Fishing, Fishing, then for something totally different, More Fishing! ~
I don’t know about you but I spent a fair amount of my youth fishing, dropping the ol’ line. And one never knows what might come up out of that water, I’ve been surprised many a time! Growing up only 50 miles from Galveston Bay made saltwater fishing quite accessible. I’ve fished the upper Galveston Bay from San Leon to Bolivar Peninsula, from deep sea fishing in the Gulf of America and down the coast to Matagorda Bay more times than I can count. Later in life I fished freshwater lakes in Texas as well as Lake Quachita in Arkansas on three occasions. The last time I went fishing we flew into Missoula to fly fish for Rainbow Trout and take in some golf and local scenery. That was my first fly fishing experience. Rainbow Trout are indigenous there and with the help of a local fishing guide and his flat bottom rig we caught several over a two-day period. However, we were prohibited from keeping our catch. Every one of those babies had to be gently placed back into those rivers [to live]. Darn-it! I really wanted to bring those to the table. Oh well, like our fishing guide said when quizzed about it, “around 12,000 fly fisherman visit Montana every year to catch Rainbow Trout, and if we let you keep your catch our total population of trout would be wiped out in 18 months! So it is written, this species is well protected by the authority of the state of Montana. That’s cool, I’ll buy mine at the grocery store. It seems like every Rainbow Trout on the menu anywhere must be farm-raised, or caught in a planned seeding program. There are places like in Missouri where trout are seeded every year to attract fisherman. However, they will only breed in freshwater streams that are exceptionally cold.

Enter The Plan ~
Fishing experiences are often times unique given that they require different approaches, different equipment, a different strategy, along with a knowledge of the fish species themselves. I have to admit Alaska is ranked way up there among the one or two most unique fishing experiences I’ve ever been a part of, a truly amazing trip! It all began one day when I called up Blaise who was a junior @ OU at the time and said, “Guess where we’re going fishing? Alaska!” He was surprised and asked how/when/where? I hadn’t worked out the details yet, the details weren’t important, what was important is we were going! A fishing trip to Alaska had been on my radar screen for awhile but it wasn’t until I got to talking with a connection I had made over fakebook. Jim lived in Oregon at the time but had fished Alaska many times and expressed an interest in returning there. He went on to say he had a favorite location along the Alaskan panhandle with guides and accommodations, everything required to make fishing up there successful. Mind you I’d never met either Jim or his girlfriend Robin but he insisted on making most of the arrangements at the fish camp. My job was to get myself and Blaise to the Seattle airport where the four of us would meet for the first time then climb aboard an Alaskan airlines flight destined for Juneau and then Wrangel(?) I’m not certain now where the fishing guides picked us up but the goal was to deliver us to a camp and cabins on Mitkof Island in Petersburg, Alaska, where they did just that.

Them Alaskan Digs ~
The first thing I noticed on arriving to our fishing camp was not only the unusually mild temperature [in the 60s] for late June, but the scenery was a beautiful [mountains down to water] backdrop for an expedition. However, it didn’t take me long to figure out that bald eagles owned the place. They were everywhere greeting us with their loud cackles, joisting each other in the air reminding us that they were in charge of disposing of all fish scraps. Before entering the cabin headquarters I spotted a couple young guys fileting and processing fresh caught salmon over a long wooden table down in front of the dock. They were tossing salmon scraps blindly into the air above them as random eagles would take their turn swooping down to grab them and carry them off. I soon realized there was no chance of any of those scraps coming back down on their heads, none at all. Like I said, eagles owned the place! [Grown bald eagles stand more than 3 ft. tall, with wingspans of 7-8 ft. These are very large birds capable of carrying off prey that weigh up to 10 lbs. Bald eagles aren’t screwing around so they’ll gain your respect pretty quick.]

What we rented was a one bedroom cabin with a living area and a small porch in the front. Jim and his girlfriend took the bedroom, while Blaise and I were happy to claim the two daybed couches in the front room. The only problem, well there were two problems – no three! The shower in the bathroom had only two water temps¹ – extremely cold and forever scolding hot! As bad as I tried not to, I found myself [a grown man] screaming several times as the shower head turned from both of these temperature extremes without warning, just back and forth and back and forth, enough to make you want to get out of there quick! How about freezing cold? Well here ya go. How about some boiling hot water now Mr. Customer? It was so bad I complained to the owner, he was a grumpy old man probably over 80, with a gruff voice and a bad attitude to match. He refused my request to fix anything, saying “nothing is wrong with the shower”. That’s funny because that cabin was the ONLY one available for our party of four, all the other cabins were totally occupied, booked up, so the old man was lying his ass off. However, I must admit, he did appoint his eldest son to be our fishing guide for all four days we booked to fish. His son was definitely the most experienced and knowledgeable guide that place had to offer as we would find out in the days ahead.

More on Routy Birds, Lack of Sleep & Suds ~
Look you’re in Alaska, so what’s the problem? What I didn’t know about Alaska I would soon find out². I was informed that it won’t be fully dark on a June night until around 11 p.m., I thought that sounds cool! Well it “sounded” cool but what I didn’t know is that bald eagles stay up almost the entire night, and I wouldn’t care except they’re loud, they were cackling and sparing with each other all night long. Kind of difficult to sleep when you’re awakened @ 2 or 3 am with multiple fights among eagles going down outside. A good analogy might be akin to locking up several competing females all in the same room with only one bathroom(?), we can’t be sure of what’s going to happen but whatever comes of it it won’t be pretty? [It was kind of like that, went on to at least 4 a.m. each night.] However, by night three I sort of got used to those big birds. Conversely, what I never got used to was running out of beer³. It wasn’t like there was a beer and wine store close in proximity and it seemed like we never could buy enough beer to last the three of us guys on a single night. Camp employees did take us for liquor runs a couple times, but we still never seemed to get the quantity right. On a side note, Alaskan beer ain’t bad if I do say so!

Enter King Salmon ~
The King Salmon fishing season only lasts a brief time, from May to mid-July of the year. We were sitting right in the middle of it the last week of June. Mature Salmon are on a mission that time of year after spending a few years in the ocean fattening up for travel these fish were now basically dormant, just sitting on the bottom of the channel waiting to begin a migration where they will lay their eggs and then well, plan to die? It’s a different life and as our guide mentioned, they’re really not hungry for our baits, they’re not hungry at all right now. They’re just waiting on the bottom and when a bait happens to pass by sometimes they’ll bite it more out of irritability, a nuisance than anything else. I found that interesting and you should too.

Onto Halibut, the “Steak of the Sea” ~
Our fishing guide had a plan for us, it was a very good plan. He would take us out each morning in front of the cabin to troll for King Salmon in what they called the “channel”, an inlet bay area, not deep, probably around 30+ ft. or so. There we would troll back and forth for King Salmon until we either limited out or it was time for lunch? We had a two fish limit per person each day on King Salmon. Then for something totally different, after lunch in the afternoons we would hop back aboard the boat and head for deeper water, really deep water. Our guide took us out each afternoon and anchored over water at minimum 120-140 ft. deep, which meant around a 30-45 minute boat ride. Rigging poles and lines to catch Halibut is different, heavy, it begins with an extra large hook loaded with a pound or so of whole squid(s). All you can do with that heavy of a rig is drop it straight down off the boat. You’re not casting nothing as it’s damned heavy. The goal is to descend that line all the way down until reaches the bottom which can take a while, longer than you think. Once it reaches bottom its time to set the line, and wait, and wait and…

Halibut is a very aggressive fish, they’re mean, nasty, and ugly as hell and they’ll put up a fight once they realize they’re coming to the surface. I remember I believe it was day three when one of us caught a nice sized halibut, cranked it up to the top of the water where the guide grabbed the line and proceeded to remove the hook from its mouth at that moment the fish bit his hand. It tore a gash in his hand at the base of the thumb that was bleeding profusely, our guide shouted some expletives, dropped the line back off the boat with the fish still attached. The Guide disappeared into the boat room steering area and came back out but this time sporting a .45 caliber pistol. Needless to say that fish didn’t get the last word. From then on every halibut we caught he shot in the head before he would allow them aboard and remove the hook… I know that bite wound must have hurt like hell. Fishing regulations in Alaska that year restricted keeping any Halibut that was not at minimum 34 inches long, meaning these puppies could weigh in between 20 -30 lbs. easily so we’re not talking a small catch here. No doubts though, our fishing guide was the most accomplished I’ve ever had, and our take over those four days would prove it!

Killer Whales Pay Us a Visit ~
One afternoon on our way back to the camp cabins Killer Whales entered the channel with everyone gasping as we quietly watched. I thought to myself, “breathe in, breathe out”, and I’ll be fine. Besides they don’t eat small deep-hulled fishing boats, well they have been known to attack smaller vessels but we were not on their radar screen that day anyway. These guys are the apex predator, not just another predator, I’m talking about THE apex predator in all the ocean! They have no natural predators themselves, instead everything else [including Great White Sharks] is THEIR PREY! [I wasn’t worried, after-all if they followed college football at all OU was doing quite well back then.]

You Won’t Believe It – But It’s True!
Our party of four limited out on both King Salmon and Halibut every day, all four days. Upon returning every morning and afternoon, our catch was immediately fileted, boxed up with dry ice, and frozen in thick transportable [as luggage] styrofoam boxes. What was unbelievable is after they fileted our catch, we had 360 lbs. of fish to take back home! I was like no way I can ever eat 180 lbs. of fish, that amount won’t even fit in my freezer. Blaise had to report to school in Oklahoma as soon as we returned home and it was just going to be me, myself, and I at the house, with all that fish. Since each box held 50 lbs. [of fish] I told Jim I can only take back 2 boxes. I’ll take 50lbs. of King Salmon and 50 lbs. of Halibut. Jim liked the idea, he owned a small company back in Oregon where he had employees and facilities to handle the remaining 260 lbs. with no problem. If I were to purchase that 100 lbs. of fish locally that I brought home from Alaska the street value for that catch would easily be $2,500!

Back Home at Last ~
When Blaise and I finally reached home to my townhouse in Plano we began stuffing the freezer with 100 lbs. of fish. Getting all those filets to fit in the freezer where the door would close properly took some creative thinking. In the days and weeks that followed I brought some of my catch to co-workers, even my barber wanted some fish. They all wanted to taste King Salmon fresh caught in Alaska. King or Chinook Salmon is the coveted species for this genre, and for me the taste is far superior to Sockeye and all others available out there. However, for those of you not familiar with Halibut, you’re really missing out. Halibut filets are truly amazing. It’s probably the firmest all white meat fish out there. Swordfish as a comparison is good but has that distinctive smell and a bunch of bones, not so with Alaskan Halibut. This firm fish is almost analogous to eating chicken breast. That’s why it’s $30/pound or more at your local grocery store, get it?
Thanks for reading!