Barb Block, tagging salmon sharks in Alaska. We arrived in Gravina Bay on Sunday, and begain our operations on Monday to catch salmon sharks. We started at a point that was less than a mile from where we tagged 40 last season. Remarkably, salmon sharks appear to return to the same area every year. Sure enough, we saw a shark with one of our SPOT (satellite position only tags) tags swimming around the bay. It was an awesome site to see one of our gals swimming near by. (I'm not in a place where I can send photos, so here's a photo of one of our tagged sharks from last year, rain and all.)

To date, we've hooked at least 10 sharks and had 5 to the side of the vessel, but tagged only 3. Fishing is trickier than in years past. There has been a drought, but we can't tell -- it's raining. The bay is very clear. We made some oceanographic measurements and started fishing much higher
in the water column and, we began catching them.

Today, we hope to be a big day. We have 3 types of tags: SPOTs, which talk to the satellite directly. It's kind of like the shark phoning home with very
accurate locations. We're also using PAT (pop-up tags) and archival tags, an internal tag that requires a quick surgery to implant in the shark's abdomen. Sharks rarely stay still, but we are a crack team: we keep water running over the shark's gills so she can breathe, cover her eyes to keep her calm (here's a photo from last year, where white shark researcher Sal Jorgensen is handling those jobs), and tie her down with a few straps for her and our safety. We're doing all this aboard the R/V Solstice, an Alaska Department of Fish and Game vessel out of Cordova.