Saturday, August 17, 2024

Alaska 2024- Grads rule! Day 1-3

 Wow...what a trip.  I do not remember sleeping so little, and having one of the best times in Alaska.  Of course, the night before leaving, I couldn't sleep.  I got just under 2 hours.  For the next 4 nights, I averaged just 2 hours.  Some of it from excitement, some of it from necessity.  When an easterly wind is howling outside, and you are on a 27' boat in Prince William Sound, it was hard to not get worried about breaking away from the anchor, and being washed up on shore until the next big tide.  Or being rolled into rocks and having every soul on board in danger.  "Man up I did", as Yoda would say.

-This trip was planned fin 23' when 2 of my good friends asked if I would bring them to Alaska on a father son graduate present for both young men.

 Day 1- We arrived in Anchorage and immediately went to Midnight Sun car rentals to pick up our van.  Then off to the grocery store, and headed down to Whittier to meet Matt from Whittier boat harbor rentals. We did the walk through, and the kicker was not working, so he and a friend were working on it until 11 pm.  "All Aboard" for a cold night in a cramped space. I took the breakdown table, and Darren and Tony stayed in the belly of the beast.  The Grads, Dec and Trace stayed in the van on lumpy seats.  Not much sleep for all, as we were excited to steam out 60 miles in a short 4 hours.  The harbor was beautiful at night and many pictures were snapped.  What a great place. Another thing we were worried about was the herring on board, and getting hit by one of the many black bears we saw sneaking around the boat docks, raiding boats to find food. We buried our food and bait under the hatch and hoped Yogi would leave us be.

Our boat the M.V. Salmon Shark.

One of the many black bears raiding the docks.  



Darren getting some rest in.

Whittier Sound.
Whittier boat harbor at midnight.

Beautiful Night!


Day 2- We awoke around 5 am, and made some coffee.  I had brought a cowboy coffee pot, and we made our first of many pots.  We did not have cups, so we converted empty Coors Light aluminum cans and drank from them.  Trace, Tony, and Dec started baiting our shrimp pots while I packed up the boat and got it ready to head out.

Baiting Shrimp pots.
Good Morning from our stern.

The Ride out to Montague was slow.  We expected 22-23 miles per hour however our little Salmon Shark wouldn't break 17.  Luckily the water was glass, and we decided to get some fish time in instead of continuing another 2 hours to the island.  We also had a hot tip from Capt. Matt that the Silvers were in around the East side of the island.  We made it to Smith in about 3.5 hours.   Looking at the underwater features, and a current rip from tides, we cut the engine and floated in between the 2 islands.  In no time, Darren's reel was screaming, and line was pouring out.  We had our first king salmon on ...and what a beauty!
Darren with his 20lb. King


We continued drifting and picking up fish at the 100-120 depths.  We made about 3 passes and caught halibut, cod, and rockfish.  Things were looking great.

Coffee out of Coors Light Cans

One of PWS Islands

Pacific Cod

Yellow eye

The Crew inside the Salmon Shark.

The tide swung, and fishing was slowing down, so we cut outside the island to look for halibut in deeper water.  We got to the N.E. side of smith in 280 feet of water to see if we could call up some Denizons of the Deep.
Triple cod spot

Couldn't keep yellow eyes off lines

Crazy rock fish with spines.

Dec lands a tiny butt

Limit of Yellow eye was easy.

Darren's new electric reel

The Tunnel to Whittier

Dec has a "Fish on"...again.

We kept catching all the species of the ocean except halibut.  We managed 2 chickens, and kept at it.  The fishing was hot and heavy.  Not much time to rest before dropping down again.  What a day!
  It was about 8 p.m. when we heard the forecast for the next 2 hours.  It was not good.  We had to get to a protected bay, and Culross pass was looking very good.  We steamed ahead and was hit with 2-4 footers of our Starboard side making for an uncomfortable ride.  So we did what any good captain would do.....Blast Led Zeppelin, and take on the ocean!!!
Angry seas.

We arrived in Culross passage after 1.5 hours and were greeted to flat seas.  What a place to seek shelter from the impeding storm.  And the forecast was only going to get worse.  4-6 footers were predicted and a small craft advisory was in effect.  Glad we made it to safety.  We trolled the pass and immediately hooked up with a slab of a silver salmon.  Wow, almost as big as the King we caught earlier in the trip.  Fresh sea lice was all over it, and it looked like a diamond when we landed it.  Trace was pumped.  What a fish buddy!!


Jeff and Trace with his silver.


A bit of Jazz music after a tough crossing.


The whole boat wants more fish, even in the rain.

Dec grabbing some shut eye.

Ravioli for breakfast

Calm, calm, Culross passage



Lunch time subs.

Our anchor plotter.  Over 200 times of swinging was very scary.

Some gorgeous scenery from the boat.

Day 3 We woke in long bay where we anchored.  I slept very little because we had 2 tide changes, and I was not sure the anchor would hold.  It was blowing sideways, and the rain was non stop all night.  The 5 of us packed into a little boat to try and sleep.  It was like sardines in a can.   Perfect for 3 guys, but way too small for 5.   We woke, made coffee, fished a bit as we were preparing to hit the entrance to Culross Passage for halibut.  We hooked some rock fish, but nothing to keep us warm. We made it back to Whittier sound and did some fishing around whittier.  We trolled the North side of the sound with no hits.  The boat was due back at 6, and we had to refuel and unpack.  So at 4:45- we headed back the 20 minutes to our soaking shrimp pots in hope of some delicious P.W.S. Shrimp.

The boys posing with crabs before they went back in the ocean.

Using the pot puller.  Better than lifting 550 feet of line. 

SCORE!  50 shrimp in our first pot.

    

    We close out our Ocean part of the trip as we head for Cooper Landing tonight.  We drop our fish at the Kenai Cache to have processed as we cant get into our cabin until later that day where we keep our vacuum sealers and freezers.  It is important to take care of your meat.














Sunday, January 14, 2024

Alaska August 14-22 2023

What a great trip.  Tim, Mark, Tony and Trace joined me in Alaska for a week of fish catching.  Our bread and butter for red salmon is usually the Russian river.  On this trip, the Russian closed due to road construction, which it badly needed.  The limits increased to 6 per day, so we got most of our fish in 2 mornings before it closed.  12 each is almost enough to fill a 50 pound fish box.  5 more fish and we would be full, and we had 5 days to do it. 

   We had some bluebird days and were able to enter Kenai canyon on two occassions.  This is a special place, and the fishing was great.  We concentrated on rainbows throughout and connected all day. Fish from 17' to 25" was the norm.  Where else can you say that?  From one spot, we stayed until the fish stopped eating, which was 5 hours from when we anchored.  I can't say that I have seen a day this productive in the canyon.  I believe we landed 30+ bows, and lost just as many.  A fish about every 5 minutes.

On top of the good salmon and trout fishing, we went out with a charter out of Ninilchik.  Seas were 2-3 feet and it was halibut sizing most of the day.  We came home with a lot of "Butts" MaryTime charters was our boat and Doug was our Captain. We would book again in a heartbeat. 

Thinking of an Alaskan Trip?  Connect with me for info, guiding, hosting, or writing an itinerary for you.

Marytime Charters: 907 398-1602 (Doug)

 Jeff Powering through the canyon

Tony and Jeff with a sockeye

Getting a workout netting Trace's many fish

The group!

Motoring across Skilak Lake

Lower Kenai limit

Red salmon eating my head

A Pic mid fishing

One of many nice bows

Jeff catches a trout on first cast demonstrating a drift

Green head

A limit on the Russian

Dragging to shore

Catch and Release

Nice Bow Trace!

Tony with a slab

What are the odds/

Trace with nice Bow

"Will it all fit"

Overlooking inlet of Skilak Lake

Steaks for Dinner

Father son and proud

Mark with a greenhead

Brown bear on the walk out

Tim with a nice bow

A boat ready to fish

Leopard Bow

Tony's greenhead

Black bear cub and Momma

Marytime "redeemer" boat

A "Butt"-load of halibut

Chum salmon leg


Enjoying Pasta a la salmon

Fresh off the grill
Good Bye AK.  Until next trip.