We checked in at the boat and stowed our stuff in a bunk. Had a little safety briefing and off we went, three and a half hour run, about 50 miles down and around the Kenai Peninsula, about half way to Seward. It got pretty rough when we went around the Peninsula into open water. I won't tell you about bunch of Oil Rig guys who were on the boat with us, well maybe I will. Nice guys, but the young ones were filing up with greasy KFC and beer when we started out. After we hit the rough water, they were chumming over the side. When we got set up for fishing it wasn't too bad, but windy and cold. It was a big boat, but there were 31 of us fishing and because we didn't want lines going under the boat we were all on one side, about 3 foot apart. We had about 3 coats on, ski gloves, and rain pants to cut the wind, it was tolerable. We started fishing at 7pm and fished all night until about 9am.
We didn't get anything before 3am, well Sandy got a starfish. We watched the sunset about 1am, but we could see the skyline all night long, it wasn't real black. About 3am the sun started lighting up the horizon, and the fish started biting! All during the night we had 3 deck hands baiting our hooks and helping out, but now we had the second Captain doing it by himself, although only about half of us die-hards were fishing. This poor guy was running his ass off, after a few hours he woke up the first Captain to help. Sandy and I got 20 to 30 pound fish and got our limit of 8 by 7am (limit of 2 per day, but we couldn't tell time at that late hour). One guy got two 100 pound fish! Halibut can get up into the 300# range (but anything over 100# isn't too good to eat). They had a 4’X4’X4’ box on deck where they put the fish., by morning when they would throw a fish in, it would be flopping all around and the lid would be bouncing off. It turned out to be a good day at sea.
Come to find out, this was the first overnight trip for this boat this year, so I think they were still figuring out where the big ones were. Homer is having a Halibut derby during the summer and they pay out for the biggest each month, then a grand prize at the end, 186# was the record so far this year, last year was 347#.
One guy pulled up about a 6 foot Ling Cod, they couldn't keep it because it was not in season, but if it happed to jump in the boat, then it was OK. So they opened the door and tried to reel him in. He got half way in the boat and then spit out this smaller (18 inch) Grey Cod that the guy had hooked. So this Ling Cod had grabbed on and came up for the ride. Wild times!
The crew was good. Two kids had hired on with this trip, they worked hard but I don’t know if they made the cut. The first mate was a girl! And she was good. I told the Captain later that she deserved a raise. She was always right in the action and on the trip home she filleted a majority of the fish.. Now, I don’t know how they do it, but sharp knives on a rolling, fish slimy deck just doesn't sound safe to me! But no one cut off a finger that day.
It was a great trip! And those nice Alaska coats we bought on the way up worked great! But boy did they smell like fish guts today!! But they washed up great and we sill ware them today!
Sorry for the lack of pictures on this trip, but somebody dropped the camera in a tide pool, and when we found it two hours later,,,,,,,,, it was toast. You know, there just isn't a Best Buy on every corner in Alaska!
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