Seward Salmon

Neither Dave nor I could wait for the alarm to ring at 5:30 this am.  Before it went off, both of us were awake and ready to do battle with the Salmon swimming off shore at Seward.  I like to think that we were excited but it may have been the hard rain hammering the roof of our RV.  Whatever, we were awake and ready.  We packed up our cooler and headed for the dock.  Linda and Tammy were to stay dry on the outside and headed to the bar for bloody marys.

From the dock we pushed off into the fog hoping the captain of the “OH Snap” knew where he was going.  On the way out to the fishing grounds we passed by a couple of porpoises and numerous ducks and other seabirds.  About two or three miles from where we would be fishing we saw the ominous tall dorsal fin of a couple of killer whales.  Turns out we should have recognized the omen.

When we reached our captain’s favorite fishing hole, he baited up a rod and dropped the hook into the water.  As he was explaining how to drop the bait down a hungry salmon came to the surface and hit the bait.  It was going to be that kind of day.  The fish came in flurries one, two, three, even four at a time.  We caught Pink, Silver, Chum, and even three King salmon.  We were drift fishing and the captain would position the boat off of a point and let the wind sweep us by the rocks.  On occasion we got too close to the rocks and before he could back us away we would catch a couple of black sea bass.

The water was rough and we did a lot of rocking and rolling.  But it was all worth it as we filled out on limits of salmon.  Our half day of fishing was basically done before noon.

Our wildlife day was also pretty spectacular.  While we were drifting by the point a sea lion also decided that it was a good place to fish.  He was in and out of the water climbing up on the rocks to get a better view of the action.  But the treat of the day happened on the trip back to the dock.  I happened to see a flash of white off my side of the boat.  I thought it was strange weather for a sailboat to be out in.  When I turned my head I realized it was a huge splash of water that had got my attention.  A humpback whale had just come completely out of the water and did a gigantic belly flop creating the splash I had seen.  It was actually two whales, a mother and calf about one third the size of the mother.  They continued to breach, sometimes even in synch with each other.  They must have been having fun since they continued to flop for what seemed like forever.  Finally the captain had to get underway again so he could get back to the dock.  He had another half day charter this afternoon.

What a day!  We headed back to the RV all wet and cold but couldn't have felt better.  We have hot soup in the crockpot and a NASCAR race to watch.  It doesn't get much better than this.