Alaska Tourists - Part 3

I know that some of you already know the end of the story but it was a long day so the telling of the tale had to wait.

Early on the morning of June 25, we arose, dressed, packed a lunch and headed to the harbor to meet up with Captain Brady for a day of fishing on the Seaquester.  It was cold and foggy with a nice misty rain when  we headed down the ramp to I-2 not knowing what the day would hold in store.  For example, I knew we had booked a full day of fishing, but I was totally shocked when they told me that meant 12 - 15 hours. running around on a little boat.  Yikes!!

We even beat the Captain to the boat so waited for him a bit (that is because we were anxious and left the hotel at 4:30 for a 3 minute trip to the dock.

It was a cool drizzly morning.  Within a few minutes Captain Brady and 1st Mate (for the day) Yasper showed up and we started the slow trip through the No Wake area of the marina..

The sun had been up for quite a while but it was very cloudy and foggy so looked eerily dark.

Above is the Coast Guard ship parked out in back of the hotel.

We stayed at the Best Western and had a view of the "ocean" which is actually a long ways away - the water is the Sound and we had a view of the mountain but they have been in the clouds for the past few days.

We sat down and settled in for our ride out to the fishing area.

Lots of beautiful areas along our trip outside of the Valdez Port.

We had been in the boat for about 3 hours as we sped toward the area Capt. Brady had targeted for us to fish.   The ride had gotten increasingly rougher with 4 to 5 foot swells in the water.  It was very bumpy - kind of like driving down a street full of pot holes at 30 miles an hour.  There was one bump when I know that I flew at least 8" off my seat.

We stopped and Brady asked us if we wanted to fish there or move.  Because it was so rough, it really wouldn't be safe to be fishing from the back of the boat but since it was our money, he wanted us to make the decision.  We opted to go to a different area about 35 minutes away.  As we moved away from the first spot, the seas did get a little smoother but then as we approached the 2nd area, the waters started rolling again.  He went to a third place and finally it was smooth enough that we were able to drop a line.

Of course, then it started raining so we stood in the rain for an hour and a half or so fishing.

Above is Morris and Captain Brady watching their lines.

Here's Suzy.

And John and Yasper.  John was the first to catch a fish - he caught an Irish Lord which we were told would not taste good so it was set free.

Yes - that is a really ugly fish - it is not the one John caught but I have his fish on video and can't get it off on this computer.

All of a sudden Suzy's pole bent and Brady said she had a fish.  She started reeling it in but it took off which is unusual for halibut.  She wanted help - "Morris help me".  She reeled and reeled and couldn't get it in so Morris did take over on the reel and she helped hold the rod and finally they got it pulled in.

When it got near the boat, Brady said "Don't let it's head come out of the water".  He grabbed a hook and opened the gate of the boat to bring the fish in.  As soon as it got inside the boat, it fell off the hook and tried hard to get to the side of the boat.  Brady tackled the fish and called for the bat so they could knock it in the head.

After clubbing it, he said that he thought it weighed about 70 pounds.  We hadn't caught any halibut on any of our fishing trips larger than 34 pounds so it looked very nice to us.  Shortly after this, Morris caught an Irish Lord and Yasper caught a small halibut.  Then we didn't even get any more hits so we decided to move.

We tried a few other places and the water wasn't quite so rough so while we had the lines in the water, we decided to get some group shots.

Yasper and Captain Brady.  Yasper had just moved to Valdez a few weeks ago after he graduated from college because his brother was here.  Captain Brady has been in Alaska for quite a while and has done a lot of commercial fishing including 3-5 years working on a crabbing boat for Ophelia and Red Crab (Alaskan King Crab).  Shortly after I took this picture, the lid blew off the top of the ice chest and he threw the end of a rope out trying to get it back to the boat.  I said that obviously he wasn't the one who threw the hook out to catch the buoy and bring the crab pots in.  He laughed and said yep - he never had done that because he's left handed - instead he was a stacker (the guy who stacks all the crab pots when they bring them in.

John, Lynda, Morris and Suzy - what a rough looking group.

We moved again and anchored near where the Valdez ran aground and tried fishing some more.

It was really raining at this time and again we had absolutely no luck - the halibut just weren't biting.

From a distance we could see this marker and ice bergs that had broken off the Columbia Glacier.

Some of the ice bergs were quite large as you can see compared to this boat which was probably about a 32 footer.

It was a very long frustrating day and we finally got back to the dock about 6:00.   We loaded up our stuff and Captain Brady (From Alaska Marine Guides) pulled the halibut out of the holding box and carted it up to the cleaning area.  He said he wanted to measure it because while there was no where we could get it weighed, he had a chart that was quite accurate for weights based on length.

He measured the fish and it was  63" which is about 127.5 pounds so quite a bit more than he had first estimated.

So, while none of the rest of us caught anything to keep, it was a very successful fishing trip.  The one thing that Suzy wanted to do in Alaska is fish and I think this catch fulfilled that request.

Now Morris wants to pan for gold - I wonder if he will be as lucky.  For John and I, it was the 3rd fishing trip this month where we were skunked - does not make me want to spend any more time fishing - that's for sure.