Joe and Mathias

My friend Joe Degisi and his son Mathias came fishing this week from Smithers, BC. Both have been here before. The last time when Mathias was about 10, so about 10 years ago. Joe and I trained for the Peace Corps fish farming program together at the University of Oklahoma. He went to Liberia, and I to Sierra Leone for our assignments. All of us who trained together consider each other family.

They drove for two days to get to Skagway, as our current governor has greatly reduced the state ferry system through severe budget cuts, even though the state has 70 billion dollars in the bank, and there is currently no service to Prince Rupert, which is just a four hour drive from Smithers.

They arrived late in the evening, so we slept on the boat and headed out to Point Retreat first thing in the morning. We caught 5 coho trolling down to Funter Bay. I introduced the Degisis to moose hot links for lunch, and fried salmon frames for dinner.  Both were a hit. The boys fished rings off the dock for dungy crab. They caught lots of crab and small fish, but no legal male crab. The owner of the legendary Fugly came by and said the commercial crabbers had blanketed the bay with pots and he’d only eaten crab 4 times all summer. We slept soundly tied up to the Funter Bay dock.

The next morning we had the fishing gear down about 730 am heading out of Funter Bay. We caught no fish all the way to Lizard Head, where we were entertained by a lone seiner closing up their set. Then we caught the first of 6 nice coho trolling on down to the entrance to Hawk Inlet. We picked up the fishing gear at noon, and headed to Freshwater Bay with fair seas. We saw 2 trollers fishing in Iyoukeen Cove, where I’d never fished or seen others fishing, so we put in the gear there. We trolled about half way north up the cove, then turned around as the water was a bit choppy. We lost a nice fish near the point. When we rounded the point, we ran into two big coho. Joe had me teach him how I clean fish, then he taught his son. They cleaned fish the rest of the week. I decided today that will be standard for all my trips. People should clean their own fish if they are going to kill them and eat them, and I can teach them how to do it right. It also gives people more confidence in their abilities. Joe also learned to fillet fish, and he’s better than me at it now. We anchored in Pavlov Harbor.

With a dozen+ fish in the freezer, I thought we’d try for king salmon on day 3. We saw a bear on the beach on the way out of Pavlov Harbor about 7 am, and put the gear down just outside the bay. I changed over from the yellow with red stripe hootchie fished behind small green flashers to king kandy fished alone above little green flashers clipped to the cannon ball eye, and put the gear down deeper. We caught 3 big coho from Pavlov to Wachusett Cove. Normally I keep trolling in the same direction for coho on around East Point, but I turned around and trolled back to Pavlov. Nothing. We turned around again towards Wachusett, and caught 3 more nice coho. This time I kept going. By the time we got to East Point at 10 am, we had 11 nice coho. That would do us for the day. And with 24 fish now in 3 days, that would do us for salmon for the trip. I was glad I had made a few more racks for the freezer to keep the fish separated before they are frozen, as we needed them now. I also learned this trip that the fish in the very center of the freezer don’t freeze very quickly, while the fish to all sides of them towards the 4 walls of the freezer do, so I’ll remember not to place fish on the rack there now.

We processed our catch on the way to Tenakee. We tied up at the short stay dock in Tenakee and walked up to town. Joe looked intently at the warm springs bath house information, including the times for men and women. I walked into the store and was chatting with the owner and others there, reintroducing myself from the trips to Tenakee with Larry. Then Joe walked into the bath house.  During the women’s hours. Which he just read.  He was immediately harangued by the Tenakee residents in the store, and came right back out. He didn’t get all the way past a wall to where he’d have seen a pile of naked women, but  was embarrassed as hell nonetheless. Oh boy.

On the walk to the harbor,  I met some Juneau folks, including one of the boys in the scout troop and his parents. The dad had a bag of crab, and I asked him where he caught it. He told me that the spot was across the bay, there were no other pots by his, and that there were so many crab in the pot that he had kept only the biggest of the keepers. He said we were welcome to check his pots on the way out. We were excited to finally find a good crabbing spot.

We headed out about an hour later for the scout family’s crab pots. We never found them. We saw lots of other pots there, so we tried ringing. Caught a keeper the first pull, but only females the rest of the two hours we tried. We had not found the crabbing grounds. Again.

Like last week, the horse flies were horrendous there, so we didn’t stop to try for halibut by Strawberry Island, and headed back around to Pavlov Harbor for the night. The next morning we intended to head back up Chatham towards the cabin I had rented. The forecast was for 10 kt winds in north Chatham Strait, but we were in 2 to 3 foot seas right out of Pavlov. We turned around and decided to go try fishing out of the wind behind Cedar Island. We got back there, and it was a nice little anchorage. We ran up into 10 feet or less of water looking around – the marine chart on my garmin plotter is not at all accurate in this little area – and we were lucky not to go aground. I backed up in time, and we moved into a 70 foot deep bowl, where we fished for an hour or two. As the tide fell, a whole sandy reef was exposed where we almost went aground. Wow. We were lucky. We caught nothing – not even a bite – and I think it was a mud bottom so not a good halibut spot. Surprisingly, the wind laid down, so we ran across Freshwater Bay to the spot John caught his big halibut last week. We saw a little brown bear on Cedar Island as we left. Seemed too small to not have a sow around, but we didn’t see another bear with it.

I had the boys fishing the halibut rods, and I put a jig on a salmon rod for rockfish. I caught one quillback rockfish after another. I kept my limit of 1 – which just seems absurd since there is so little meat on a rockfish that what are you going to do with just one. I released the rest using the gizmo that takes the fish back down to the bottom and releases it so it doesn’t die from the bends. That IS a good regulation.  You may wonder why I kept fishing when I had my limit for quillback, and that’s because when I was there with John and Eaton last week, I caught mostly dusky rockfish, and for that species the limit is 5, and I was hoping to start catching them, but never did.

The wind continued to lay down, but there was a blow coming tonight. The boys hadn’t caught any halibut, so I decided to pick up and try to cross Chatham while the seas weren’t too rough.

When we got out to Chatham Strait, it was nice. The calm before the storm. We kept going to cross to the Admiralty shore, where there are numerous bays to get out of the weather if it comes up. I fished the shoreline during my years of power trolling, and it was my favorite area to fish in the spring.  I just saw my friend Harry the other day in the store in Juneau. He lived in Angoon at the time and showed me how to fish the area and where to anchor.

We got to the other side, then headed north. Now we were going with the southeast wind and the tide. We kept on going up to Funter Bay to hide for the blow. We made over 8 knots much of the trip, and that’s the fastest I’ve gone in the tug at it’s normal 2750 rpm cruising speed.

We arrived at Funter Bay, and set the 2 hook skate in the same spot as I did with Todd and Renee. Then continued on to the dock, where there was just one other occupied vessel.  It was a good feeling to be tied up with a blow coming. And nice that the state DNR that oversees the recreational cabin program allows people to get a credit if they can’t use the cabin for the night they reserved it due to weather. I didn’t want to use the cabin as I saw the boat drag with a much less wind than was forecast for tonight when Todd and Renee and I stayed there.  The blow came overnight, but passed through and it was flat calm in the morning.

Joe wanted to try for halibut again. We were heading to town today, so didn’t have a fish storage concern. We had jugs of ice in the freezer that would keep any fish cool til we got to town.  We headed towards the skate buoy, and I noticed as we approached that it seemed to have moved some. Possibly a good sign. I readied the harpoon and gaffs. Joe idled the boat up and I hooked the buoy line. There was definitely weight on the line. Then the line started pulling back. Definitely a good sign.  Like the last time here, up came the anchors and one of the two hooks in a tangle with a loop still down in the water with the other hook. And this time, a big fish.

I cautiously worked the line up into the boat. I’ve heard of people getting big nurse sharks on their halibut sets, so we didn’t know just what it was till we saw the mottled brown top skin of a big flatfish below. We had a nice halibut. I got the halibut to the surface, and made a clean strike through the head with the harpoon. The harpoon tip toggled on the otherside, and the fish ran. I payed out harpoon line, not wanting the fish to run freely with a bunch of slack line and then break the line when it snapped tight at the cleat like my friends had happen with a 200 lb halibut. I slowly played the fish back up to the side of the boat. Mathias handed me the troll gaff so I could bonk the fish on the head, which I did. Then I cut the gill to bleed it in the water. The fish didn’t thrash much after this. I tied a lasso around the tail and tied the other end of the line to the rail. We had it.

After the fish bled out, Mathias and I both stuck gaffs into the head and together heaved the fish up and over the rail.  It was bigger than I thought. We measured the fish at 61 inches, which translated to 115 lbs using the length weight table in the tide book. We headed back to the dock to fillet the fish.

I lined Joe out on filleting a halibut. When he’d finished, he’d done a better job than I can on his first try. We headed to Juneau to process the halibut on fair seas. We saw the usual humpback whales in Saginaw Channel on the way in. What a trip.

Nephew and his dad

My brother in law came in to join his son for week two of the nephew’s trip here. We traveled all over south Lynn Canal, north Chatham Strait and eastern Icy Strait. We went to the Tenakee dock for a couple hours so they could walk around town while I processed fish. In that time, we met the son and his son and wife,  of a family friend, who I’d never met but whose photo we had in our house because he sends his mom a firewood cutter’s calendar each year from Silverton, CO. Then our good friend Winston pulled in to chat as he was waiting to get fuel to take out some whale researchers on his charter boat with his wife Renee. Then my former workmate and her husband pulled in on their ~28 foot boat with a 200 lb halibut. I don’t think I’ve seen a halibut that big in person, and it was a beast. Enormous. The photos don’t do it’s size justice to seeing it in person. I don’t know how three of them managed to get it aboard.  The nephew did me a favor and painted the tug name, Jeanne Kay, on the bottom of the punt that rides on the swim step of the boat and hides the boat name. He did a great job. Even though it will scrape off, I should be able to repaint using the shadow of his job and make it come out okay, as I would really butcher it if I did it from scratch.

The huge halibut really impressed the crew and they now were motivated to do some halibut fishing.  We headed over to anchor for the night at Strawberry Island, where my nephew and I anchored the year before and caught a halibut. We anchored up there, and put out the rods. They caught a nice halibut about 30 lbs. But the horseflies!  They swarmed the boat. I’ve never seen them like this. The temperature was in the 70’s and sunny, but if the doore was open even a crack, the flies came inside. So after we toughed it out for a few hours, we decided to move back to Freshwater Bay where we were the previous night.

We anchored again in Pavlov, and got our second night of great brown bear viewing on the beach behind the boat. A couple deer came out and lounged around after the bears were gone, too.

The next day, I picked out an underwater hill of about 90 feet across the bay. We anchored there, and started fishing. Two rods were set up for halibut, and I fished a buzz bomb lure on a salmon rig for rockfish. After we caught a few rockfish, there was a commotion on dad’s side. Suddenly, the rod in his hand was throbbing up and down. He had a halibut. A nice one, too.

I got beside him and helped him adjust the drag so it was loose enough to give, but made the fish work. He fought the fish for probably 15 minutes when we finally saw it. Oooh. A nice one. The nephew had already readied the harpoon and was encouraging his dad playing the fish. When he got the fish to the surface, I thrust the harpoon. But a poor strike, and the tip didn’t go all the way through. The fish didn’t like that, and ran again. I retrieved the tip, put it back on the harpoon handle stem, and the next time he got he fish to the surface, I made a good strike, and could see the tip toggled on the opposite side of the fish. We had her. I slowly paid out the harpoon line while the fishing weight banged against the side of the boat. I was careful not to just let the fish swim freely with the line, as that’s what my friends had done and the 200 lber had snapped the harpoon line. Luckily the hook and line were still with the fish, and they had a second tip and eventually secured it.

I stunned the fish on the head with the back of the gaff handle. I was able to pull the fish up and over the rail and onto the deck. Then I cut the gills and the nephew poured water from a bucket onto the gills for the next 20 minutes to bleed it well. This paid off later as the flesh looked good when I removed the fillets. They measured the fish and reported the length to me – 57 inches. I looked it up on the halibut length weight chart in the tide book, and that translated to about 90 lbs. Wow.

Now we were in a predicament. We were 2 days from the scheduled return to Juneau. But the screwy federal regulations for halibut do not allow you to butcher the fish more than cutting off the 4 large fillets you get from the fish – 2 from each side – on board your boat. We couldn’t cut these up into portions that would fit in the freezer, so we needed ice. I pulled the anchor, and we headed for Hoonah.  Dad took a rest after the big fish workout.

Hoonah Cold Storage, like Alaska Glacier Seafoods and Taku Fisheries in Juneau, put out flake ice each day in a tote for use by the public. For free.  So we pulled up to the HCS dock right next to the city dock, and hauled 8 buckets worth of ice to the boat. I layered the ice with the fish, and it was beautiful two days later when we got back to Juneau. We idled from the HCS dock to the Hoonah city dock, and the crew took a stroll around town while I puttered around the boat.

That was the last fish we caught, as the crew said they had all the fish they would take home. I took some of their surplus fish to Mike and Christina, who run the Salvation Army Store, after I got the boys on the jet home with their fish.

92 Years Young

Mark and Paul wearing Old Piss shirts

You’d think 92 years would be a ripe old age to die. Not for Paul, it wasn’t.

I talked to him a few days ago. My usual report in on current fishing or sports or politics. Paul sounded good. He had nearly all of his marbles, right to the end. Since I spoke with him often on the phone and not on video chat, and saw him a few times a year in person, I wouldn’t see the physical declines those closer to him would, and maybe his passing was more expected by them. He was one of my best friends and I spoke with him more often than I did my family, and was closer to him than my own dad.

The photo of Paul and I was taken when I went down to his house to watch the Egg Bowl with him, I think. Paul loved sports and that, and fishing and hunting, were our main topics of conversation. I think he cherished the “Old Piss” shirt I sent to him more than anything else I ever did for him, along with the $500 van I bought from Rorie that he said was so perfect for him he’d hug it everyday. I saw the van over by Steve’s apartment when he was helping me scavenge at the Petersburg dump, one of my favorite activities when I was in town,  on a Sunday a few months ago. If you don’t know the meaning of Old Piss, it might be because you never lived in Mississippi, but I’ll let you look that up yourself. My late friend Jimmy introduced me to the phrase.  We both went to Mississippi State.

I met Paul in about 1988.  On a dusty road in Sierra Leone. All of us on motorcycles. They were going one direction and me the other.  I was about 22,  in the Peace Corps in the same country as his younger daughter, and he was there visiting her with his older daughter. We chatted briefly in the West African heat and humidity, and then went our separate ways.

A few years later, I found myself moved to Juneau and working as a state fishery management biologist for the salmon troll fishery. Each season, we’d take a trip to ports around southeast Alaska to talk to fishermen about the upcoming season. When we stopped in Petersburg, a shorter man with glasses walked up to my boss and said “Well, this is a long way from West Africa”. Or something like that. My boss soon realized Paul was looking for me, and he came over and that reintroduction started an increasingly close relationship that lasted til the day before yesterday.

Paul grew up in various places – Nebraska. Montana. California.  If I remember right, he told me he stuttered as a kid, and found he liked running as it was a sport he could do alone and not have to be part of a team where he’d have to talk. I think long about his 8th grade year, the gym class was doing some kind of running test of sorts, to see how fast each could run some distance.  Paul apparently impressed the crap out of the gym coach, which lead to a high school career in California and a later college career at Cal. Paul followed track and field the rest of his life, and could tell me who were the standouts even to the high school level in the US.

Paul graduated in Geology from Cal and then went to Korea just after the end of the war, and worked in the engineering corps, building bridges. When he got to Alaska, he worked in geology around the state. He showed me an article in a geology type journal of a story he was a part of exploring Mount Fairweather, out between Cross Sound and Yakutat. He also worked up on the Yukon River and out of Dillingham doing exploratory geology for mining companies. Later he was a surveyor for the Alaska Pipeline, laying out the corridor for the pipeline out of Valdez, which is where he also bought his first troller, The Wooden Shoe, if memory serves.

I can’t remember if it was before or after the girls were born, but he said he wanted to get a job where he didn’t have to travel so much for his family, so he went to UAF and got his teaching credentials. He got hired on in Petersburg as a science and math teacher at the high school, and taught there til retirement. On his own initiative, he started a surveying class at the high school. He said some kids who didn’t care much for school otherwise would have to buckle down and pass some preliminary math class requirements before they could take his class, and many did. He was so proud of his students who went on to become surveyors. The highlight of the class was a trip to the nearby LeConte glacier. He talked the helicopter charter service in town to flying them out there each year for free (I think). The annual surveys became, of course, very important right up to now as baseline data for the glacier’s retreat over the past 40 years. There’s an old “Rain Country” KTOO video episode of him and the students there. He was named Alaska Teacher of the Year, which I only know because there was the award certificate hanging in a frame in his house. I’ve never met someone as humble as Paul. He’d never tell you himself about his accomplishments or awards like this. But he would always talk proudly of his daughters.

His girls graduated from little Petersburg high school and never looked back. One commercial fished in Yakutat during the summer, and her marriage to the local APR reporter in Petersburg took the two of them all over the world for his work as a foreign correspondent for NPR. The younger daughter was the state’s first Rhode Scholar and worked for USAID all over the world as well, from Indonesia to Africa. One currently lives in Turkey and the other in Zambia. Paul visited both daughters all over the world until the travel got to be too much for him. By then, his girls and nephews and son in laws were well established and could take extended trips back home to Petersburg, where Paul was still able to go out with them fishing for salmon on his troller, right up until last year.

I met Sara here in Juneau through a mutual friend from UAF.  When we started our short dating courtship, I mentioned my friend in Petersburg and she said she had a best friend since high school from Petersburg. My friend was Paul. Her friend was his oldest daughter. A seemingly big life coincidence, but not so much in our big state of few people.

Paul and I corresponded here and there after our reunion meeting in Petersburg about 1997. My first big break was getting invited to the annual duck hunt with Tyler. He was always somewhat secretive about where he and Tyler went, so being invited into the club was a big honor for me. It must have impressed his daughters that I was let into the exclusive little club. Over the years, the three of us hunted in their spot. Paul on one end of a tree washed up there for decades. Tyler on the other. The first time we went hunting, we hauled box after box of shells from the little boat to the dead tree hunting blind. More shells than most people would shoot in a lifetime. I was right on that account. He’s given me countless shells in the last decade that I’ve mostly passed on to friends and family that duck hunt.  Then Paul said I hope you don’t mind, but the way we hunt here is we throw out the dekes at low tide when we get here, and wait for the tide to float them, and then the ducks start coming in. Which takes a while. So we like to have a beer while we wait. Next he said, I hope you don’t mind, but while we’re waiting and drinking a beer, we like to listen to the Seahawks game (it was a Sunday), which was carried by the local Christian station in Petersburg. I said “Paul, I think we’re Siamese twins separated at birth!”. What a crew.  I could see I would fit in here.  Tyler would occasionally ask Paul if the game had started yet, and Paul would reply “No Tyler, It’s Time to Pray!”.   Paul was a crack shot with a semi-auto Browning that was a lot of gun. The barrel went out there forever from the stock. He gave me that gun a few years ago. We went on more hunts over the years with Tyler, and later with Paul’s son in law and the son in law’s brother.

As he aged, my visits were more often to the house, either on trips passing through Petersburg, or on the annual gathering to watch the Superbowl. Dick, Kris, Steve and I were the usuals, and Paul went all out with platters ordered from Hammer and Wikan.

I unfortunately never met his first wife – the mother of his daughters.  She passed away young from cancer before Paul and I were good friends. So, so many of his stories started with “Me and Neva”. She was quite an outdoorswoman from the stories. He later married Penny, who ironically and tragically passed away from the same cancer as Neva. She and Neva could not have been more different people from what I gathered. Penny was a thespian and loved being in the local theatre and Little Norway festivities. She even got Paul to like her little red dog. She was so welcoming when I’d come down to visit, and a great cook.

I last saw Paul when Kurt and I took the boat to Craig in April. Paul and Erik took us to lunch at the great little diner near the harbor in Petersburg. Paul couldn’t figure out how to use his card to pay for lunch (which he always insisted on doing), and when he tapped the card and the payment went through, I said “welcome to the 21st Century, Paul”. Both he, and state Senator Stedman, who was seated in a table nearby and doesn’t know me from Adam, laughed. We always had fun.

I last talked to Paul a few days ago. He was recovering from illness caused from not remembering to take medication for one of his health conditions. This was not his first time from recovering from something, and he sounded like he’d rebounded and was his old self again. Kurt noticed he was alot more frail than when we’d stopped to see him 9 months earlier bringing the newly purchased tug up from Ketchikan. I guess I did, too.

But old age didn’t get Paul, really. Being old did, though, as he had a bad fall that he couldn’t recover one more time.  I thought he would, but I didn’t realize how bad this incident was as compared to others in recent memory. His daughters were both at his side when he passed, and I’m sure he was content going quickly. I’ve lost several friends and family and friends in their 50’s and younger  – Jimmy, Jeff, Heather, Terry and Emily – in just the past few years –    I thought I’d be better prepared for a 92 year old’s transition, but I guess I’m not. I thought for sure he’d make it to 100, and sometimes wondered if I’d go before he would. Really a privilege to be his friend.

Teenage boy waving from a boat in Alaksa

Nephew: Take 3

My 14 year old nephew arrived for his 3rd consecutive year. He’d come for a week or 10 days before. He asked for 2 weeks this time!  A glutton for punishment, he is.

We headed out the day after he arrived, starting at Pt Retreat in Lynn Canal and fishing our way south. We caught some smaller coho. I noticed that the coho that had anything in their bellies had herring, and not krill or needlefish. So I switched from flashers and hootchies to King Kandy and caught 2 big cohos at Funter Bay. We set dungy and king crab pots in Funter Bay, tied up to the dock, and processed our catch.

On day 2, we had one big dungeness crab, my nephew’s favorite, and some undersized king crab. We across Lynn Canal to the Clover Islands to try there. We caught a coho and lost two, then caught a nice king an hour later. The king kandy lures were doing what we wanted – not catching pinks and catching larger cohos and even a nice king.

We continued  around the corner at Point Couverdon and on out Icy Strait. We caught 4 coho, a king and a pink for the day. I decided we’d need to shake pinks now or run out of freezer space on the boat. We processed our fish, and got into a daily routine. I would fillet and portion the fish, and my nephew would double rinse the portions, then wrap the fish in plastic wrap. I’d then place then on racks I recently built for the freezer out of coated mesh wire, and they worked great to keep the fish separated so it would freeze properly.  We anchored at porpoise islands and went to the beach to explore and get some exercise. Eaton was starting to see a daily pattern now. We are gonna limit our daily catch to 5 or 6 fish and beach comb the rest of the day so we have freezer space when Eaton’s dad gets here.

On day 3, we fished Pleasant Island, a brand new spot for me. I caught 3 on the Pleasant Island side of the reef while the nephew slept. All decent sized cohos on king kandy. Next we went to Point Adolphus and got one right away. There were about 10 whale watch boats out of Hoonah there; when I trolled here 25 years ago, it would be just me and the whales. We decided we weren’t going to go to the outer coast, and we ran to Hoonah to tie up for the night. I suspect my nephew is going through withdrawals without cell service as his provider Verizon doesn’t work out in Icy Strait, and that was part of his reason for wanting to return to Juneau for awhile before his dad arrived. I walked up to the Hoonah store while the nephew watched a movie maybe too mature for him, but that’s what uncles are for.

The corvids are my favorite. On my walk to the store, there was a raven sitting atop a little stone chimney top that was coming out of a little old house above the harbor. It was croaking and , it seemed, enjoying the amplification the chimney gave to its song. It also seems a little more like a religious event seeing a raven in a Tlingit village. Like it’s a member of the town.

On day 4 we planned to fish the mainland around to Couverdon and tie up there. We caught 3 coho, then the wind came up and we couldn’t get to Couverdon in the heavy seas. We headed out Icy Strait with the wind, looking for an anchorage. We wandered around the Porpoise Islands and the east side of Pleasant Island and could not find an anchorage out of the wind, so we went to the Excursion Inlet dock. This was my first time here.  After a short rest at the dock, we set a halibut skate and crab pot up the inlet. I had my nephew practice docking the boat on the empty dock when we returned. After pouring rain and rough seas all day, the evening was calm and the sun came out. We walked around the mothballed Excursion Inlet cannery compound, which was in well kept condition at 116 years old. There were free bikes to ride around on, a little apiary, and a little museum, which was locked so we looked through the windows. A big doe deer let us walk right by her.

On the morning of day 5, I was surprised to find the boat battery still on full charge, even with Eaton having watched a movie and the freezer on full time. I think since the freezer is mostly full now, the thermal mass is keeping the freezer cold, and it has to work less. I learn something every trip. I’ll try to collect a bunch of large plastic containers like milk jugs or the big pop bottles to fill with water and freeze to keep in the freezer. I can remove them as fish takes their place, and we’ll see if that’s less stress on the dc system.

We fished at Couverdon for an hour where we had caught a few nice coho, but no luck. We snuck across north Chatham Strait to Admiralty in the calm seas. We fished from Lizard Head up to Funter, and only had one coho on, which was lost at the boat. We decided with the fair seas and poor fishing to head to town, and arrived in Auke Bay in the evening, where Sara picked us up. We’ll relax for a couple days til my brother in law arrives, then do it all over again.

The Little Bolivar Bro

Took the little brother of my high school classmate and his wife whale watching and fishing on the tug today. They split their time between Florida and Montana, where the wife is from. Had a great time hearing their life stories. They are on a tour of Alaska, and spent over a week touring the rainy, cold railbelt, then got to Juneau on our first rain in weeks. It was lightly raining in the morning, but by afternoon, the rain stopped and we got some sun.

We saw lots of whales on our way, and then fished Pt Retreat down to Cordwood, then made a couple passes at Cordwood, and then back to Retreat. We caught 3 coho and only one pink. And not many pinks jumping. This was a far cry from a week ago, when we didn’t go 15 minutes it seemed without a pink on. Hard to believe the pink run peaked that fast and is over. It was good while it lasted.  The coho were decent sized, but not much in their stomachs.

I’d adjusted the stuffing box nut in the tug, and moved the bilge pump to a location deeper than the float switch. Now instead of the bilge pump going off every hour, the less dripping and more efficient pump location only triggered it once all day.  Another tug system learned.

The couple only wanted enough fish to eat for dinner tonight, so we dropped the rest of the fish off to the Conteh’s. The wife had been to Sierra Leone through her church during the Civil War time and so was glad to meet the Sierra Leoneons.

A great day all around and glad to meet some good people.

Whales in Alaska

Minnesota Nice

Todd and Renee came to town for a week, including 3 days out on the boat. We headed to Chatham Strait on day 1, and on the way, came across a group of about 14 humpback whales bubble net feeding. The whales were some distance away as we motored on our way, not headed in any particular direction when they dove. They surfaced literally a stone’s throw away from us. I put the boat hard over to starbard to move away from them, then immediately took the boat out of gear. This was an instinctual reaction from my years of work as a whale watch guide. The whales stayed at the surface, then swam right behind the stern of the boat, taking their time. It took awhile before they were 100 yards away and I could put the boat back in gear so we could be on our way.  These encounters never get old, and it’s more exciting with friends who’ve never witnessed this event before.

We put down the fishing gear once we rounded Point Retreat, and soon had a fish on. We caught fish the rest of the afternoon. Most were pinks on a yellow with red stripe hootchie. I had them switch to a chartreuse hootchie and we got a couple cohos, so I switched the other side to chartreuse, too.

About 4 pm, we headed to a very remote state parks cabin, which is my favorite. It has two bays separated by a sand bar, and the cabin is just off the sand bar.  Todd told me a funny story about “Minnesota Nice” on the way over. His step daughter was about 12 at the time, and they were at a cook out. There was one hamburger left, and as the guest, they asked Todd if he wanted it. He said sure, he’d take it if no one else wanted it, eager to please the cook and his offer. When he got his burger and returned to the table, his step daughter was beside herself. “You don’t say yes if someone asks you for the last hamburger. You say no first, and then let them negotiate with you and ask you four or five more times before you accept.”  That killed me.

After anchoring the boat, I filleted fish and Todd wrapped them, then they went in the freezer. Then we launched the punt to go to shore. After never failing me, the kicker would not start. It wouldn’t even fire. So I rowed Renee and Todd in one at a time with the gear.  When I got there, I later realized I’d not brought the spatula for making pancakes in the morning.

I fried the frames from coho salmon we’d filleted, and also fillet pieces of coho and pink salmon. Sara had packed a tomato and basil salad and some shrimp seviche to go with it, along with some potato chips I brought along. I realized that, along with the spatula, I’d forgot any spices for the salmon. This is the stuff Sara does not forget. I improvised and used crushed potato chips, which turned out fantastic. When we finished eating frames, I asked if I should cook the fillets, and Todd said I should. Those two ate those themselves, and I was happy to hear Renee say how much she liked the pink salmon and that it tasted mild like trout. So many here turn their nose up at pink salmon, but I know better. Pink salmon, taken out on the ocean and then bled and chilled like you’d take care of a king salmon, are fantastic table fare. And getting an unbiased affirmation like that made me smile. We had chocolate for dessert. We slept on camping pads in the cabin. I’d brought those to save space on the boat. Not the best, but okay for the night. Next time it will only be full size foam pads, and I’ll figure out a way to keep them on the boat roof and dry.

We got up at a leisurely time after a stiff night of sleep. Lots of coffee before I got to making pancakes. Then Todd asked if the boat had dragged anchor, and I realize it had. We’d set a crab pot behind it, and the boat was now even with the buoy. I jumped in the punt and rowed out, and reanchored the boat with a lot more scope this time. And I grabbed the spatula.

We ate pancakes cooked in olive oil and some venison summer sausage til it was all gone. Then packed up for another day of fishing.

We headed back to the Admiralty shore, and put the gear out at Naked Island about 11 am.  It didn’t seem that 15 minutes ever went by when we didn’t have a fish on. By 330 pm, we’d reached our limit of pinks and had a couple decent cohos, too. The kids called uncle. This is enough fish and we don’t need anymore to take home. I’d hoped the chartreuse hootchie would catch more cohos than pinks, but it did not. We headed to the Funter Bay dock to tie up for the day.

On the way, I decided to set a 2 hook halibut skate. It was my first time doing so. I set out a little anchor, then snapped on a ganion line with circle hook and octopus bait, then another hook and bait, then another anchor, and then fed out line til the anchors were both on bottom, and put on a buoy.  Next we set a crab pot filled with salmon  heads and bones amongst many other pots, and tied up to the dock.

I started filleting our catch, Todd portioned and rinsed it twice, put the fish into colanders to drain, then Renee wrapped the pieces in plastic wrap and we put them in the freezer, separating them with chunks of beach combed plastic trays so they froze properly.

Next I got dinner on, and Renee vac packed yesterday’s fish. Tonight dinner was moose brauts Jerry’s meats made from the moose I caught on the Yukon River in April, with lots of garnish choices, including onions and bell peppers I sauteed. I put those and some pickled rhubarb on mine, and some mustard. I have not found anything I don’t like pickled rhubarb on, and will need to can a bunch more to have enough for the year. The couple enjoyed the moose.

We retired early and we all were asleep quickly after a full day.

I got up first in the morning and got the coffee on. This was the first of 4 pots we’d drink today. Next, I started vac packing yesterday’s catch, and Todd soon joined me. We drank cup after cup of coffee. When the fish was done, we headed to check our gear. The dungy pot was full of juvenile king crab, which was great as Renee had never seen them. She took lots of photos for her 4th graders to see in the fall. We released all the crab, shook the bait from the bait jars, and headed for the halibut skate. There was nothing on the first hook, and the octopus was gone. Next came the anchor, with a big loop in the line. The second hook should have been next. Why the tangle?  Because there was a halibut on the second hook!  I got the fish to the side, conked it, and gaffed it on board.  Exciting to get my first halibut on a skate.

We headed back to town. The whales were in the same location as the way out. We watched the big group dive and surface several times, but they never “set” as they call it, coming up with their mouth’s wide open under the bubble net.

We got back to the harbor, and I got a good spot near the ramp. We offloaded the gear, carted it to the truck, and headed for the house.

Sara greeted us in a mask, with masks for us. She got Covid and so was keeping her distance. She had to cancel her coveted trip to Antiques Roadshow in Anchorage, as well as a ride on the train in Fairbanks to celebrate the centennial of the Alaska railroad. Pretty disappointing. None of us had any symptoms and I tested negative so far. Fingers crossed.