The first salmon I ever caught was from a small Boston Whaler off of Albion along the Mendocino coast, where my father was working at a marine science field station for the summer. The details are as foggy as the morning we went out, but I remember the rod being handed to me and struggling to reel in this beast from the ocean. I was around nine, and I'm confident it was an 11lbs Chinook. I was immediately addicted to salmon fishing.

In 1991, my parents decided to buy into an Alaska salmon setnet operation on the Nushagak side of Bristol Bay. This was a calculated decision, based on my father going up with his brother to tender salmon over in Naknek for a few summers and doing "well."

Fast forward many years and many boatloads of salmon, my brother and I now own our own individual fishing businesses, mine being Sunset Salmon Company, that work together to catch and deliver Bristol Bay sockeye salmon to others. The most common question people ask, after learning that I catch salmon in Alaska, is how they can get some. Now we're able to offer some of that salmon through Sunset Salmon Club.