't it Met? But I can see why.
I am assuming that these are people that just don't have a clue and they really are the "urban liberals" as you put it.
BTW...I did have a legitimate license. Not sure I would get one nowadays with the operation I had then. I called it "Ancient Mariner Seafoods". Basically I would go down to Homer...run down to outside of Seldovia or so and lay out a short long line for cod. The I would run the line and if the weather was good just hang of the end of it while I fileted the fish, washed them and bagged them. I had a little candling table set up to spot worms.
I found that I had to get away from Katchemak Bay to stay out of the wormy cod.
I could sell all the cod I could catch in 10 pound bags of fresh cod to people in Anchorage. Still...it wasn't worth my time and I quit.
Marty...black cod is pretty premium stuff these days and something like that might work now but only in conjunction with other bottom fish I would think. The Alaska Seafood Institute has done a pretty incredible job in the last couple of years of marketing it to high end restaurants.
Yes, it has gotten under my skin, for more reasons than one. In the first place I don't care for the assumption that the only way to avoid the oppressingly evil "big fish conglomerates" is to buy directly from the local fishermen. I don't like the idea of someone inexperienced with salmon processing it themselves in an illegal fashion and offering it for sale, even if it is in a small co-op. We put a lot of time and expertise into offering a quality product to the market and the thought of amateurs messing around with it under the guise of urban liberal altruism makes me ill, especially when their motivations are entirely self serving.
In the seafood business...state of Alaska rules and regs actually work quite well. There is no huge disconnect between the local fishermen and the processors, large or small.
And King salmon has been pretty much impossible to keep in stock for the last couple of years and I really have to wonder why anyone would think they would be doing a local fisherman a favor by buying it illegally from him/her.
I am writing from St. Louis, Missouri and am trying to make contacts in the whole foods community in Anchorage. Our group will be sending a member to Anchorage, Alaska to purchase salmon and other wild caught fish for a small natural foods co-operative I manage in St. Louis. Our goal is to buy, process, freeze, and bring back 500 pounds of wild caught Alaskan fish.
We get approached at the dock down here all the time by tourists wanting to "hook up" on fresh fish. Not legal.
Good for you for saying no to that.
I noticed the OP hasn't come back; probably thinking that we're going to be falling all over ourselves to e-mail them offering to sell them fish.
It's ironic but the sort of thing that the OP is proposing could, if legal, completely undermine the seafood industry not only in AK but in the entire United States....and all under the guise of "helping out the locals".
Such things would hurt the locals the most.
Thank Heaven that the average urban liberal is as dumb as a box of rocks.
[quote=Metlakatla;
Thank Heaven that the average urban liberal is as dumb as a box of rocks.[/quote]
Met why would you think the average urban person is a liberal and they are at fault? The cheapest people I know of are all conservative and many of them are urban dwellers. I remember the shrimp docks in Florida which I think are considered as fisher people and the cheap ones flocked there to buy the bycatch they came up with. But then are all liberals rich? I don't know the answers to those questions but many people are dumb as dirt just because they are part of the human race. Now why are they liberals?
Urban people are more liberal than rural so a generalization that urban people are liberal is correct more than 1/2 of the time.
In general, urban liberals are intelligent. But they are only intelligent within the narrow focus of their environment which often does not include actual food production. They get most of their food in the local markets...even if they are farmers markets.
An urban food coop from St Louis trying to purchase Alaskan Salmon off the docks in Alaska, process it in Alaska and then fly it back to St Louis to resell in their coop is evidence of that on it's face. In this particular environment they don't have a clue.
It reminds me of a young man that I knew. Extremely intelligent. Actually ended up studying with Steven Hawking and is currently one of the top experts on black holes and gravity. He couldn't figure out how to turn on a vacuum cleaner when asked to vacuum a room. He didn't understand that you had to plug it in first.
Intelligence can be measured in many different ways.
Urban people are generally pretty dumb when it comes to rural issues.
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