There's Something Fishy Going on in Alaska!

Salmon, one of the most interesting and adaptable of all of God’s creations. One of a handful of fish that migrates from fresh water to salt water and back again. Did you know that after being born in fresh water, they head to the ocean and will travel thousands of miles in their 3–5-year lifespan to only return to their birthplace to spawn and die? Did you know that once they return to fresh water they do not eat? Their only focus is heading to their birthplace and spawning.

So how does one catch salmon on a fishing line if they do not eat? That is a story for later in the blog. For now, let’s talk about earlier in the week……

We had a couple of down, chill days the first part of the week waiting for the salmon fishing to get better. And “chill” it was, in the 40’s in the morning and upper 60’s later in the day. Man, we love days like these! Except when the wind picks up, then she gets a little too chilly for even us!

 We walked the Beluga Slough Trail with the girls one morning. Came across this young moose munching on the grasses. They do not seem bothered by humans at all.

 

Walked the beach a bit, enjoying the scenery.

 

Then we went for a tour and tasting at Bear Creek Winery. They have several scheduled tour times throughout the week. You just show up, no appointment, and they are free! Barb and I were the only ones at our time slot, so we basically got a personal tour. They have all fruit wines here (no grapes) so it was a lot like our winery back in South Dakota. We talked fermenting and wine making for about an hour. The similarities between wine making and distilling…well, they are basically the same thing with some slight differences. We had a lot to talk about. Very interesting.

 

Then we drove down the road for a wine tasting. $10 for 8 tastings, but you get the $10 back if you buy a bottle of wine. We bought two. The server said “I think you can bring 5 back home with you”. I said: “They will not last that long”.

 

From there, it was off to the one and only Harvest Host in Homer; Grace Ridge Brewing Company. Barb had a flight, I had a pint, before we settled in for the night.

 

The next day, it was halibut fishing day again! Rich had called earlier in the day asking if we wanted to go out the next day. Why, yes, yes we do! Arriving at the boat launch, we found Bob and Becky also waiting for our chariot to take us fishing. It was a perfect, calm day on the water. After launching we headed out about 25 miles to The Deep. We had great luck there last time, hopefully it will hold true again!

Bob and Becky

We had 3 rods out; one for Bob, one for Becky and one for Barb and I to share. Barb, over her fear of catching a big ‘but, or perhaps daring me to write a blog and dealing with the consequences, was a woman possessed on the rod. She took the first fish, the second fish, and many more. In fact, she has the bruise on her stomach where the rod butt was jammed into her belly while she reeled to prove it! I reeled in a couple myself, but I think it is safe to say, we are probably tied in the who caught the most halibut category.

 

She did take the lead in another category though when she caught “Codzilla” The biggest cod that ever terrorized the waters of Alaska. Well, maybe not that big, but a very nice cod. There is a little controversy, however. I say that “Cod” does not count as it was never a targeted species. She, on the other hand, says she is ahead on yet another species of fish. We’ll agree to disagree on that one.

 

Susan even got in on the action reeling in a few. Rich, he is content watching the smiles on other peoples faces as they reel in fish. He kept saying “My foot hurts, you reel in it”. I am still trying to figure out how a sore foot prevents one from reeling in fish. A mystery I have still yet to solve.

No idea what these waterbirds were

We were joined, or I should say, we joined Royce who was out there in a boat of his own with his sister and two of her friends.

 

Before we knew it, we had our 12 fish limit. Again, no big ‘buts but lots of great eaters!

 

Since it was still somewhat early we boated over to the remote village of Soldovia, accessible only by boat or air. We were going to walk the town, but it was so busy, there was no room at the docks.

Instead, we took a leisurely drive back to Homer where we cleaned the fish before heading to Rich and Susan’s to package them and spend the night in their driveway. We now have the 50lbs we wanted to ship some back home. We are shipping it to Kevin’s house, hopefully there were will a few fillets there for us when we return!

 

Project Halibut complete, we set our sights on salmon. But first, speaking of “Projects”. Operation PD is in full force back in South Dakota. Apparently, the first prairie dog called in reinforcements and there is an all out blitzkrieg going on between Neighbor Jim and the enemy. It is still too early to tell, but I did receive this picture and coded message from Jim. Not sure exactly what it means as I am still trying to break Jim’s code, as I am sure, so are the prairie dogs! As you can see from the picture above his message, he is consulting old war movies for advised tactics.

 

Now, to the salmon! How does one catch a salmon that does not eat? It’s called flossing. A method where you throw your line in the river let it float downstream for a bit and pull it back in. Salmon swim upriver their mouths are open. The idea is to put your fishing line in front of the salmon in such a way that the salmon swims into the line and it goes in its mouth. As you pull it back in the salmon gets hooked in the mouth. The problem is, is that you cannot see the salmon, so it is like shooting in the dark trying to hit a moving target. Now this video I posted last week of Barb demonstrating how to floss might make more sense. 

Skill? Some. There is technique. How much weight, how much line, where you throw you line, when you pull it in….

There are literally thousands, sometime tens of thousands of salmon in the water and eventually, if you are lucky, you will hook one. BUT it has to be hooked in the mouth. Tail, side or anywhere other than the mouth the salmon has to be released.

 You also need to watch the tide charts and fish counts.  They actually have sonar that counts the number of fish coming into the river from the ocean. The migration is the heaviest during incoming tides increasing your chances for success. You can fish for hours catching nothing, then all of a sudden, a run comes through, and it is mayhem! The fish counts tell you how many fish entered this river that day, so hopefully you can target your fishing days on the biggest fish count days. Confused yet? So are we!

 So, we hit the Kasilof River. The counts had been good. We stood along the banks with the dozens of other fisher-people trying to floss a few wide-mouthed salmon. Each cast, or drift, takes about 8-10 seconds, making for about 6-7 casts a minute, anywhere from 360-500 casts per hour. For hour, after hour, after hour. You are bound to snag one of the thousands of fish swimming up the river, right? We hooked rocks, we hooked ourselves, we hooked each other, we hooked other fisherman, we hooked the carcass of a filleted salmon that someone upriver threw in the stream, everything but a d@mn salmon. Until finally, Fish on! You are so shocked by this point you don’t know what to do as this salmon speeds upriver or down river.

I hooked and landed our first salmon of the year!

 

I was ecstatic. Not only did I hook it, it was in the mouth and we landed it! I was up in the salmon category 1-0! The smugness on my face lasted exactly 30 minutes when Barb landed not one, but two fish in short order. We went in for lunch about 2pm with 3 fish.

 

By now we had found a nice little sandbar that was out of the way and secluded with 10-12 other fisherman on it. Here is the other thing that is cool about salmon fishing. You meet some really interesting people. Some people will talk while they are casting, others just focus on the task at hand. Our group was very talkative. Two of the guys were from Switzerland, the rest of the guys were a group from Lakeview Oregon. Each time we went out it was always the same group of people and over the course of three days we got to know each other pretty well. If one hooked a fish, the rest of us stopped fishing, cheered them on and netted it or got out of the way of the battle.

 

We went back out at 8:30pm in anticipation of the next high tide. Same group of guys, same chatter. It was not long before I had one on and was trying to drag it up onto the sand bar to land it. One of the old boys from Oregon was trying to net it. Try after try he missed this fish. Man, that thing was elusive! All his kids were giving him crap for his horrible netting skills before he eventually got it in the net! One for Jim! A few minutes later I hooked another, and then another! We had a blast, a group of guys (and Barb) having the love of fishing in common, chatting it up.  We returned home just before midnight with my 3 fish. 4-2 go Team Jim!

 

The next morning Barb woke up with a cold. I guess all those long hours standing in the cold river caught up with her. But she went out anyway! We were back out on the river at 9am awaiting the 10:40 high tide. It was soooo slow. Same group of people, no one was catching anything. Not us, or anyone around us. Some were wondering if the commercial netters were in front of the mouth of the river. That does happen and they do allow it.

 We went back to the camper fishless, read and napped in anticipation of the 11:30pm high tide. I headed out at 8:30pm, alone, to meet my friends on our now familiar sandbar. This was to be our last outing for a few days. When I arrived at the sandbar, just the two Swiss guys were there. They stopped fishing and we chatted for about 15 minutes, me trying to understand their broken English, them trying to understand me, but we seemed to convey most everything we were trying to say to each other.  Soon we see the Oregon boys trudging out to the sandbar and we decided it was time to get to work and set about casting. Over the next 3 hours several fish were landed. One by the oldest guy in the group. He had to be in his mid 70’s. Everyone cheered for him when it was netted as he spends more time just sitting in his chair than fishing. Me? I landed one more too before saying goodnight to these people who I knew I would never see again but will always have the memory of and that unspoken bond of sharing a river with good people.