I'm still alive!

Certain people probably think I'm dead when I don't post for a few days. I keep telling you - I don't die that easy!

Much has happened since I last posted.  I drove up to Seward and connected with Ken (from Virginia) and his friend Tommy - who I met on an Alaska fishing and hunting website and forum.  Seward was beautiful - with rugged shoreline and islands that go straight up. On them, we saw lots of gulls, cormorants, and puffins too.  I was pleased with Ken's boat, which was much bigger and nicer than I expected. It was 32 feet long, had a rear deck, a nice enclosed cabin with comfortable seating, and a huge front deck big enough to fish a bunch of guys, or park a toyota or a few four wheelers. It would be the perfect rig to guide out of for bear, deer and goat (the species you get along the coast) - plus good for fishing the big water out on the sea, transporting people and gear, etc.  Now I want one too!

Seward was quite the tourist town - sort of like Nisswa on steroids surrounded by steep snow-capped peaks and rugged pine studded humpy islands sticking out of the ocean out front. Up here, the hardware stores rule - sort of like they did back home in the 1970's - and that's where we get our sporting goods (there is no such thing as Cabelas or Gander Mountain here).  The main drag goes by the harbor, and the streets were busy with people walking, sight-seeing, shopping, dining, eating ice-cream, and so on.  On several street corners, people were waving signs and shouting hell and damnation to sinners in an apparent attempt to scare people into coming to Christ (strange way of trying to evangelize, I thought). It was tempting to engage, but we went fishing instead.

Ken had a spot 70 miles out, so we made a run for it, and made it in his boat in a little over 2 hours. Along the way, we saw numerous sea otters, porpoises, one seal, puffins, and a couple of very distant humpback whales.  At the fishing grounds, we quickly caught a half dozen halibut that were 10-20 pounds - along with some big ling cod (which we had to throw back because the season doesn't open until July 1) and some arrowtooth flounder (like a halibut - but the meat is mushy). Once we had our limit of halibut, we moved several more miles to the east to catch rockfish - which are like a big black seabass. They are delicious to eat, and Maria's favorite fish btw.  We were well on our way to catching a limit of these when the tide shifted and the bite died. But, not before I caught my biggest halibut - which is a neat story.

When people fish halibut up here, they generally use some pretty heavy duty saltwater baticast reels and short, heavy rods that can handle fish that are a couple of hundred pounds or more. Consequently, when you catch small fish, there is no "fight" and you basically just haul them up.  When we went fishing for the rockfish, we switched to smaller tackle - similar to the stuff I use for bass back in Minnesota. In Ken's tackle box, I spied a chartreuse jig that looked like it would catch a musky, and announced "just watch guys - I'm going to put this on, and catch a fish!" Well, I did, and wouldn't you know as soon as it got down there, I hooked up with something BIG. The rod was an UglyStik - very light and flexible, and it took me quite a while of pushing the limits of that rod before I could get the thing off the bottom. I was pushing the rod, the line, the knot, and the tackle to it's limits - and finally budged the thing and then kept it coming.  Not sure how long it took, but we were super surprised to see a big halibut come into view.  Ken gaffed the fish and I dropped the pole to help him haul it onto the deck. Around here, you don't automatically unhook your fish like you do at home. You leave it lay on the deck, and you get a club to beat it's brains out with. Then, you slit the gills to bleed the fish out - and five or ten minutes later, you rinse everything off with bucketfulls of seawater - then put your fish on ice in a cooler.  That took a little getting used to for me, because back home I generally bearhug my fish, unhook them, take a quick photo, and then release them - especially the big ones. This halibut is the biggest fish I have ever kept to eat. BTW, they are also delicious.

Our plan was to catch a limit before midnight and then work on another limit for the next day - but the wind and weather did not cooperate, and we opted to head in about 4 am (which took four hours of plowing in big waves.  I'll create a new post of pics from this excursion...

After that, Ken, Tommy and I cleaned our fish and then said our goodbyes.  I went to the nearby Resurrection River to try my hand at snagging for Sockeye Salmon at high tide, but it was pretty slow. 75 people snagged 8 salmon in two hours, and I wasn't one of the lucky ones. The deal is, you can FISH for the salmon in the freshwater (the river), or, you can throw out a weighted treble hook in the saltwater and try to SNAG them as they come in. When the run is on, it is easy - but apparently it's a little early yet.

After being awake for 36 hours, it was a bit tough driving back to Homer - so along the way, I made frequent stops to fish and explore at numerous small trout lakes along the road system.  I also stopped along the Kenai/Russian River Confluence - which is the most famous King Salmon fishery in the entire world.  Hundreds of tourist flyfishermen and women were trying there hand at getting one of these elusive fish, which have all but disappeared since it was first discovered and fishing was gangbusters in the 1970's.  Back then, multiple fish days were the norm, and fish reached over 70 pounds commonly. Now, it's called "combat fishing" (shoulder to shoulder with other fishermen) and if you are lucky enough to hook a fish - it will be ten or fifteen pounds.  I watched for 15 minutes with binoculars from across the river, and that was enough for me.