It’s my pleasure to fire off this inaugural Fish Finder entry to Nautical Northwest. This new, regular department in the magazine will be devoted to elevating local, independent commercial fishing operations that are often direct-selling their seafood to the public.
We may not be a hard commercial maritime outlet, per se, but seafood is a part of life around here and every day, our own sons and daughters brave the sea to catch the food that makes life in the Pacific Northwest so special. Salmon and halibut. Spot prawns and blackcod. Dungeness crab and albacore tuna. These are not just edible marine species—they define entire cultures, economies, natural environments, and the human experience. Splurging on a fillet of king salmon from the local market or pulling up that crab pot off the dock is more than just filling our stomachs. It’s being alive. It’s being Cascadian.
As someone who has worked a few commercial fishing gigs, I’m all too aware of the flaws of the globalized seafood industry. What should be simple and pure—a fisherman with his boat selling fish to locals who want to buy it at a competitive asking price—somehow has become an internationally oriented, corporate, sometimes criminal machine. Where the indie fisherman cares deeply about the sustainability of his quarry, “The Machine” does not. Where the indie fisherman creates jobs for locals and feeds the community, The Machine utilizes exploited international labor and sucks up the seafood to the highest bidder. The fisherman’s cut of the catch profits gets smaller as the bossman and his 1,000 supply-chain middlemen get first dibs. The tensions between the indie fisherman and The Machine goes on.
Fortunately, the counterculture is happening all around us. Many Pacific Northwest fisherfolk have figured out that modern tools, such as the internet, are the perfect means to directly sell their seafood to the public. Others have been direct-selling all along from their boats at the docks and farmer’s markets. If one can pull it off and find loyal buyers, the fisherman can cut out the entire corporate apparatus and bring the relationship between fisherman and customer back to its timeless, buy-local roots.
It’s in a spirit of support for the independent fishing operations of our region that I conceived of Fish Finder. We’re going to highlight a notable locally based, independent, direct-selling commercial fishing operation in every issue of the magazine going forth. First up is Kris’ Fishes troll-caught king salmon and albacore tuna.
I met Kristopher Griffin in Ilwaco, WA, in the Three Otters Coffee Company cafe. I breezed into town to see off the PNW Offshore Race and ended up chatting with Kris, his wife who owns the coffee shop, and their adorable infant who was playing in a pen behind the register.
“I have been fishing out of Ilwaco for about a decade in some capacity. I was on a tuna boat and sometimes we would end up here at the dock for a few days,” said Kirs of his background. “I didn’t have a car but would hike to the lighthouses and around town. We’d have a big seafood feed on the dock. I remember thinking it was a nice small town and that it would be a good place to live and fish out of. When I bought the Innisfree (then 99 years old) in 2023, I knew I was going to bring it to Ilwaco to start our new life together.”
The journey from Brookings, OR, where he bought Innisfree, to Ilwaco was its own adventure. He made it five miles before the old wooden mast broke into four pieces and snapped his 50’ trolling poles with it.
“Thousand-pound pieces rained down and over the side, almost rolling the boat,” recalled Kris. “I made it back to port but spent the next two months rerigging and the next two years rebuilding faith in my vessel. I did make it up to Ilwaco the next trip out and it turned out my intuition was correct. I have found a beautiful community here to sell my fish and a family of my own. My wife now owns 3 Otters Coffee Co. and we are raising a baby deckhand.” He sells his packaged fish products “Kris’s Fishes” at the coffee shop and around the area at other retailers. Kris also sells fresh fish off of the boat at the dock and also to local fish markets, like his friends at Tre-Fin Seafoods.
Both his king salmon and albacore tuna are sold in pouch-style packages with a variety of seasonings, sizes, and quantities (you can buy 12-packs at a discount per pack). He sells both smoked and non-smoked fish. I basically inhaled a 3-ounce Smoked Tuna and a 3-ounce Habanero Albacore with cheese and crackers as lunches. I know I’m having good fish when my saliva glands ache so good.
“The small-boat fishing game has been changing rapidly, and I have had to adapt and continue to do so,” said Kris. “I have been working to sell more and more of my catch to direct-market through my packaged fish and also fresh at the dock. I strive to have the highest quality possible and not necessarily catch the most fish.”
For Kris’s fishes, they never touch the deck of the boat to avoid bruising. The fish are immediately brain-spiked and bled before going into saltwater ice for the perfect temperature.
“I do short trips and coordinate when I hit the dock to get the freshest fish into the package or onto the table of my buyers fresh, never frozen,” said Kris. “Our pouches are available in new snack packs, perfect for eating on the go for good, clean energy. No oils or water added, just natures perfect protein, a pinch of sea salt, alder smoke, black pepper, or fresh habanero. We are a small family business, and you can see my wife’s artwork on our labels and taste the difference in our fish.”
Can you buy a generic can of tuna from the grocery store for half the price? Maybe. But with Kris’s Fishes, you’re buying the best quality and flavor. You’re supporting a local family and the Ilwaco community while keeping ole Innisfree in one piece. A purchase lifts up the Pacific Northwest troll-caught fleet that earns high marks for sustainability with virtually zero bycatch to boot. Heck, I’m working myself up. I might need to order more.
Buy Direct and Contact
You can contact Kris’s Fishes and direct-order his troll-caught albacore and king salmon online: https://www.krisfishes.com.
Kris’s Fishes are also for sale in the 3 Otter Coffee Company on the Ilwaco marina waterfront. Additionally, they serve a mean espresso. Address: 161 Howerton Way SE, Ilwaco, WA 98624
