For the past three summers from mid-June to early August, Washington native Des Wieser and two others have crewed the F/V Willow, a 32-foot-long fishing vessel captained by Wieser’s dad. The crew chases wild sockeye salmon in Bristol Bay, a pristine Alaskan watershed in the Bering Sea, where they hope to net up to 200,000 pounds of fish each season.
Wieser compares it to having a newborn baby: You sleep two-to-four hours, work for 12, then wake up and repeat.
“You don’t touch land the entire time,” she says. “It’s the third most dangerous job in the world. You hit 14-foot swells and get air on the back of the boat. You’re operating heavy machinery, and things are happening very quickly. The net can rip people’s arms off if they get caught in it: There’s hooks, ropes, spears and pouring rain.”
When Wieser married her husband, John, an eastern Colorado farmer, the couple moved to Severance. Two little girls later (and after the 2023 fishing season), Wieser started Fisherman’s Pride Wild Alaskan Seafood and began selling flash-frozen, wild-caught sockeye salmon, halibut and sablefish (a species of black cod) out of her home garage and farmers markets. The salmon is caught off the Willow, and Wieser brokers the halibut and sablefish off other boats with which she has family connections.
Plated sablefish (black cod), one of the wild-caught fish species sold by Fisherman’s Pride Wild Alaskan Seafood. Photo by John Robson.
A family of fishermen
Wieser champions Bristol Bay because she wants people in Northern Colorado to enjoy the healthiest and best-tasting fish possible. Her passion comes from her roots, her extensive familiarity with the Alaskan fishing industry and a deep sense of pride.
Her dad, now 74, has fished since he was 12 and started going to Bristol Bay when he was in his 20s. He fishes with a group of boats within a 200-mile radius that offer mutual support for mayday calls and spotting fish.
At age 20, Wieser started working in the processing plant where her dad sold fish caught by the Willow. Her brother is also a part of the group and owns a boat: the F/V Supernova. It’s named after a fisherman friend who drowned and loved supernovas.
Naming a boat after a friend or family member—like the Willow, which is named after Wieser’s mom—is an intimate thing, she says.
“Drowning happens, and it’s horrible,” she says. “That’s why you need to choose your boat wisely and have a captain who knows when to call it quits. The waves, the wind…there is no one telling them to get off the water.”
Wieser family with the F/V Supernova. Photo by Mary McKinley Photography.
Wild-caught versus farmed
As a boutique fishmonger, Wieser only sources her product from fishermen who work according to her standards and use Food and Drug Administration-accredited processing facilities that handle fish properly. Her goal is to sell the fish in the best condition possible.
“Fish is a delicate, easily damaged protein source,” she says. “If you touch it wrong it can bruise.”
Another big part of her mission is to educate people about the differences between farmed fish and the certified sustainable, wild-caught fish she sells.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) bases its certification of sustainability on fish that is harvested to provide for current commercial fishing needs while allowing the fish to reproduce and live in flourishing habitats. Most of the salmon eaten in Colorado is farmed.
Fish farms use artificial insemination for breeding—allowing them to earn a sustainability label—but confine thousands of fish in pens where they live tail-to-fin, Wieser says. Large amounts of antibiotics are needed to prevent disease, which end up in the flesh, skin and organs of the fish. Farmed fish are also fed a pellet diet designed to fatten them up as quickly as possible. Since the fish are stationary, large amounts of waste settle on the seafloor, Wieser says.
Not only that, but residue from farmed fish can cause algae blooms (red tide) because their excrement and uneaten food is flushed into the surrounding water. When water temperatures rise, algae blooms can form as a reaction. They create dead zones in aquatic environments and suffocate living organisms.
Alaska doesn’t allow fin fish farming operations within state lines, Wieser says. The NOAA-monitored fish in Bristol Bay feed on natural food sources with minimal toxins and pollutants.
“NOAA regulates Alaska’s fisheries to assure we have the least impact possible so there will be productive ecosystems available for future generations,” Wieser says.
The result is that Bristol Bay’s waters have remained pristine. While many of the world’s oceans are overfished, Bristol Bay is not, according to the Bristol Bay Sockeye Salmon website.
Fish caught in Bristol Bay have an average maturity age range of four to seven years, Wieser says. Wild salmon spend their first few years in the fresh lakes or rivers where they were born, then they travel to the ocean for one to three years before returning to their birthplace to spawn and die.
The legal period for harvesting sockeye—called “escapement”—is after the number of fish allowed to reach the spawning ground has been reached, Wieser says.
How Wieser’s fish are processed and stored after being pulled from Bristol Bay’s chilly waters matters, too. That includes onboard refrigeration in water to avoid bruising, bleeding the fish to prevent protein breakdown and quick transfer (within 15 hours of pulling fish from the water) to tenders or land processors for flash freezing.
Wieser believes traceability (where a fish was caught), and the harvest date are also essential information for Northern Colorado consumers. She labels packages with “enjoy by” dates, which are typically one year after harvesting to prevent fish from become stale and dry.
Catching wild sockeye salmon on the F/V Willow.
Cleaner fish taste better
Like the terroir where wine grapes or vegetables are grown or the land where animals graze, fish tastes like what it has been eating or the environmental elements in the water and riverbeds where they live.
“Fish act as sponges, and it absorbs into their fat cells,” Wieser says.
Wild-caught fish is firmer and less fatty. But whether wild-caught or farmed fish is better for you depends on the sustainability label, according to an article by the Kendall Reagan Nutrition Center at Colorado State University. It also depends on what a fish eats, its contaminant exposure and whether it is environmentally restorative.
And yet it’s impossible to meet global demand with only wild-caught fish, which creates a dilemma. Wieser gets a lot of interest in her products but finds that her philosophy and that of the restaurant industry are two different things.
“Chefs want the cheapest fresh fish possible, and they want to process it,” she says. “My product is processed and flash frozen to avoid 30 hours of air exposure and bacterial growth. Plus, chefs love the fattier farmed fish because it soaks up flavors. But it’s man-manipulated: The fish can’t move, and the meat quality is different.”
Where to find Fisherman’s Pride
Fisherman’s Pride recently branched out from Wieser’s garage into Greeley farmers markets. She now offers pickup sites in Severance, Fort Collins, Grand County and Littleton, which she announces on her website and Facebook page.
Wieser has also partnered with other local businesses to increase her accessibility. She works with business owners who have like-minded ideas about feeding the community, including SG Cattle Company, a grass fed, grain-finished, mom-and-pop cattle and water buffalo ranch in Black Forest.
Ranch co-owner Sarah Watson offered to partner with Fisherman’s Pride after tasting what she said was the best fish she’d ever had.
“I’m thrilled with the quality,” Watson says. “I warn people (at the Black Forest farmers market, where she sells the fish) that they’re not going to be able to buy regular grocery store fish after they taste it.”
Wieser still stores the fish in her garage, but she’s always looking to get out in the community. After tasting Wieser’s fish last fall and learning that the only pickup option was in a parking lot, Tracy Reilly, owner of Windsor Storage & Farms, offered her a space to set up shop in her barn while the Tater Jax Pumpkin Patch operated. As a local mom, Reilly loves Wieser’s story and advocates for small business like hers.
“We live part-time in North Carolina and have learned that Colorado’s fish doesn’t taste right,” Reilly says. “It’s farmed fish or has been frozen for months. Des’ fish is reasonably priced for its quality.”
