Cruising Alaska; fishing for coho salmon
FISHING AMERICA
Alaska is the most beautiful place I have ever traveled to and I only seen a fraction of it, that being the coastline and port cities on the lower southern leg. I heard it gets even better in places like Denali.
My four or five hour fishing trip was one of the many highlights from this seven-day cruise that started in Seattle aboard Holland America’s Eurodam cruise ship.
Along with my wife Billie Jo, my Uncle David (AKA Uncle Buggs) and Aunt Lavene Hale of Odessa, and over 2,000 other tourists, I mainly lived at sea for a week. One of the things I can hardly wrap my mind around is that we (United States) bought this resource rich land called Alaska for a little over two cents per acre. Uh oh, I think I paid too much for some of my timberland.
After our ship stopped to turn around in the upper end of Glacier Bay allowing us to watch a gigantic slab of ice cave off of one of the glaciers with a big splash, we cruised back stopping in the capital city of Juneau taking advantage of some of the cruise line’s excursions and seeing the breathtaking beauty of inland AK whale watching and other stuff.
We also stopped in Sitka where Billie Jo took a walk with me throughout town where they had a pretty good sidewalk system near the ocean. We stopped at one spot and watched grown Salmon jumping up out of the water in a range of 20 feet from the bank out to about 80.
At breakfast one morning we accidentally made some new friends in one of the cruise ship’s restaurants. Our waiter asked us if another couple could join us due to a problem on the other side of the seating area. I said, we would love for y’all to join us and it ain’t no problem at all at this table made for six.
Immediately the friendship began between us and Bill and Anna Ludwinek of Rochester, NY. I didn’t know then that a year later and thousands of miles away I would see this nice couple again and see what a small world it is in more ways than one. Polish history, east and west Texas stuff, and of course a little fishing talk kept us at the table extra long and made for a wonderful visit.
The next morning when I woke up our ship was already docked in the port at Ketchikan. I caught a bus early that picked me up at the dock and took me along with several others to the marina and where three others joined me on a fishing boat.
Our Captain who was from Missouri educated us pretty quickly to the Coho Salmon AKA Silver Salmon as we went a mile or less into the gulf where he stopped and rigged our lines.
In water almost 600 deep we fished from about 40 to 65 feet deep while watching eagles and taking in that cool Alaskan autumn air and the beauty of the rugged coastline.
These three guys were all in their 70’s and none of us knew each other so at 52 I was the youngster of the bunch. All three were very nice, laid back, and fun to fish and enjoy the trip with. Although there were four lines set as we trolled the edge of the gulf me and my new comrades, one from Tahiti, one from California, and the other from North Carolina rotated on the catching to ensure everybody got a chance.
Our guide used some pretty big down-riggers, plug herron for cut bait, and had us let out about 150 feet of line getting them out behind pretty far. He said there is no mistaken when the bite occurs here. His description was dead accurate. Every one of the Silver Salmon we caught just killed it when they struck and fought hard all the way in.
We all caught two each and the catches were spread fairly even over the time spent on the water keeping it interesting. Catching Coho Salmon is a fun way to get a sore right shoulder and the two I caught (approx eight and 12 lbs) gave me one.
The 1974 fishing boat had a cabin with a head, and a fishing deck on the back with plenty of room to comfortably sit all of us while we visited and fished.
When our excursion was done our friend from Tahiti gave his fish to the rest of us so me and the other two split them and our chartering company Ketchikan Alaska Fishing processed the fish and for an extra fee sent them home to me on dry ice. They were very good. I cooked all of them on the grill just lightly buttered with Tony’s Seasoning.
For any that hasn’t taken a cruise, or one to Alaska yet, I certainly recommend it. The ship was good with plenty of variety in the restaurants, plenty of entertainment on board, and outstanding service from the hired help.
The cost of the excursions obviously make the bill higher but are really cheap considering you are already there. There are several different room types and we got one with the ocean view that had the double porchlike balcony optionally connecting and adjacent to my aunt and uncle’s.
That private veranda was so pleasing to sit there and watch the scenery go by. That will be a must for any cruises I do in the future. The room was a mite small but it was very clean with a comfortable bed (I guess it would be hard for them to have 1,000 big bedrooms).
So having my wife and my aunt and uncle along with me, making new friends on board both the cruise ship and the fishing boat, the fighting Silvers, the awesome scenery, and the cool break from the Texas heat made my first cruise and first trip to Alaska such a pleasure. I hope y’all enjoyed Fishing America - State # 4.