The last few rounds of Ink-In RI Squid have been large and lovely. They elevate squid to the level of big game--prepare one per diner. Fully stuffed, they could substitute for a holiday turkey, or goose. Taxidermied, they would make a terrific change purse or black-powder horn.
Week Ahead, Urchins and Crab, Limited Locals, Farmed Sturgeon
Benign weather coast-wide has harvest ticking away for our deep-winter fisheries. Extra-speedy divers from Alaska have thumped the non-treaty quota for Red Sea Urchins weeks earlier than anyone expected.Today was the Last Regular Delivery of Reds. The tribes still have urchin quota, but are not very excited about harvesting Urchins--we will likely see a batch or three before warming waters put an end to urchin palatability--watch for updates--but the days of week-by-week consistency for Reds are done until next October. 20,000# remain on the non-treaty green urchin quota, so we will offer these beginning Monday. We still have processed Red Urchin. Greens will begin to be processed this next week for tubbed uni, price TBD.
Crab pricing remains reasonable and stable. For how long is anyone's guess. We work with no product on which pricing is more volatile than Dungeness Crab. Frankly, it is exhausting. This past week has seen some real drama, with some crab buyers finding themselves stuck with thousands of pounds of high priced product in a collapsing market, and rumors of semis loaded with coastal-origin crab wheeling around population centers looking for buyers. Many of the larger crab buyers are sitting on their hands waiting for the market to stabilize, and China is holding back for the moment. The poor crab fishermen currently have no idea, heading out in the morning, what pricing will be when they return to sell. Phew......But let waterfront mayhem be your gain! Affordable crab for the New Year! Also, we will be receiving a limited volume of farmed Sturgeon from Idaho--hopefully this will be a semi-regular product in the weeks ahead. Look for a more complete product description in a future Fish-O-Gram.
Department of Controversial Fishes
Quinalt River Steelhead
We are currently offering Quinalt River Steelhead from Quinalt Pride Seafoods. The Quinalt Nation completely encompasses the Quinalt River, meaning that only tribal members may fish the river. Various Quinalts offer guided fishing trips on the river--this is the only legal way for non-Quinalt folks to fish this river. In general, the river is extremely healthy and tribal management has maintained large numbers of fish. The Quinalt tribe chooses to provide opportunity to tribal members by allowing a heavily monitored gillnet fishery in the lower river and a guided sport fishery zone in the middle river. We love our tribal partners, respect their judgement, appreciate their stewardship of the resource and are proud to offer such a quality, sustainable, fresh, semi-salmon in the dead of winter.
Boycotts Can Be Counterproductive
We respect those who choose not to purchase, serve or consume netted wild Steelhead. It is our feeling, however, that those rivers and tribes that have managed their fisheries successfully should be celebrated. Boycotts are dull instruments, and cannot distinguish between the disastrous WDFW-led Puget Sound area Steelhead management and the generally successful tribal-led management on the Coast and on the Columbia. Providing an outlet for these fish is a service to the fishermen, their tribes, and to our customer base. We appreciate those who join us in celebrating this wonderful fish, and celebrating this tremendous conservation and cultural success story. We also appreciate those who choose not to, and hope that our explanation helps you to understand why we proudly feature Quinalt Steelhead.
East Coast on a Steady Roll
Warm water off the East Coast is creating a bizarre fish situation similar to what we experienced last winter. Last Fish-O-Gram included chart of global, weekly sea temperature variations from the norm. While our waters are now average or even slightly cooler than average, eastern seaboard water temps are dramatically higher than usual. Good weather means the fishing is easy, warm waters mean catches are unpredictable and often different than usual.
We have not yet ordered our first-of-the week E-Coast fishes, but we expect availability to be roughly the same as last week, with somewhat lower prices on most things (though Sardines and jumbo squid will be up slightly). Sadly our dreams of leading a West Coast Fluke boom have foundered on the rocky shoals of customer indifference. Next week will be Fluke No More. Please look for a Fish-O-Gram supplement Monday morning with final availability and pricing.
We have heard several reports of cleaned Monk Fillets being offered around town at very low prices. While we would never presume to tell customers what they should purchase, and from whom, we were confused at the low prices--below our cost--on product, and we did a little sleuthing. From what our sources tell us, there has been a slug of small, trawl-caught monk moving through the Eastern auction houses. Since we began the East-Coast program, our philosophy has been to not ship inferior product. One, because we don't sell inferior local product, and Two, because air freight is a significant enough cost to make shipping lesser fish foolish. We get the largest available, day boat, always gillnet, never trawl caught, Monk Tails. If our pricing is higher, it is because the tails cost us more. Comparing costs, not quality, may not be comparing apples to apples. That said, based on the way we bring in the E-Coast fish, we can offer substantial discounts to those who can purchase product by the unbroken 50# case, or 30# pail for Sardines. If you can work with larger volumes of fish, please contact Paisley for special pricing.
Heads Up On Frozen Product
Last Fall we purchased a wide range of quality frozen fishes to help nurse you, and us, through the winter. We are currently down to the last few boxes of FAS troll King Salmon, 5/7 B-cod and Baker River Sockeye fillets. Due to the wonders of the free market, we will be able to secure more, but pricing, especially on the Baker River and B-Cod, has crept up substantially. If you would like to secure any of these fishes at current pricing, please call, e-mail or text ASAP
Department of New year Resolutions
n the interest of streamlining operations here at Jones Ranch we are going to be tinkering with our ordering structure and deadlines in the weeks ahead. We appreciate your help in transitioning to a more efficient system.
We are, your gillnet-only monk tail, jumbo squid loving, JFFers
Contact us: Paisley @ (425) 577-2329 Nick, Ivan, Sara and Renee@ (360)-468-0533
Life Size 10 year-old With RI Squid
Week Ahead, Urchins and Crab, Limited Locals, Farmed Sturgeon
Benign weather coast-wide has harvest ticking away for our deep-winter fisheries. Extra-speedy divers from Alaska have thumped the non-treaty quota for Red Sea Urchins weeks earlier than anyone expected.Today was the Last Regular Delivery of Reds. The tribes still have urchin quota, but are not very excited about harvesting Urchins--we will likely see a batch or three before warming waters put an end to urchin palatability--watch for updates--but the days of week-by-week consistency for Reds are done until next October. 20,000# remain on the non-treaty green urchin quota, so we will offer these beginning Monday. We still have processed Red Urchin. Greens will begin to be processed this next week for tubbed uni, price TBD.
Crab pricing remains reasonable and stable. For how long is anyone's guess. We work with no product on which pricing is more volatile than Dungeness Crab. Frankly, it is exhausting. This past week has seen some real drama, with some crab buyers finding themselves stuck with thousands of pounds of high priced product in a collapsing market, and rumors of semis loaded with coastal-origin crab wheeling around population centers looking for buyers. Many of the larger crab buyers are sitting on their hands waiting for the market to stabilize, and China is holding back for the moment. The poor crab fishermen currently have no idea, heading out in the morning, what pricing will be when they return to sell. Phew......But let waterfront mayhem be your gain! Affordable crab for the New Year! Also, we will be receiving a limited volume of farmed Sturgeon from Idaho--hopefully this will be a semi-regular product in the weeks ahead. Look for a more complete product description in a future Fish-O-Gram.
Department of Controversial Fishes
This week we began bringing in large, lovely, exceptionally fresh Quinalt River Steelhead. Doing so sparked a variety of strong responses from many of you. Many folks believe Steelhead ought not to be commercially fished--that they should be reserved for anglers and conservation--sport caught fish of any kind may not enter the marketplace or restaurant world. But nothing is that simple. Steelhead are not a salmon, but rather an anadromous or seagoing, rainbow trout. They are milder than salmon, generally firm and have flesh ranging from light pink to dark red, depending on diet. Unlike other salmon, Steelhead do not necessarily die after spawning, a very cagey and very lucky Steelhead may spawn multiple times over a lifetime. Steelhead are a sport-only fish on the non-treaty side of the fishery fence, and may be the best sportfish on the West Coast. On the tribal side, Steelhead have extreme importance to treaty fishermen. Historically, Steelhead were the only fresh salmon through the winter for Washington tribes and as such were treasured maybe more than any fish other than King Salmon. Throughout the 20th century, sport fishing lobbies steadily whittled away at the rights of Indians to net for Steelhead. As much as any other species of salmon, Steelhead were the catalyst for the protest fisheries that led to the landmark Boldt Decision. The Boldt Decision divided management and harvest rights and responsibilities 50/50 between the tribes and Washington State, and clarified that tribes have exclusive rights to fish on reservation. Boldt marked the righting of a great historic wrong and set the stage for a phenomenal economic and cultural revival for waterfront tribes and vastly improved fisheries management in Washington State because of greater accountability. Working with various tribal fish communities is the heart of our fish business, and one of our great joys in life.
The photo below shows Marlon Brando, whoever that is, and Billy Frank Jr engaged in a protest fishery, netting Steelhead on the Nisqually River in 1964.
Brando under arrest by WDFW officer, evidence-in-hand.
Billy Frank Jr went on to become the most revered man in Washington Fisheries history, often referred to as the Pope of Fish. He passed in April, 2014. As far as we can tell from Wikipedia, Marlon Brando moved upriver in Vietnam sometime in the late 70s and went crazy.
A Tale of Two Regions
Once abundant throughout our state, Steelhead in the Puget Sound region have declined steadily, with some upticks, including a dramatic increase after WW2. Still, current runs in Puget Sound are estimated to be at 2% or less of historic abundance. Very little tribal netting, or sport harvest, now occurs in any of the Puget Sound rivers.
Rivers on the Washington Coast, however, have held up much better, as has the Columbia and tributaries--the 2015 Bonneville Dam Count was 270,000 fish, down from 325,000 in 2014. All the coastal rivers, Columbia and tributaries support robust commercial, tribal fisheries and large sport fisheries. Management of these systems is largely in tribal hands, or in the case of the Columbia, Bonneville Power Administration in conjunction with the tribes, and they have, on the whole, done much better managing Steelhead and other salmon stocks than Washington State has.
Quinalt River Steelhead
We are currently offering Quinalt River Steelhead from Quinalt Pride Seafoods. The Quinalt Nation completely encompasses the Quinalt River, meaning that only tribal members may fish the river. Various Quinalts offer guided fishing trips on the river--this is the only legal way for non-Quinalt folks to fish this river. In general, the river is extremely healthy and tribal management has maintained large numbers of fish. The Quinalt tribe chooses to provide opportunity to tribal members by allowing a heavily monitored gillnet fishery in the lower river and a guided sport fishery zone in the middle river. We love our tribal partners, respect their judgement, appreciate their stewardship of the resource and are proud to offer such a quality, sustainable, fresh, semi-salmon in the dead of winter.
Boycotts Can Be Counterproductive
We respect those who choose not to purchase, serve or consume netted wild Steelhead. It is our feeling, however, that those rivers and tribes that have managed their fisheries successfully should be celebrated. Boycotts are dull instruments, and cannot distinguish between the disastrous WDFW-led Puget Sound area Steelhead management and the generally successful tribal-led management on the Coast and on the Columbia. Providing an outlet for these fish is a service to the fishermen, their tribes, and to our customer base. We appreciate those who join us in celebrating this wonderful fish, and celebrating this tremendous conservation and cultural success story. We also appreciate those who choose not to, and hope that our explanation helps you to understand why we proudly feature Quinalt Steelhead.
East Coast on a Steady Roll
Warm water off the East Coast is creating a bizarre fish situation similar to what we experienced last winter. Last Fish-O-Gram included chart of global, weekly sea temperature variations from the norm. While our waters are now average or even slightly cooler than average, eastern seaboard water temps are dramatically higher than usual. Good weather means the fishing is easy, warm waters mean catches are unpredictable and often different than usual.
We have not yet ordered our first-of-the week E-Coast fishes, but we expect availability to be roughly the same as last week, with somewhat lower prices on most things (though Sardines and jumbo squid will be up slightly). Sadly our dreams of leading a West Coast Fluke boom have foundered on the rocky shoals of customer indifference. Next week will be Fluke No More. Please look for a Fish-O-Gram supplement Monday morning with final availability and pricing.
We have heard several reports of cleaned Monk Fillets being offered around town at very low prices. While we would never presume to tell customers what they should purchase, and from whom, we were confused at the low prices--below our cost--on product, and we did a little sleuthing. From what our sources tell us, there has been a slug of small, trawl-caught monk moving through the Eastern auction houses. Since we began the East-Coast program, our philosophy has been to not ship inferior product. One, because we don't sell inferior local product, and Two, because air freight is a significant enough cost to make shipping lesser fish foolish. We get the largest available, day boat, always gillnet, never trawl caught, Monk Tails. If our pricing is higher, it is because the tails cost us more. Comparing costs, not quality, may not be comparing apples to apples. That said, based on the way we bring in the E-Coast fish, we can offer substantial discounts to those who can purchase product by the unbroken 50# case, or 30# pail for Sardines. If you can work with larger volumes of fish, please contact Paisley for special pricing.
Heads Up On Frozen Product
Last Fall we purchased a wide range of quality frozen fishes to help nurse you, and us, through the winter. We are currently down to the last few boxes of FAS troll King Salmon, 5/7 B-cod and Baker River Sockeye fillets. Due to the wonders of the free market, we will be able to secure more, but pricing, especially on the Baker River and B-Cod, has crept up substantially. If you would like to secure any of these fishes at current pricing, please call, e-mail or text ASAP
Department of New year Resolutions
n the interest of streamlining operations here at Jones Ranch we are going to be tinkering with our ordering structure and deadlines in the weeks ahead. We appreciate your help in transitioning to a more efficient system.
We are, your gillnet-only monk tail, jumbo squid loving, JFFers
Contact us: Paisley @ (425) 577-2329 Nick, Ivan, Sara and Renee@ (360)-468-0533
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