Tom arrived on his annual first week of August fishing trip. In the past, he’s brought his wife, daughter (a long time ago), and grandson (The Cheese). This year, the Cheese was off with his cousins, working a job with them poisoning ponds in Michigan, rather than going fishing with his Grandpa and me (I’m not kidding). So, Tom brought his brother in law Al, a career GM worker from Detroit, Tom’s hometown.
They arrived on the 130 flight from Ketchikan, and we were fishing at the coho Island drag at 3:30. After just a few fish with the last group of Peace Corps friends, I was hoping the cohos would move inside, where I could fish for them in calmer waters. I was not disappointed.
By 6:30, we were motoring to the anchorage with over a dozen coho. Lucky for me, Tom is now an experienced fish cleaner, and was able to keep up. All I could think of was that Al is ruined for life. He’ll think it’s always like this. I caught myself helping out a bit too much with the lines, and we almost ran aground. Crap. I’ve got to watch that. The fish – coho and pink – were thick. Fish were swirling at the surface like I’ve never seen. The coho were full of needlefish. Tom, a deacon in his Catholic Church, thought the luck might be because of all the prayers he said. I told him he needed to try swearing once in awhile so he could catch up cleaning. There were no other boats around.
We finished processing about 915 pm at the anchorage, right at sunset. I made pink salmon and salad for dinner. The boys had their take-home fish supply assured already. We could spend the rest of the week replenishing my freezer after I gave last week’s crew all the salmon Julie and I caught the week before they were here.
The next morning, we weighed anchor at 515 am and ran to my favorite king drag. We’d fish with larger lures and deeper if necessary. We put the gear down at 630 am. We caught 2 nice kings and 3 coho for the day. A welcome breather from the day before. As we motored out on the first day, Al said said he didn’t get a king salmon stamp to “save a few dollars”. I wasn’t having that, and had him get one online. That was a good thing for him. He realized when he caught the two kings that the few dollars were worth it, as I would have made him release them if he hadn’t.
By the end of the second day, we’d out fished our cooling capacity with the big kings, so we headed to town to offload. By 630 pm, I was wiped out, and fast asleep before 7 pm. I slept hard.
The next morning, we vac packed all the fish after sleeping in a bit. One of my Foodsaver vac packers kept throwing a red “liquid tray full” light, and these units will not work with that light on. Try as I might to dry everything, it would stay on. I searched the internet for help, and saw a thread about cutting the white wire to bypass the light. That worked! I’ve Craigslisted the several vac packers I have here, and with three of us vac packing, that sure speeded up the operation.
We headed back out about noon and had our gear in about 2 pm. We caught 3 nice coho, and lost the biggest one of the day at the net. We kept a pink salmon for dinner, and it was excellent as usual. We at one of my new spots behind an island in idle seas.
On day 4, I weighed anchor at 4 am for the 4 am high tide. We got a nice king at 515 am. Then the wind blew up, and we moved to a new spot for me called Hole in the Wall (HITW). On the way there, we saw two spectacular bull orcas that popped up right next to the boat. One of them has a distinctive notch on his dorsal fin, so I’ll be keeping an eye out for him.
I switched the lures to whole herring king kandy on one side, and a big lime green king spoon on the other, and dropped down to 100 ft from the standard 70 ft, to try to target kings and limit cohos and pinks . We caught a keeper king and a 22 lb king that jumped and jumped for Tom at HITW, along with 5 coho. We anchored at 115 pm in a new spot for me, so as to not overload our cooling capacity again, and processed fish for 1.5 hrs. So glad to find a king spot for NW winds with a nearby anchorage, as I really didn’t have a spot to move to when the winds come up at my favorite king salmon drag. Salmon trollers joined us later in the evening in the unique anchorage called HITW.
We slept in til 6am on day 5, and fished HITW all day in the lee from the NW wind. It was a beautiful sunny and breezy day. We released a few pinks, and that was it! On the last tack, we fished further east to some other islands, looking for a better anchorage, and we found one. As we pulled the gear to go anchor, we got a coho and a rockfish. We set the skate outside the anchorage. We went into the cove, dropped the anchor, and the 3 of us went to shore in the punt to beach comb. We got a nice hike on the beach. Tom found a troll gaff in a driftwood pile – his second troll gaff find in Alaska. Years ago he found one floating when we were trolling near Juneau, and it may still be one of the gaffs on the boat now. I told Al to watch his footing as we climbed around the rocks between driftwood beaches, as we were a minimum 3 hours away from a competent doctor. Doctor Tom cracked a grin. Al thought I was the George Carlin of Alaska. I cooked the rockfish and a piece of the coho for the boys for dinner, and I had leftover coho from the night before.
We checked the skate the next morning, and nothing. Fishing was dead at HITW, so we moved to my favorite spot for 2 coho, and then got blown out of there when the NW wind picked up. We ran back to the coho Island, and set the skate on the way. We picked up a few coho at the Island. Al started cleaning fish under Tom’s supervision, and he did a good job.
For the final dinner on the boat, I cooked canned venison, with salad, rice, onions, and mushrooms. It was the last night eating on the boat for the trip, so I tried to finish up the vegetables. I anchored by Muerta Island for the first time, and it was pretty good in the NW wind. The Bruce anchor I put on recently holds well.
The last morning, there was nothing on the skate. Again. It’s been a tough halibut year for Uncle Mark. We fished the Island for a pass and released a few pinks, but no cohos, despite lots of feed. We caught a chicken halibut we kept for the last dinner tonight.
It’s been a different year. Although there’s feed around, humpback whales seemed scarce this July and August, and the coho and king salmon fishing has been scatchy in the inside waters I fish. There are reports of good fishing and feed offshore, so maybe that’s where the whales are, too.
Another great trip with Tom and family.
