Davis Barrett

Davis C. Barrett, 1949-2014

Davis Corwin Barrett, 64, died in his Port Townsend WA home April 12, 2014. 

Barrett was a leading Alaska purse seiner for some 30 years, usually fishing with his three daughters - Allison, Hannah and Ilsa, now in their 20s - and his wife of 30 years, Adrienne Ely. 

Described as a Renaissance man, Barrett was a respected voice for commercial fishermen, serving 20 years on the board of the Southeast Alaska Seiners Association (SEAS) and the Seiner Reserve Insurance Board. 

Said Bobby Thorstenson Jr., SEAS executive director, "Davis was a high liner. One of the best there ever was. He bowed to Tlingit and Haida tradition while learning commercial fishing from great men and friends. He was a true high liner who did not fudge lines or crowd others." Barrett helped create the Pacific Salmon Treaty and ensured sustainable fisheries around the Tongass National Forest. 

Barrett was born in Seattle in 1949 to Beach and Jan Sorensen Barrett. He graduated from Lakeside High School in 1968 attending college at Middlebury in Vermont, WSU and Seattle University in Washington State. He started fishing at 16 and became a skipper at 26. He married Adrienne in 1983 and moved to Port Townsend in 1990. 

Due to health issues, he retired from fishing in 2010, selling the Glacier Bay. Survivors include his wife, daughters and siblings: Tom Barrett (Jan), Portland OR; Judith Barrett, San Francisco CA; Kate Nunn (Remmel) and Ellen Dudley (Matthew) of New York. His parents preceded him. An afternoon service and potluck at family property near Seabeck WA is set for April 26th at 1 PM 

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Hello fishing folks, 

As you may already know Davis Corwin Barrett passed away on April 12th. He was in his home. The obituary will be printed in the Port Townsend Leader and will be available online by Wednesday the 16th.

We are having a memorial on April 26th at 1 PM at the old family property on Hood Canal and we would like to invite all of you to attend. It will be a potluck. And please feel free to bring anything; pictures, stories, foods and spirits...

Also, we will be covered, but outside, so please dress for the weather. 

We want this to be an open and relaxed event, a time to share stories and memories. Please feel free to forward this email to anyone we may have missed.

We look forward to seeing you, 

Davis' Girls

Here are directions:

Start by getting yourself to Seabeck, WA ( on the East side of the Hood Canal). 

From Seabeck go South on Seabeck-Holly Rd. 

In 6.5 miles turn right onto Nellita Rd NW

Follow the signs to the end of Nellita Rd NW 

Brailer Scoop - November 2013

Nominations are open for board seats through nov 1

October 1-november1 nominations are open for the '4 seats currently being held by Mitch eide, Jeremy Jensen and Troy thomassen in the Alaska seats

And al Jacklet in the non-Alaska seat


Email nomination
Post them here
Call on my cell
Or write and send in a nomination


The nominee must be a fully paid seas member whom we'd like to work hard and well with other in a open minded but unified forum of leaders of the SE seine fleet.  This is what makes SEAS tick- teamwork


Thanks


Bobbythorstenson

Ps....hope you all had great seasons

May newsletter coming soon

Very soon.

For those SEAS business members who haven't had a clean shot at a couple paragraph piece in awhile, here's your shot.  If you want something in, you have around 2-3 weeks to send it either physically to our box or to my email address.

Seas ed as well as office staff, Tom Meiners, will both be on the water soon but not before we get one last newsletter out to members.

Have a great spring, or what is left of it, and ou should be seeing a new newsletter out in 3-4 weeks.

A lighter spring than last year, who we had a board of fish cycle, a ETJ hearing and a round of buyback to deal with.

Nonetheless, we are working behind the scenes on ETJ and working to further more enhanced salmon production to enhance the trollers position and help gillnetters and seiners as well in an all benefit from rising tides position on enhanced allocation .


Bobbyt

SEAS ED

Mr.Bacon retires from the PSC

Seldom would I recognize a person in leadership capacity through whom I could communicate and collaborate so that our  concurring goals and of the goals of those around us, in the commercial fishing community, become the force, the unremitting, powerful force of which could then, with strategic thinking, rational planning and intense co-mingling of forces of personalites..... that amazing place where the will of the larger, through individual connections, can become the mentor-pupil quality, the latter in which I delighted for years.   I could look at JB from the back of the room, shake my head as he spoke and we would concurrently run the room.  Peckham would take over with some finance report, budget, etc etc, but aside from the big picture, he tackled the more technical issues revolving around SEAS at the time.  JB would get on a political role, get the SEAS board believing his trip-- with Knowles alot through 2001 late.  JB wasn't perfect.  I'm not perfect.  I like JB as a great friend..  Had we better vacation planning, I believe we'd spend at least a weekend and a half out hunting mallards.

And so it is with great pleasure that I give you the career of Jim Bacon.  A career that consisted of contributions in skippering the Wavedancer( Prior to 2001, JB had the Eleanor), and seining in SEAlaska for 26 years, 19 as a skipper.  Jim served on the SEAS board from around 1989 to 2002 and as a member of the Pacific Salmon Commission, ending the final 7 years as Alternate Commissioner for Alaska for the US Department of Commerce at the request of the great State of Alaska.  Jim recently resigned at the end of 2012 after a 21 year career Alaskan diplomat, having served the state at both the great junctures

Perhaps it was after working with this magic that inspired us to work on the great issues of the day.
JB had this business like a steel trap.  He was back and forth from DC at least 7-8 times a year for about a decade and a half.

I would like to think that there are other great thinkers out there and they too are recongnizing that it's quite a different fishery from the days of his beginnings.  JB will tell ya that the Brindle family, specifically Joe if I remember his story right because this is about JB, some close friends and some good luck got JB in the game and then he balanced the skill and expertise to run a seiner for nearly 2 decades.

Jim Bacon.  Unparralled in SEAS history and in his impact to the fleet over the past 2 decades, SEAS would like to call to your attention that 8 different Gentlemen pitched in to buy JB a Lifetime  $6500 membership.

Congratulations, JB  YOU rock forever in the halls of fame at SEAS.    Right up there with Ole, Joe, John, Greg,..........you could go on and on..... you get the picture.

Fleet consolidation a no go

The latest round generated little enthusiasm on behalf of the number or the prices of bidders and permits.

So there will be no further fleet consolidation attempts until further notice.

Just an FYI

Bidders will be shortly notified by the SRA.

Brailer Scoop - Jan. 2013

To MSC or not to MSC

So the state is having a big pow-wow with PSVOA this coming Monday over the boards  decision to stick it out with MSC so that Silver Bay Seafoods could go it alone.

This is a complex issue.

First let's start out with SEAS unequivocal and total non-support of MSC from the outset in the late 1990's when then-Gov Knowles administration welcomed the MSC folks in to get the trophy of certifying the worlds best managed commercial fishery-Alaska Salmon.  SEAS, under the leadership of Jim Bacon at that time, determined that the short-term, feel good of having the MSC label would be short-lived and would not be worth the longer term of inviting the Eco-terrorists into the fold to wreak havoc on the Alaska brand.

SEAS is, has always been and will always be opposed to MSC.  The shine of the MSC label began to come off the wrapper in the early 2000's with MSC finagling and harassment of ADFG managers over breaking down Alaska salmon into multiple subdistricts as well as beating up our scientifically sound and and advanced, modern 21st century salmon enhancement practices.  Then the wheels came off when we were traveling in Europe with Governor Murkowski in 2006 and the MSC certifier was on a much ballyhooed rumored cocaine runner in southern California with both our money and our certification.

Shortly thereafter the state of Alaska dumped MSC.  At first ASMI picked up the tab, then AFDF, then finally no one.

Until PSVOA.

SEAS and PSVOA work together on many fronts.  This is not one of them.
But SEAS has no adverse opinion on the very controversial decision by PSVOA to go this course.
It's just not our bag.  Sure we've been adamantly opposed to MSC in Alaska salmon all along.  But then MSC is in several other Alaska species.  They must have just not caused as much mischief in those fisheries, we presume.

Obviously Silver Bay has a relationship they'd like to extend with MSC.  Before it was just down to Silver Bay, Trident was holding on even though Icicle, NPPI, AGS, OBSI had all had enough of MSC.  Once Trident kicked the MSC habit, SBS was left holding the bag.

So why do we bring this up?

The state of Alaska is happy to be going with the new certification program for the rest of he 80% of salmon sold in Alaska but  not while working for the MSC program in addition.  We presume there is a bit of marketplace confusion as well as a lack of staffing to handle both programs.

Having said that, there are some who feel that having both programs gives the marketplace a bit of time to switch as opposed to changing 'cold turkey'.   This is an understandable strategy that seems to allow some grace time between the final weening off of MSC prior to a final departure from using the MSC label.  Of course the financial benefits aren't evenly distributed under this scenario and that is probably one of the major issues here.  It's also confusing the issue for some that MSC must go while it sits on the product lines for potluck, halibut , etc.

SEAS hates MSC.  Always has.  Always will. We're the only state or administrative region in the world that disallows farmed salmon .  Yet we get blasted by MSC ( who certify everything but beluga whaling) for our scientifically sound ocean ranching programs.  MSC set back the Alaska hatchery program by 2 decades, allowing the world farmed salmon countries to eat our proverbial lunch.  MSC is, was and always will be a scam to screw Alaska.

But we are not going to disparage the decision by PSVOA.
These are our brothers and they must have their reasons.

Fleet Consolidation primer

Guys

For most of you this is old news but since we've had so much technical discussion about the SRA and fleet consolidation we need to have a ten point -give or take- clarification here

1.  This is not a conservation buy back.

The SE purse seine fishery is as robust as at any ten year period in history.  There have been only 340 million pinks harvested in the past decade, due to a couple of droughts and tough winters.  The average harvest on odd cycles exceeds 40 million, while even cycles are around 20 million. This brings us rapidly to point number 2.

2. The cycles necessitate a tighter fleet on the off( even)years.

The even cycles have been particularly slow in north end recruitment and rebuilding.  In 2008,2010 and 2012 the seine fleet didn't fish central or northern Chatham at all, save for the Hidden Falls THA and the postage stamp at Augusta.  This jammed the entire fleet in the southend, a few assorted bays and the hatchery areas.  And we all know what kind of congestion we already have in the hatchery THA's.

3.  Fuel coats, insurance, shipyard bills, boat purchase costs and overall operational expenses are going through the roof.  

Although SEAS ED is trying to punch through with a 20th century vessel, I still run my 1949 wood Sagstadt built vessel.  My operations cost just to outfit and run the boat are well over $100,000.  And that's a vessel that has no mortgage or bank payments.  In the years of plenty there is enough to go around but let's face facts:  there simply is not enough gravy in this fishery to pay the bills year in and year out with an expanded fleet.

4.  The next phase of the buyback is chipping away at permits likely to be deployed in the next year or so.

The 3% is already being collected.  We are down 100 permits since we began and this phase is likely to only retire a dozen or a couple dozen permits.  But this would knock the total permits down by 4%-8% more.  And these are permits that have a high likelihood of being fished in the next couple of years.


5.  The fishery can go one of two ways.  More boats and less fishing time or vice-versa.

The managers of the SE purse seine fishery have a number they consider when making announcement decisions.  The fewer the boats, the more likely we will get expanded fishing time and area.

6.  The seine fleet is a mobile fleet.

Unlike many other salmon operators in the state, i.e.,set net, Bristol bay, copper river...the seiner in false pass, PWS and Kodak, not to mention the sardine and squid seiners of Cali and OR, are extremely mobile.  There's at least 2 dozen guys who fished PWS in 2012 who will be in your lineup in 2013.  Maintaining a tighter number of permits in SE keeps us within predictable expectations for future years.

7.  Boats are bigger. Gear is more effective. Equipment is more efficient.

While the SE fleet is still catching up to modern efficiencies practiced in most Alaska salmon fisheries due to the low economic condition we experienced with pink salmon a half decade ago, the fleet is constantly increasing in boat size, net efficiency and skiff power.  This leads us to either a reduced fleet or reduced fishing time in order to make the correct management calls for the resource.

More to follow.......

Hope you all have a Happy and prosperous 2013.



Bobbyt

New Fleet Consolidation Phase Begins

Bid packets were sent out today from the SRA! Soliciting bids from eligible permit holders.

Look for them in the mail early next week.

Thanks to those of you who have supported our fleet consolidation program and thanks to those of you who continue supporting it into the future.

For those of you who want to sell a permit at this time for any reason, this would be a good way to do so.


Again, thanks for your support.  Bidders have until late January to return the packets.  At that time there will be awarded bid ranges and the NMFS will conduct a vote, as they did last spring, when the permits in SO1A were narrowed down to 315 outstanding permits.