Featured Fisherman
Photo Courtesy of Working Snake River for Washington- www.workingsnakeriver.org.
Joel Kawahara
Home Port: Quilcene, WA
Vessel Name: F/V Karolee
Vessel Type: 42 ft., horseshoe stern, Douglas fir planked troller.
Fisheries participated in: salmon trolling in AK, WA, OR, and CA.
Gear Used: troll
Joel Kawahara is a 2nd generation commercial fisherman who trolls for salmon off of the coast of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and California. The F/V Karolee is a 67 year old vessel. He grew up in Seattle as the son a tackle store owner. His father had a fisheries degree and was active in advocating for the protection of water quality in salmon spawning rivers. He took the Joel fishing from a very early age, but encouraged him to find work outside of fishing. Kawahara graduated from the University of Washington in 1978 with a degree in physics and mathematics. He then went to Alaska and fished with his father on a troller that his father had bought. But his father kept nagging at him to get another job. So Joel went back the University of Washington and earned a second degree, this time in electrical engineering. He graduated in 1984 and took a job at Boeing were he literally became a rocket scientist. However, bigger things were calling him as he bought the F/V Karolee in 1987 and fished during his free time. By 1991 he quit his job at Boeing and went salmon fishing full time.
Giving back to the profession
Joel is a vocal wild salmon advocate, as he has seen the fishing for chinook salmon deteriorate and the rural communities that depend on this fishery suffer the same decline. As a result, Joel has been mobilized to defend the resource and his way of life. Now Joel says every day of his time off the water is spent working on one salmon issue or another.
He currently serves on the Board of Directors for Save Our Wild Salmon, a nationwide coalition of conservation organizations, commercial and sportsfishing associations, businesses, river groups, and taxpayer advocates working collectively to restore self-sustaining, abundant, and harvestable populations of wild salmon and steelhead to rivers, streams and oceans of the Pacific Salmon states. SOS focuses on the Columbia and Snake River Basin , where in the time of Lewis and Clark up to 16 million wild salmon returned each year. Today, as few as ten thousand salmon return home to the Snake River. The key to restoring the Pacific Northwest’s salmon’s runs lies in removing four dams on the lower Snake River. Free-flowing rivers are vital economic engines for local communities.
Joel is a member and serves on the board of various fishing industry support groups, including the Alaska Trollers Association and Washington Trollers Association.
Joel has also participated for many years in the Pacific Fisheries Management Council, which is responsible for fisheries off of the coasts of California, Oregon, and Washington, and currently serves on the Habitat Committee.
“Why is it important to you to keep the profession of commercial fishing alive in this country?”
The profession of commercial fishing built the United States. It is a profession for people who value independence and self-reliance, so it is very unique in today’s corporate, highly controlled world. Each fishing community is inextricable linked to the natural rhythms of the natural environment, making it a unique lifestyle in a world that is increasingly divorced from our natural resources.
