Over the past few years many fishing organizations, processors and individual fishermen have been stressing quality as one of the quickest ways to improve the price paid to fishermen for their sockeye salmon. There are a number of ways to improve quality including quicker delivery times, better handling practices and chilling the fish from harvest through processing. One of the companies paying a premium for quality fish this season is Snopac Products headed by President Greg Blakey. He points to the company’s internal efforts to better inform the fleet on how to increase the quality of their harvested fish. He said, “We have some boats that are doing an absolutely fantastic job and we actually took one of the local boats here, that has done a consistently great job for the last couple of years, and we sent out a videographer to take some videos of their process and how they work their holds and how they get their fish so nice and cold. What we would like to do is develop a training video to take some of the guess work out of it for people that are new to slush icing”. The vessel chosen for the project was the Lady Patricia run by Vern and Patricia Carscallen from Dillingham. Patricia Carscallen noted that in many respects producing high quality sockeye is more attitude than procedure. She said, “You have to have the mindset that you want to produce quality fish and Greg makes it a little easier in that he appreciates it and he compensates us fairly well for good fish. The ice bonus with Snopac is significant. So that makes you feel like you are getting rewarded for what you are doing”. The price for a pound of sockeye varies widely this season from processor to processor and many of the major processors are not commenting on their price. That includes Peter Pan and Trident. However, Snopac Products announced that they are paying 86-cents a pound with a 5-cent bonus for participating in their bleeding program. However, the fleet that fishes for Snopac either has R-S-W capability or uses slush ice to chill down the sockeye. Greg Blakey hoped to have the D-V-D outlining good handling and chilling practices ready for their fleet to look at in advance of the 2010 sockeye season.
