I got back to Craig yesterday. I’d gone to Juneau for Sara’s hip surgery, and she was walking and driving after a little over a week and said I could return to Craig. The crew poured the house foundation while I was gone.
I got to town at 1030 am. I hit the store and the post office and cashed a check from the mail that the power company gave us for buying an EV. Two hours later, I was out of the harbor and steaming to my favorite fishing drag.
I fished down and back and bucked the NW wind and didn’t catch anything, but it sure was good to get back out. I brought some rolled up water hose as a sleeve for the anchor chain to see if it would be easier on the capstan when hauling back the anchor. It took some doing to get it all on there. When I pulled the anchor the next day, the sleeved did help, but I think now I have too much anchor chain, so plan to cut a bunch out and try again. I can always add it back later if I need to.
I was out fishing yesterday shortly after 4am. I fished the herring aid spoon down and caught a few rockfish and a little halibut – all released. When you fish alone and have only one rod in the water, the rockfish or halibut that get on the hook but don’t pull the line out of the downrigger release mean you’re not fishing while that fish is on there. The electric downriggers make checking alot easier, but I’m noticing when it’s scratch fishing – meaning you catch a random king here and there but there’s no pattern to it – that the larger king kandy lures are too big for the smaller rockfish and halibut, so there are a lot fewer little fish on there than with the spoons. They also tend not to catch shaker (<28″) kings.
I switched to the cop car king candy on the turn back up the drag. I looked back after a short time and saw the line was off the downrigger release. I grabbed the rod and thought maybe it was kelp, but then saw a tail finning at the surface way back about 50 yards. Then the fish ran, and cartwheeled clear out of the water. A decent king, I thought. The wind was blowing me back to the fish, so I reeled and reeled to keep up. When the flasher appeared and I saw the king – wow, that’s a nice one, I thought. When I dipped the net into the water and led the fish to it, it swam right into the net. Then I saw the fish in person. This was the biggest king I’d caught since power trolling I’d just picked up the scale I’d ordered at the post office, and it read 29.88 lbs after bleeding the fish. So 30 pounds. Wow. It was 630 am.
I put the gear back in and went around in a circle to go past the spot again. Bang. Another fish on. But this time, a nice halibut – the identical series of fish that happened in this same spot a few weeks ago. I landed the halibut in the huge net, put it on a stringer, broke a gill, and put it over the side into the water to bleed.
I fished up and back down the drag. I had a fish on for less than a minute, and a pesky rockfish or two when I used the spoon. Funny how a 30 lb king will make a man patient, though. I looked at the weather and what I needed to do to get ready to go out for a week with Roy, who is coming in the day after tomorrow, and decided, although I could stay over and fish the morning and get to town alright, it would be prudent to go to town tonight. I have all summer to fish.
I realized my canned smoked salmon supply is getting low, and I’m not gonna have much time for smoking and canning once Roy gets here to start the season. So, I figured I’d smoke and can some of the king salmon and get that done. It was getting on 3 pm and I was passed the spot where I’d caught the earlier fish. I figured I’d fish around the point til I got to another hot spot this year, pick up my gear there, and go home if nothing was happening.
Oops – the line released. I got back to the rod, and a nice fish was taking drag as I pulled the rod out of the holder. I worked another big fish – 20 lbs – with the king kandy in his mouth to the net, and like the first fish, he swam right into the net. And a white king. Lucky.
I headed to town with two big kings and a halibut. When I got to the open channel to town and last hour of the run, I put the tug on auto pilot, and took care of my fish. I filleted the king salmon, leaving the head on per the new regulations (so if law enforcement needed to measure it, they could). I then scraped the frames with a spoon for burger. The halibut I filleted as well. By the time I got to town, I had all the fish in vac pack bags, except for the big tail sections I saved to smoke and can.
I cut the tails into strips and put them in my friend Nevette’s smoking brine: 9 cups of water with 1 cup of salt for 10 minutes. Then filled the smoker racks. When I saw I was a rack short of king salmon, I got the king collar meat and a fillet to fill the smoker. Then let it air dry overnight.
This morning I woke up wiped out. I dragged out of bed with a dehydration headache from drinking 2 pots of coffee yesterday. I drank some water and took some ibuprophen for my achy shoulder. Espresso woke me up and I started to feel better. Got the smoker going and got the weed wacker out I brought down from Juneau. I bought Sara a high quality Stihl battery weedwacker a few years back, so brought down our garage-saled electric Weed Eater weed wacker. An hour later and I was a little more spry. I’m gonna make it. I have to. Roy gets here tomorrow.
