We awake up
to alarms at 5:30 am as we have to be at the charter at 6:45 am. It is a very cloudy
morning, 48 degrees, has been raining most of the night with rain in the
forecast, but hopefully it will hold off. We heat up the coffee I made the
night before, as running generators at this time of morning is frowned upon.
After coffee
and muffins, we move the RV closer to the boat launches and pack our day gear
and head over to the meeting place where we await Zach and his father Terry and
for the captain to call us down.
We go down
to the boat, meet the deckhand Anthony and find out it will only be the 4 of us
fishing today which is great for us as not sure where the other 2 people would
be sitting and fishing. After a brief safety talk about the boat we are
underway, as it is a 2-hour trip to the fishing grounds that the captain likes.
On the way
out it is hard to see anything as it is foggy and rainy in spots. We do see
some porpoises on our way out though. When we get to the fishing grounds two of us
are fishing with jigs and the other two with dead weights, and the depth is 250
ft, so it takes a while for the line to reach bottom where the Halibut are. (This
is much deeper than when Seth and I fished out of Homer where the depth was
about 125 ft deep). After several hours we are only 1 halibut short, for we
need 1 more Halibut over 28” and we have tossed multiple halibut back for being
undersized. While waiting to catch the halibut the captain lets Seth and Zach
try another setup and both of them catch a rock fish which we keep.
The captain
then moves to several other spots where we drift fish searching for the last
halibut which is very elusive. She then decides it is time to do some rock fish
fishing. We move to the rock fish area, where we do drift fishing, and use
light tackle which takes a little bit to get use to. We start catching rock
fish right away, though we have to release some of them, because we are only
allowed 1 red/color rock fish per day. We almost limit out as we were only
short 1 black rock fish, as the captain calls it a day and we head back to
Whittier.
Back in
Whittier, we take the fish to the fish processor, where we find out we have a
total of ~37 lbs of Halibut and ~14lbs of rock fish fillets. We have the
processor split them into ~ 2 equal shares, as Seth and I shipping ours home,
while Terry and Zach are bringing theirs back to Anchorage.
We get in
line for the 7:00pm Tunnel opening, but first have to wait for a train to go
through. Once back in Anchorage at the Petrusa Homestead, we have pizza and beer awaiting us. After dinner
Seth and I start to unload the RV as we have t turn it back in tomorrow.
Wildlife
seen today: Sea Otters and Porpoises
Tomorrow
will be another adventure.
Nighty night
Miles driven
today: 80 miles.
