Hooligan brighten up the Stikine again

The hooligan are back.

When the eagles disappear from town and the sea lions start hauling out on the beach at Lesnoi Island, it's a pretty sure bet hooligan season is upon the Stikine, said David Rak, forester at the U.S. Forest Service in Wrangell.

If you go to the north side of Wrangell Island, Rak said, you can hear the sea lions barking from a spot where hundreds haul out on the beach at Lesnoi Island.

"When the eagles all disappear from town, they're over there," Rak said last Wednesday.

Jamie Stough, 72, and Cinda Stough, 67, live on Farm Island - and have lived in Wrangell their entire lives. The Stough and Meissner families are "the best hooligan fishermen that I know of," Rak said.

"We just started the last couple of days," Jamie Stough said last Wednesday. "My friend caught the first hooligan, they spawn between the ice. Some eagles went by with some. And they can run all the way up to May."

Stough said he's even caught some with eggs in June or July.

He's fished for hooligan for the past 50 years. "We do it every year. It's something we do - first fish of the year. We love to fish, and we love to get out."

Stough said it's also "herring egg weather" - "herring spawn at this time of the year also, we eat them all kinds of different ways."

Cinda Stough said they caught three big totes of hooligan last Thursday in the middle arm of the Stikine River.

"We'll start putting them on the string, and bringing two of them to town, someone will trade for herring eggs. We bring 'em to town, KSTK puts it over the radio and in 10 minutes they're all gone. We share them with everybody," she said.

Hooligan, also called eulachon, is one of seven species of smelt found in Alaska, according to the Department of Fish and Game. The name eulachon comes from the Chinook language of the Pacific Northwest Native people. The Tlingit call it saak. The eulachon is also known as the candlefish because its oily flesh will actually burn like a candle when dried. The genus name, Thaleichthys, is Latin for rich fish, a nod to its high oil content.

Derek Meissner said he's been up the Stikine the past few days and is keeping his eyes open.

"We haven't seen them, we're just going back and forth," he said last Wednesday.

But soon.

"(They showed up) the week behind this week last year, give it a week or two and we'll have it," Meissner said.

Meissner said they drag out a little seine net using a skiff along the beach. "Hopefully it doesn't hang up on a stick, and bring it in whenever you feel comfortable," he said.

He used to go with his parents, and people who have passed away now. "We took on the tradition," he said.

As a Tlingit, "we give them to a lot of people, and people from other towns who used to be able to go out, spread it around."

Taste for hooligan can waver. "Some people don't care for them and some people who do, really appreciate them. We just keep doing it," he said.

Meissner said he's lived in Wrangell his whole life. With wife Erin Meissner, they have Mindy, 15; Everett, 13; 11-year-old Jenna and 7-year-old Chase. He's passing hooligan fishing down to his children, and brings them out with him. There's a Tlingit tradition for the kids. "You bite the head off the hooligan," he said.