Salmon set-up: The fleet is ready, but the fish - and the processors - get the last word

摘要

The waters of Bristol Bay might pass for anywhere else in the vast near-shore waters of the Bering Sea if not for a curious array of specks — hundreds of drift boats —defining the gray waters of its fabled fishing districts. We're 1,400 feet up andhumming along at 115 knots in a Piper Cherokee when the first concentration of boats appears on the horizon at Egegik, renowned for its slug of Bristol Bay sockeye salmon each summer. It's July 7, a few days past Egegik's traditional peak of the Fourth of July, but the word is that the fish are running late this year and that the brunt of the run may materialize in the coming week.