SEINE-caught salmon from the Alaskan fishing co-op Chignik Seafood Producers' Alliance are being kept live ready for processing at sea by AlaskaCatch LLC.

A Silkstream fish pump from Environmental Technologies Inc. of Seattle is the heart of the live fish transfer system.

Says Doug Wadsworth, skipper of the AlaskaCatch processing vessel Wild Salmon: "After a fisherman catches his fish, they are delicately pumped directly from his net into a delivery boat which transports them to our live net holding pen attached to the side of our floating processor.

"This pen is tied alongside Wild Salmon or New West, our own processing boats right on the fishing grounds.

"These salmon swim free until we are ready to process them, when we take fish out of the pen and immediately bleed and process them. We carefully handle each fish, selecting only the finest for our filleting process.

"Working with the cooperative and receiving daily deliveries of live fish allows us to always have perfectly fresh fish to process, putting our quality miles ahead of conventional processing methods." Alaska salmon are bled and carefully selected.

These fresh pre-rigor fish are immediately cut into boneless fillets using a patented machine from TBRS (Total Bone Removal System) Technology.

"This exclusive technology makes a precision cut to the fish which eliminates bones, " says Doug Wadsworth , son of TBRS inventor Ray Wadsworth and skipper of Wild Salmon.

"This is the only method in the world that removes pin bones from fresh, just caught, fish. This whole operation takes place on our boat at sea, assuring customers of unbeatable quality.

"To lock in that justcaught fresh quality, our salmon fillets are immediately sealed in special plastic bags. Fillets are then fed into a blast freezer and quick-frozen to ensure superior texture and flavour.

"In summary, we take live fish and turn them into frozen, boneless, fillets in about five minutes. There is nothing as fresh as frozen at sea! These bags will seal in that freshness for years when kept frozen." The Wadsworths have been Alaska commercial fishermen since Doug's grandfather Gene Wadsworth started fishing in 1945. He fished out of Seldovia on Sea Scout. Ray Wadsworth (Doug's father) was born in Seldovia and grew up fishing with his father.

They formed the Wild Alaskan Seafood House LLC to provide "the highest quality boneless salmon available in the world, " using the new patented processing machine technology from TBRS Technology, Ray Wadsworth's company.

Wild Alaskan Seafood House was established in 1999 to provide consistent quality, supply and price to consumers. In 2002 the company was re-organised and became AlaskaCatch, LLC.

The company believes that people should be able to buy a fresh and boneless wild salmon at an affordable price, so it built Wild Salmon as a floating processor, installed the pinbone/filleting machine and went to Alaska.

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Alaska salmon pumped live for