Fishing Alaska's Copper river.....with a Fish Wheel !

[Music] how's it going everybody my name is Dave Whipple and you're watching Busch for article today I'm down here in beautiful Glen Allen Alaska with my buddy Dave still and we're going to be getting some reds out of the Copper River world famous red salmon on the world-famous Copper River with a fish we'll stay tuned so how many fish are we gonna get tied what if we just skip fishing it sit around and play cards take long naps and do nothing heck no Dave and I have been pouring concrete together for 20 years and once in a blue moon we actually get a chance to go do something that doesn't suck like go fishing these fish wheels belong to Dave's dead and he has a subsistence permit and we're just down here cleaning and gutting and filling a subsistence tag [Applause] [Music] along with Dave and myself there's three other folks running this wheel Dave son Davey our good buddy Jay Heath and J son Jericho five of us who work in its wheel [Music] [Music] [Music] process is really simple you just wait for the fish to get dropped out of the wheel into the basket you net the fish out of the basket Club the fish and you filet them out because this is a subsistence permit you have to clip the corners of the fish's tail make sure you get them in the cooler quick and get a my sound [Music] right now baby still is running to death cleaning out the basket J's runneth the knife and fig Dave he Sprint's in the fish and getting packed up [Music] now just because this river is really beautiful don't let it fool you the Copper River is famous for two things red salmon and how dangerous it is people die all the time in the Copper River it is very fast and it is ice cold this river is probably the most dangerous river in the state of Alaska [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] I'm not gonna drop them [Music] since you're so difficult to hang on to [Music] not only the Copper River pull the red salmon it's also full of these big lamprey yields I don't know if this is the same lamprey that's everywhere else in the country but it's got the same it's got the same mouth got a nasty set of sharp yellow teeth things are a big parasitic eel look man they're just when you get one fresh out of the basket it's all you can do to hang on to these things they're so strong they are so slippery but kind of neat to find them in a basket just kind of give you guys an idea how big these things are this suckers probably all a two-foot man you let him roll around on the ground second and you can hang on till I can say one thing gonna happen here to the left save you right now is cleaning out the basket get the heals all in they are there Trixie bunch they can get through that net how do you like to clean your fish J Ruby Burke how many more are in there Davi baby just got to morals yeah she's busy cleaning the last of the fish we're gonna let the fish wheel roll all night long and come down and do some cleaning in the morning that's pretty much it for cleaning fish for this evening we're gonna be down here a couple days so hopefully tomorrow morning the basket will be full of fish hopefully not too many eels and just keep the wheel rolling now the wheel should be as close in to shore is absolutely possible to still catching current this is a great spot there's current right up by shore and it's a pretty good drop-offs you can get that wheel right up next to shore closer to shore the better and then with this adjustment arm as you might have thought Jay to earlier he's using this crank to adjust this arm up and down to get that wheel as close to the bottom as possible once that wheel starts bumping the bottom then you know it's just about right and you bring it up just the fuzz it's kind of like playing the lottery for free you just sit here and watch the wheel and nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing and then pretty soon it'll pick up red get to the top slide it down the chute into the basket and fantastic way to fish we just sit around and wait for something to do and once there's enough in the basket to worry about cleaning get down here and clean fish fill up the coolers and call it a night the reason Jericho is grabbing these fish heads out of here is we need to get the exact count of how many fish we're taking out of this wheel the subsistence permit is 500 fish that's a running total and we're making sure that we have an accurate count shut about a commercial fisherman Jay you got the moves down [Music] in a fish [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] now this next batch of salmon and August be done up in blaze and that's where I commit a novel to run the play night they exploit to do all the packing and rinsing making sure the tails get clipped Davey is going to well he's gonna pull the fish out of the basket give him a good whack with the fat and pass him up on the table [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] there is something really cool about being on fish wheel it's kind of like you're on a trawler or a saner or a long liner like a real commercial fishing boat except you can just walk the plank down the shore and you're back on shore but it does have that commercial fishing feel to it it's it's kind of a one-off little little unique thing in the whole scope of fishing fishing on Alaska fish whale is something once you've done it it'll never forget about it yeah soon as we wrapped up cleaning fish for that day we headed up to the tazlina Lodge to get ourselves some ice nothing better than to get them fish right out of the cold water and get them iced down so we got our morning fish all cleaned up everything's pilate's and cooler and it's on ice we also ran into Glen Allen and had a good breakfast the only thing that's left to do is to clean the Eels out of the basket so that later on we're not fishing through fish and eels to get the Reds out this guy's just waiting for the next batch of fish to get clean are the next eel to get thrown to them because it kind of tuckered out I think oh that's a great shot master oh my goodness and not only they just full of teeth and they're parasitic but they even got yellow teeth it's like they don't even brush took into well it's hard to hold onto you good morning everybody its day three on our Copper River fish wheel trip officially those belong to my friend Dave's dad and he has a subsistence permit for the fish wheel and dave is named on that permit so today and yesterday and the day before we're fishing to fill Dave's tag so we got one more batch of fish to clean up and then we're gonna put the wheels up a pot of the water so they don't spin any more then we're gonna head back to Fairbanks with the fish stay tuned there's my blood-soaked coffee cup just like that song by the pretenders back in the chain gang here we are back on the fish wheel I'm gonna be filleting this last batch Dave's gonna be clipping tails and rinsing the carcasses and filling up the Pakula we're going to ice everything down and then it's just loaded all into the rig and head back up the highway that's pretty much it for cleaning fish on day three I've got the wheels up out of the water so they're not turning anymore my buddy Dave is going home with a nice cooler full of fish for the winter fantastic time down here on the Copper River say we do pretty good really good seems pretty good good I don't know what else there is to be said just beautiful weather beautiful scenery good fishing good time hanging out with your friends and then for the gorgeous wild stretch of the world that is just it's rugged beautiful and it's a wonderful place to be wonderful place to spend some time and when you're in a place like this what can be better than working on a fish wheel I even got these guys to pose for some photos something to look back on and remember what a great trip we all have so that's it for fish in the Copper River for red salmon with a fish wheel you liked this video don't forget to hit the subscribe button hit the thumbs up hit the little bell next to the subscribe button to get updates when I post videos which I tried to do quite often thank you guys so much for watching Busch for radical my name is Dave Whipple and be radically see you soon [Music]

Channel: Bushradical

Views: 175,257

Rating: 4.762095 out of 5

Keywords: Copper river, Copper river red salmon, Fishwheel, Alaska, Dave Whipple, Copper river Fishing, Alone season 4, Yukon river run, Copper river Alaska

Id: Y2dOeejD_60

Length: 20min 57sec (1257 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 26 2018