October and November 2007 — The market to which I sold my fall chums this year was Smoki Foods, which is based out of the SeaFreeze cold storage plant on the Duwamish Waterway in West Seattle.
They pay the low price, and they don’t give a bonus for ice or dock delivery. In any normal circumstance I would never, ever sell to them, but they have a few things going for them that enticed me to their dock and made my personal fish-selling endeavors way easier.
When I came to the SeaFreeze dock I had the fish for Smoki Foods in one bin, and in the other bin I had the fish I was going to sell at home; bled, iced, and dressed, all ready to go. I pulled up to the hoist and they took off their fish, then they took off my fish and put them on the dock with a full tote of ice setting next to them.
I gave the boat a quick cleaning, then they dumped a load of ice right into the tote I keep in my hatch, thereby setting me up with a load of ice for the next opening. Those steps took about five minutes if you don’t consider the time it took to pitch all the fish off the boat. If I did all that on-and-off-the-dock shuffling myself it would take an hour and a half.
When the fish were off the boat and it is all set to go for next opening, I let loose the lines and headed for my commandeered spot at the Port of Seattle tugboat float. On the way I made my fish ticket, and called the information into Olympia on the QuickReport line. I sneaked into my commandeered spot, tied her up, and got the hell off the boat for the remainder of the week.
Next I headed back to SeaFreeze with my empty tote in the back of my truck. I pulled up to my fish and the tote full of ice, shoved my tote onto the pavement next to my fish, then loaded it up with all my fish and LOTS of ice. Those fish were packed in there so nice they could stay there for two weeks and still be No. 1 grade (but they seldom stay there for more than two days!). When I was done loading my tote I waved down the forklift guy and he lifted it into the back of my truck. As easy as that, I was done messing with my fish.
SeaFreeze is also a great spot to unload my eggs. I put them on the scale and the folks in the factory office handed me a bill of lading showing my eggs delivered to Franco Fish in Tacoma. Two weeks later I got a check in the mail for those eggs. It was great!
It is just so convenient there I can’t believe it. The year before I was running around, always wondering where I would get my ice, which I would have to pay for, whereas the ice at SeaFreeze is free.
Once I did get ice, I had to shovel it onto my boat before the opening. Then, after each opening, I had to pull under the crane, get the key from the security guy at Fishermen’s Terminal, then screw around hauling the fish off my boat in brailer bags, which I swung into the bed of my truck and iced them into my tote there. What a hassle.
It was a convoluted mess that never had any consistency to it. When I finally was finished messing with the fish I had a bunch of brailer bags to clean up plus a whole boat that needed a scrubdown.
It was a lot of extra work, and I’m not sure if can go back to the old school method without some drastic changes in my program. I might have to take a crew guy with me to reduce the workload and hasten the long process of getting the fish off the boat. But if I can get just $0.10 more for my fish I am selling to the processors, it might just be worth it.
My life would be so much easier if I didn’t sell a portion of my fish to my loyal customers. But then, from whom would they get their fish? What would they have for dinner? Would they have to choose a land animal over one of my beautiful chum salmon?
NEVER! I am fully devoted to my civic duty of bringing fresh fish to the public. Fear not, fish-eating consumers of the San Juan Islands and greater metropolitan Seattle area, Matt Marinkovich is here to provide you with the greatest fish on Earth!
TO BE CONTINUED…
Love this article. Give the blogs coming
Posted by: David | July 09, 2008 at 02:15 PM