Orcas, Cod, and Steve’s Close Call

I had to take this shot of two old classics – we named Emery while recalling a boat in Ninilchik called the “Emerald Sea”, and her best friend is Jewel – what a pair! 

 

The week has been a blur of 4 am to 10 pm days -- catch fish, clean fish, sell fish, sleep a few hours, and do it all again. 

The days at Sitka, searching for kings, spending hours looking for one, two, three fish – all but a memory now.  This is the place – lots of miles from the mainstream of civilized life, but about as fishy as it gets.  I caught more nice king salmon today than I caught many a day when I was trying to catch them.. unfortunately, we can’t keep kings right now, as season is closed for them, so we have to try to release them with as little damage as possible.  All the ones I got today were only lip hooked, so they released with minimal harm.  Cohoes, or silvers, are our target species right now, and they are here.  The guys tell me they get really prolific later on, but to me, there are a lot right now!  We are also catching a lot of pinks, or humpies, which we can sell for about a quarter a pound.  Not much, but when you catch 75-100 a day, they add up.  We try to use lures that coho bite more than pinks, but they bite similar lures on a whim it seems, so we always catch some.  The cohoes are gaining as much as a pound a week, and are noticeably larger already than when we began to fish here.  We try to deliver every other day to keep them as fresh as possible – it’s a blast to pull up to the tender and have them take two or three hundred fish off your boat! 

Two days ago, we were passing a tranquil afternoon on a glassy sea, plugging away at our 3 knots, when we began to see large fins appearing between us and our buddy Steve’s boat.  Someone came on the radio and said, “Look at all the Orcas!”  About 30 killer whales were moving thru the area, amongst all the boats.  One went directly under the boat in front of us, and surfaced on the other side.  All around, huge fins were slicing up thru the surface, then sliding under the swells.  They were obviously not concerned with us, but passing by.  I caught this photo as one came up right by our boat!  Really a spellbinding spectacle.

I mentioned tired – we use binoculars a lot when it’s foggy – the radar tells us there is someone out there, and we use the glasses to see them as soon as we can.  A few days back, Lovie was driving, and I heard her laughing up a storm.  She found herself staring at the computer screen that displays our charts and position, and wondering what had happened to them – they were all blurry.  Then she realized she was looking thru the binoculars at the computer…. ! 

She’s the best fish cleaner around, got it down to about 3 good motions – slice the gills, grab them and rip; slice the belly, grab guts and rip; slice the blood membrane on the backbone, scoop it clean with the spoon end of the knife, and hose the fish clean.  Plop.  Another one in the hold!

I use line with the “spreads” (snap, leader, flasher, hoochie, and hook, or spoons) spaced every 2 fathoms apart, and lower the gear into the water between 18-30 fathoms.  The water is so clear you can usually see 3 or 4 spreads down, or about 50 feet, and you can see the fish that are hooked as they come toward the surface.  The cohoes we are catching are about 20-30 inches long right now, and they look enormous as they rise.  I was pulling a line a couple of days ago, and saw what appeared to be a 4-5 foot salmon coming up on the bottom spread.  My heart began to race, and I wondered how in the world I was going to land it, when I realized it was something other than a salmon.  I called Lovie back to look at it with me, and we both recognized it as a large Ling Cod.  It just swam there beneath the surface as we watched, and about the time I tried to figure out how to deal with it, it opened it’s mouth, spit out the 24 inch long salmon it had been holding on to, and swam away!  Not even hooked, just not wanting to give up it’s meal!  We took the salmon off the hook, still wiggling, and chuckled over the scale of “bait” we had used to get him to the surface!

I talk about some of the fisherman friends we’ve made since I came here, and you’ll hear me mention Steve a bit.  He was the one who originally showed us the True North, and has become a good friend and tutor along the way.  I have to tell you a little bit about his adventures this year, just so you get an inkling of the kind of individuals that we are working with. 

Steve’s Tlingit background has helped keep him working around the sea all of his life, and he has learned a lot over the years about boats, fish, and staying alive.  He likes small, double-ended boats, and always has one or two around as re-build projects that he either sells or uses for the fishing season.  His project this year is a cute little wooden double-ender called the Point Amelia.  While getting it ready for the trip north this summer, he discovered some major electrolysis problems that had basically destroyed his drive shaft, so the P.A. has no power.  He found a small 27 foot fiberglass boat that a guy had and leased it for the season.  He added some wooden trolling poles, an elevated hayrack with 3-spool power gurdies hung at about eye level, and made a few other modifications, and he was off to fish.  His old boat, the 48 foot Bonnie Jean made the trip up the outside coast with him, towing the Point Amelia.  Inside the small boat were Steve and his father, who is a grand octogenarian that needed a good way to pass his summer and so came along for the trip.   Off the coast of Kruzof Island, the waves got rather large and rolly – remember, we came the long way around because I didn’t want to go down the unprotected outside coast?  Well, it got bumpy enough, and the  little boat turned out to be a very “tender” boat, or one that rolls a lot – enough that Steve even got a little nervous about the trip.  Steve is not a small lad, and the combination of rigging, loading, and passengers made for a challenging ride.  The boat has self-bailing scuppers that work well on paper, but are not so hot in use.  Basically a hole in the boat at waterline, with a rubber flap that is supposed to let water inside the boat flow out and close if outside water pushes against it,  they are a real danger when the stern of the boat gets loaded enough to drop them below the waterline.

Well, they made it here, and he worked on the boat a few days to correct some of the problems before fishing.  His power inverter failed, so he was unable to use the computer charting program, the depth sounder was giving unreliable readings, and he had no place to stow fish other than in an enormous plastic tote placed on deck.  His first day out, he caught more fish than any of the rest of us, using only 2 of the 4 lines he had on board.  It was relatively smooth out, and you could see him once in a while – stern low in the water, nose high, 80-year old dad sitting at the wheel, big Steve in the rear, whacking and stacking fish!  The boat would roll from side to side as our boat barely bobbled, and I wondered how he would ever survive any waves at all in it.  He called on the radio late in the evening, saying he was going to the Shoreline scow to sell fish, and would anchor near there for the night.  The rest of us went in to Hoktaheen, and slept fine.  Early the next morning I got a short text -- “I almost sunk my boat”.   We tried calling on the radio, and no one could make contact.  Just as we were debating what to do, he texted again that he had made it to Elfin Cove during the night.  Seems that after selling, they had decided to come on back to the Cove to do a couple of modifications and headed out about 11 pm.  It was foggy, but the radar worked, and the seas were rolling them around a bit, but they started the hour and a half trip.  Somewhere in between, out in the dark, he noticed that when the boat rolled one way, it was very slow to right itself.  The motion got worse, and he began to hear a strange sound from the engine compartment.  He opened the engine cover, and it was running almost completely under water!  He thought that the main shaft bearing had sprung a leak, so made his way on to the deck – it was almost 6 inches under water!  The heavy fish tote covered the rear access to the shaft alley, so he had to move it as far forward as possible, pull the cover, lay down in the water, and stick his hands in to feel the (turning) shaft to feel for leaks.  He was relieved to find none, but was baffled as to the source – and was about one wave from sinking!  He grabbed an extra bilge pump he had luckily thrown on board, an the combination of pumps gave him a 3500 gallon per hour boost to empty the boat.  Once the situation was not critical, he found the self-bailing scuppers had gone under with the load of ice he was carrying, began to let seas into the deck area where they found their way down an unsealed hatch cover into the shaft alley, which let water come all the way up into the engine area, and slowly fill the boat.  As it sunk deeper, the situation compounded, and suddenly they were in grave danger.  He told his dad to get ready to get into the survival suit, and he was just ready to release a mayday call when he saw the pumps were getting things under control.  They made their way to the Cove, and shook for a while!  We came in the next day, and he was still a bit wired up – unusual for Steve!  More modifications, and we’ve fished together for a couple of days in the fog together, me leading the way because his navigation system is getting repaired.  These are the brave resourceful type of folks that fish here.  Glad he stayed above water!  The picture was taken before this event!    

Lots of boats at the Cove for a couple of days, due to weather.  Hope it gets less boisterous so we can fish – a day in port is about enough any more, and we get restless!  Spent a few tranquil nights at anchor near Mite Cove, and a few not so quiet ones, too!  I don’t sleep well at anchor, so always am glad to get into a harbor. 

Aunt Katy, I had to take this one for you.  The boat we anchored next to one night was this beautiful old classic wooden boat, named the Katy Did.  Thought you’d appreciate it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fish On!