Humpback whale
Snettisham
2011 - 6: Unexpected Fishing
August 5-7
Humpback whale
Unfortunately, the summer has gotten away from me; it's now a month after this trip, with lots of adventuring in between. Consequently, my memory about this one is not very good. So here is the bare bones version. Chris's Mom (Linda), Chris, and I left the harbor in the early afternoon on a Friday (having just taken the riverboat back to the shop to get a mysterious clicking sound fixed). The water was, thankfully, quite calm, the sky overcast. We didn't see very much wildlife until we reached Snettisham where we found at least eight whales feeding at the mouth, including a pair and a group of three. An Allen Marine boat with a packed house of tourists was already watching them. I'm sure they weren't thrilled to have company (neither were we), but they didn't let our presence temper their pursuit of the whales. We observed the whales over several breathing cycles as we figured out how many groups there were and counted the blows in the distance; the two groups we identified were moving away from us and we watched as the Allen Marine boat hastened after them, getting what appeared to be rather too close to the location of their last terminal dive (or so it appeared from my perspective). We agreed among ourselves to politely keep our distance and remained shut down, though I wanted to give Linda a closer look. After a few minutes, the pair of whales came up near the St. Peter and then, a few minutes later, the trio appeared not 75 feet off our bow! These whales were extremely gracious. In addition to surfacing right in front of us, they breathed many times before dramatically arching their backs, then turned and went through the whole breathing cycle a second time, this time moving broadside to the boat. Sometimes you get lucky. I could just hear all the tourists on the St. Peter enviously pointing out how close the whales were to us (this invariably happens when tourists see whales come up between them and another boat, even when the whales are no closer to the other vessel); in this case, however, it was true!
That evening Chris grilled steaks over alder wood outside. I
got
excited about a big flock of mergansers on the river and we headed to
bed early.
 Chris and his mom on the Ronquil |
 Chris photographing the whales |
 Whale dive |
The next morning we all took a walk in the sunshine (partly cloudy,
anyway)
down to Garnet Rock before lunch, looking up at the eagles and the nest
on the
way. We'd seen the adults carrying fish past the lodge and
dropping what
appeared to be moss in the nest, but we neither saw nor heard any sign
of an
eaglet and I feared that they were unsuccessful this year. That
afternoon
we went for a kayak on the river, crossing the inlet to check out the
landslide
that came down last winter. It looked like an overhang of rock
had broken
off, scouring the bedrock beneath it of all soil and vegetation as it
fell. On that way back we checked Chris's new crab pot (its
trial
run), but it was empty so we moved it into deeper water. That
night I
grilled salmon outside and we played catchphrase all evening, which
worked
surprisingly well with just the three of us (we were all on everyone's
team).
 Eagle |
 Eagle's nest |
 Garnets |
 Landslide |
 Linda kayaking |
 Eagle carrying moss |
The next morning Chris and I proved ourselves once again to be
gluttons for
punishment. Despite our endless frustrations and poor results at
fishing,
we'd both had the same idea as we pulled into Snettisham on Friday: what
if
we got up early one morning and tried for sockeyes at Sweetheart Creek!?
We chatted with Linda about it, who wisely decided to stay behind, then
got up
at 3:00 am and took off across the inlet just as it was light enough to
feel
comfortable getting up to speed. We needn't have gotten up so
early, as
there were only two boats there and the occupants weren't stirring; we
didn't
see another group at the creek for some time. 
We
first tried at the
normal point, but after pulling in only pinks for an hour we hiked back
downstream, carried the kayak across the peninsula, and kayaked across
the creek.
We found our way through the steep, slimy trails to the small point
we'd fished
from last year and gave it a go there. After I tried for a while,
Chris's
first cast brought it a big, beautiful sockeye. I try to remember
that
elation, seeing the shock of brilliant silver among the dull, olive
colored
pinks, when I think about this trip. We also watched a brown bear
across
the creek mosey his way up to the point we'd just vacated and fish with
his
nose in the water for some time (he caught one that way). Later
we also
had a smaller bear stroll across the path just above our little point
(about 20
feet away), which is also used by bears; he could well have been on his
way to
fish there, but eventually wandered off after some yelling. The
creek is
so loud that you can't assume a bear knows you're there just with
normal human
sounds.
Later on I caught an even bigger sockeye (one of the biggest I've
seen), and
eventually a third along with three pinks. I almost overlooked it
and let
them all go but spotted it at the last moment; Chris came down with the
regular
net and we dumped everyone in. Thus secure, I went about the
business of
tossing the pinks out when somehow (and neither of us can figure out
how) that monster
sockeye wiggled its way through the mesh and escaped. It must
have been a
magical fish, and not meant for us, because there was no hole of any
kind in
that net. We both checked later. Needless to say, that put
a damper
on things. It didn't help that the group across the creek (in our
former
spot) was catching lots of sockeyes. What is wrong with
us!? We
soon called it quits and 
left
with our prize, unfortunately with more
bitterness in our hearts than joy. Chris braved the brisk creek
on his
own and I took the kayak across; we cleaned our fish in the salt water,
iced
them, and make it back to the homestead for breakfast around 9:00.
On the way back to Juneau later that day we decided to try even
more fishing
(this time with even less expectation), so we headed out under a sunny
sky and
made our way across Stephen's Passage to South Island. There we
set Linda
up to halibut fish (which she'd always wanted to try) and
relaxed. I even
tried casting for cohos by letting my spinner sink as far as it would
go, then
reeling it quickly in. I actually think it's a tactic that could
work, as
cohos were being caught in quite shallow water during that time (and,
in fact,
a boat went by that just kept catching them, slightly souring my jaunty
"I
don't care if I don't catch anything" mood). Linda actually did
catch something, much to my surprise! We were fishing at slack
tide in
the channel off the southern tip (reef really) of South Island in about
200 or
250 feet of water when she had a strike and started reeling it
in. We all
watched anxiously as her quarry slowly rose to the surface. Sure
enough,
she'd caught a halibut! It was a small one and, as we were
debating about
whether to keep it or not, it made a wild move, banged the boat, and
dislodged
the lure. We were all much more excited to have actually caught a
halibut
than upset about losing it. We halibut fished a little more, than
tried
trolling for the first time with a coyote hook. Although we
didn't have a
strike, we counted it a success as the gear appeared to work and we
didn't get
really frustrated. A good trial run! On the way home we
went around
the back side of Grand Island and checked out the flowery cliffs.
 Fishing in the dark |
 Debbie pulling in the net |
 Chris and a bear fishing |
 Fishing bear |
 Grand Island's flowery cliffs |
 Red salmon |
