Tom and his grandson returned this year, this time with Grandma Sarah. Tom and Sarah are two of my closest friends. We attended extensive training for the Peace Corps together at the University of Oklahoma, then were stationed close to each other when we started our jobs in Sierra Leone. I’m the Godfather for their only daughter, which says a lot for two devoted Catholics who are very familiar with my potty mouth.
They arrived in town, and we went right to the boat and steamed to an anchorage I’d not used before. It was going to be dark by the time we got to my familiar intended anchorage. We had pizza for dinner and got settled for the week.
The next day, we fished one of my new favorite spots I learned this year, thanks to my brother-in-law. Sarah caught a big king salmon in the first 20 minutes we had the gear out. Oh boy, I thought. That’s gonna ruin her. We got 2 more kings and a coho, and a pink salmon we kept for dinner. I finally caught up to an old friend on the drag in another boat. He guides for a lodge here. He and I were out camp guides for fly-in lodges in Bristol Bay back in the 1980s. I saw him on the kicker of the boat, his clients mooching. I called out that I thought they’d put him in a home. Then called to him by name. He said it wasn’t Nick… It was Nick. He finally realized who I was and came by the tug on his way to another spot, and we had a quick chat. Great seeing him. He made the best cowboy coffee I’ve ever had.
We anchored nearby in a now-familiar cove. Jasper went to the beach in the folding kayak—the first to try it out. He loved it. He found an antler shed and other treasures along the beach. The adults dined on fresh pink salmon and green and potato salads.
The next morning we fished the same spots. Nothing. We tried other spots in the area. Nothing. Except we got a few nice rockfish we kept for dinner. We headed around the island to my other favorite spot that is usually fishable in most winds. Even when it blows there in these dry hot days in the afternoon, it’s calm in the mornings. We hit the afternoon winds as we neared the corner to turn with the wind. We were trolling as normal, and whamo. A big king. I had to keep the speed up until we could clear the kelp beds and turn the corner. The net had a hole in it, and the king went through on the first try. I grabbed a gaff and slung it on board before we lost it. That fish made our day.
The adults had panko-fried rockfish for dinner. Jasper hit the beaches in the kayak again and found the top half of an otter skull, a lower wolf jaw, and reported there was sea asparagus on the beach. He remembered what it looked like from us finding it up near Juneau last year, and brought back a piece of it so I could confirm his find.
I was up early the next morning and put the gear out as we left the anchorage around 5:30 am. I told the crew we’d need to fish early as the winds would come up midday, and everyone was agreeable. We caught 5 cohos in the morning on the ebb tide. When the tide started to flood, nothing. Then the wind came up. So we headed to the spot to set the 2-hook skate, using a pink head and a coho head for bait, then tried to find a spot out of the wind to fish. I’d hoped we could fish the spot Sean, Pat, and I fished when we saw the orcas, but it was too breezy. We fished a spot nearby in calm waters instead. We didn’t get a bite. The crew took turns taking naps in the 70+ degree heat, and a humpback whale cruised around the tug for entertainment. After a couple of hours of nothing, we motored to the anchorage.
We anchored in the same spot as the first day. It was the only anchorage we used that no one had beachcombed. This anchorage has 3 little islands alongside the big island that make the cove. Even I went in the punt and used my electric outboard for the first time. Took me a minute to figure out how it all worked, and it worked great. I found a couple of shots of ⅝ (?) line, maybe from shrimp pots, along with a bait jar bottom in one spot and a lid that fit it in another.
When I got back to the boat, Tom and Jasper took the punt and kayak to another beach. They came back with a big crate that we could use for draining fish and cleaning shrimp. Jasper found another otter skull—this time with both top and bottom jaws, and all the teeth.
I used half the salmon burger they’d spoon-scraped off the frames, along with some onions, Mama Lil’s peppers, butter, pancake mix flour, and milk, to make a cream sauce, and mixed it with spaghetti noodles. Everyone had seconds. Except Jasper, who had plain noodles that I’d saved for him.
The next morning, we checked the skate first thing, about 5:30 am. We got up to the first hook. There’s a halibut down there. A nice one. So now to get ready. We splashed the punt so we could bring the fish around back and bleed it off the swim step, then bring it up on deck through the stern door. The fish seemed dead. I saw some coagulated blood shake out of the gill plates. I harpooned it to secure it. When I cut the gills, a little blood came out. I hauled it onboard. Length was 63 inches. Jasper looked up the weight from the length in the tide book. About 125 lbs. The next hook had its twin. Same length. This fish had a little more blood come out of its gills, but not much. It seemed about dead, too. Wow. The 7th and 8th fish from this set this year.
The second halibut had pockmarks all over it, and some of its fins had the flesh eaten between the fin rays. Sand fleas, I thought. We had arrived just in time. There was no damage to the flesh. In fact, it was very well bled.
I showed Tom how to fillet a halibut. And just like Joe, another in our Peace Corps training group who was here earlier in the summer, I butchered my fillet showing him how to do it. The remaining 7 fillets (and cheeks) Tom did were about as good as they get. So little meat left on the ribs you could almost see through what was left. The crate Jasper found worked great to drain the big fillets.
The two big fish changed our plans. We had enough ice to keep the halibut fillets cool, but we’d need to butcher and get it frozen, and we couldn’t do that out here.
We headed to our salmon drag in pretty heavy fog to fish the morning before heading to town. We started to catch cohos steadily, but I was having a hard time staying oriented as I couldn’t see the beach. As we neared the point, I saw three boats ahead on the radar, so turned back as I didn’t want to fish near boats I couldn’t see. As the fog burned off, I saw the boats weren’t sport fishing boats, but 3 purse seine boats. We headed back towards the boat so the crew could watch the action, and I explained how purse seining worked. They got to see the boats pursing up and see the fish they brought on board. And all the while, we were catching cohos. Nice big cohos. On the 10th fish, I said let’s head for home. It was 12:30 noon. The crew said we had to. We were out of cooler space. So Tom, Jasper, and Sarah got the coho cleaned and put in the cooler, and I motored for town.
We got to town just before the charter fleet arrived at the cleaning tables and luckily got our own table. Tom knows his way around fish and game processing, and he and his crew made the whole job smooth and efficient. We were done before I knew it, motored to our slip in the harbor, and were headed to the cabin an hour earlier than I thought we would.
It was near 90 degrees inside the container in the late afternoon heat. Opening the windows seemed to make it hotter. So for the first (or maybe second) time, I switched the heat pump from heat to cool, and turned on the air conditioner so we could get to the task at hand in a little more comfort.
We got the 100+ lbs of halibut fillets and the 40 lbs of coho fillets rinsed, drained, and into vac-pac bags. I loaded our freezer, which has become pitifully inadequate this summer. Then Tom and I took the rest to my in-laws’ freezer, and we were done for now. Today felt like one of the best days on the water in my 60 years, with everything going right with people I know and enjoy so well.
We went to Coffman Cove the next day to attend the Art Festival and eat dinner at the burger joint there. The crew was not disappointed.
When we returned in the evening, the fish were frozen well, and we finished vac-packing the fish. Then loaded boxes for their flight to Nebraska and my flight to Juneau. I’m headed home for a few days to see Sara and help out with the Salvation Army canteen truck that’s being used for the glacier lake