Fishing

The weather turned sunny overnight and Thursday morning was beautiful.  Wait, it’s Thursday already?  Where did the time go?  Anyhow, we were ready to get back out on the salt and see what we could do now that we could cover some water.  We trolled our way out of the Cove with only a few fish marked on the finder and headed north.

We tried a few other areas on the way north looking for kings but we couldn’t find any takers except for one colorful rockfish.  We ended up at tide island mid morning and got rigged for halibut. By the time Ole found the bottom he had a halibut on.  After that quick one we moved around a lot and it wound up being afternoon before I hooked up into something a bit more meatier.  This thing did not want to come up off the bottom.  And bottom happened to be about 175 feet down, so there was some reeling to do.  Bit by bit I drug that thing up until we could get a look at it and it was the nicest one yet (and the biggest fish of my life).   (more…)

After two sunny calm days the weather was turning on us.  It was a bit overcast and drizzly while we got our tour of the rental boat and it stayed that way most of the day.  Due to the moderate winds we stayed in the Cove and the water was nice and calm.  Every time we ventured out as we were trolling we ended up turning around after fighting the waves.  We didn’t light into the kings like we did on the first day.  We did set some crab pots out that would be a future days bonus.  Other than that it was trolling the cove with nary a fish in sight.  We did manage a couple of rock fish and that was our Monday.

Tuesday the storm was upon us.  We had planned for a couple of days of exploring the island and fishing the streams.  30 – 40 knot winds easily convinced us the next two days were it.  Not too far from Coffman is a stream that runs out of Luck Lake all the way to the salt named Eagle Creek and that is where we started our day.   (more…)

After a quick breakfast we were off to the salt for our first day of fishing.  The rest of the days we were on our own but for the first day out Frank showed us the ropes.  May is early for prime time fishing, most of the other folks visiting were hunting bear, but there was rumor that there were a few kings in the Cove.  We started out trolling and it wasn’t long before the first takedown.  By the time I had the rod out of the holder is was definitely Fish On! and that thing was peeling line.  After a bit of a fight and some nice runs we chased it down with the boat in reverse, and the first fish of the trip was in the well.  In a few minutes we’re set up and trolling again and within a few more minutes we have two more quick kings to the boat.  We needed one more for a limit but the bite seemed to turn off with the tide change so it was off to Tide Island to look for halibut.  It’s about a 45 minute cruise north past some spectacular scenery, islands, snow-covered mountains and blue water in every direction.

Jigging for halibut in 150 feet of water is an arm workout for sure.   (more…)