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What’s Next After Publishing The Rise and Fall of the Pacific Ocean Perch

I’m Bob Hitz, a former marine biologist and writer. Some of you may know me from Carmel Finley’s Historical Blog, where I began posting in 2012. That blog gave me a way to share stories from marine history, and with Carmel’s encouragement, I turned my research into a book: The Rise and Fall of the Pacific Ocean Perch, published on June 26, 2025. Over the years, I wrote 44 posts there, now collected under the title “All of Bob’s Posts.”

My last entry explained why I paused blogging to focus on finishing the book. Now that it has been published, I am excited to continue writing here on SubStack.

What’s Next

I plan to return to the story of the John N. Cobb, one of my favorite vessels to write about. I will also be sharing more about the Western Flyer, a boat with a fascinating history. In earlier posts, I described her as a seiner and later as a trawler. Now I want to complete her story with new drawings that show her as a king crabber during the early Kodiak crab fisheries and later as a salmon tender in Southeast Alaska.

Book Available

My new book, The Rise and Fall of the Pacific Ocean Perch, is now available. This project took years of research and writing, and I am thrilled it is finally out.

[Buy “The Rise and Fall of the Pacific Ocean” book here!

Look Ahead

I have already started my second book, which will explore the history of the tuna clipper and the rise of two groundbreaking vessel types: the High Seas Tuna Seiner and the Alaskan King Crabber. These innovations sparked the largest boat building booms of my career, and I will be sharing updates on this project here in future posts.

Thank you for following along. I am excited to continue this journey with you here on Sitka 2.

—Bob

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