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We go twice a summer as well. The first salmon run is around the end of June then we go back in the end of July. What we did with the salmon is filleted it, wrapped it with a plastic sealer thingy that our friends had and then froze them. We put them in a cooler with dry ice and a note taped on the top: Frozen Salmon caught 2July 2002. and taped the cooler shut. When we got back to STL, the box was intact. Im really surprised that Alaska TSA would do something like this, it makes me think the guy wasnt from Alaska. I wouldnt put it past some of the TSA boobs here in the lower 48, though. Since we are airline employees we get the double whammy; our bags are automatically searched and we are put in the security line. Why? Who knows. I have been background checked at least three times since 9-11 and am drug tested every two months or so. Yet Im deemed the biggest risk, next to Mohamedd Atta. Another problem we have is that we would have no recourse since we are employees. Since we dont pay to fly, we wouldnt have been reimbursed for the fish. The TSA sucks.

You've been lucky with that dry ice. If someone with TSA ever believes you packed more than 5 lbs of it with your salmon, you could have big problems. Next time you have a chance, stop at the supervisor's desk and find out what they're SOP is for dry ice. I'll bet if you ask 3 different TSA employees, you'll get 3 different answers. Probably, none you'll like.

The supervisor I talked to showed me the book. He says it says no dry ice. He was looking in the wrong column!

It wasn't completely his fault. There were two pages and the columns were transposed from one page to another. I'll bet those 2 pages in their SOP books are messed up all over the country.

You've been real lucky up until now. :)