Learning Curves

Well, it’s been a whirlwind of learning and experiencing, but the riches seem to be more elusive than ever! I really don’t know where to begin….
Keith arrived on April 1, and we began gearing up. A few thousand dollars later, we had enough equipment and gear to make a trial run. We headed up from Sitka to Halibut Point Marine, about a 20 minute trip, to top off the fuel tanks. 80 gallons later, we headed out into the more protected area of Sitka Sound to try out the operation of actually fishing. We didn’t expect to catch anything, so weren’t disappointed when there was no activity. We brought her back to the harbor with a nice swell abeam, and got to see how the True North rode the roller coaster. She’s a smaller boat, but takes weather like a champion.

Ready for a longer venture, we headed up to Salisbury Sound, about a 30 mile trip. At 6 knots, that takes about 5 hours. The passage up there is like a travel brochure – grand mountains, calm water, the occasional boat passing. The Sound itself was nice to fish. A little bit of choppy water with the wind blowing, then some 6 foot seas near the ocean entrance. We caught the first of what we hope to be many – a 29.4 (dressed weight) king salmon. At over 7 bucks a pound, it was worth keeping! Unfortunately, it was the only one the trip produced. Two days there, one fish. Not so hot. The maniac in the picture is dressed for the occasion in the hat provided at the farewell dinner his friends at Semitool gave… the Whackem bat, complete with customized logos, was a bit soft, but the gift was appreciated! There have been a few lonely days when I pressed the button just to hear the crowd roar, and it always brings a smile! Seriously.

Willie the wonder dog – 36 hours before he went to the bathroom. He has some sort of moral code not to go on the boat, so I finally plopped him in the Zodiac raft when we anchored the second night and rowed him to shore. No trouble doing his business there!
It was a bit of a rodeo with him all excited and trying to circle the inside of a 6 foot boat, me kneeling in the bow with a paddle, and trying to get back to the fishing boat!

Once we were confident that things were going to work mechanically as well as could be expected ( did I mention I’m a Nervous Nelly about all that can go wrong?) , we headed out with the big boys to Cape Edgecumbe and the Winter Line. The line is a boundary set by Fish and Game, beyond which it is illegal to fish. Google Earth it – from the Cape Edgecumbe light to the southernmost tip of Woodward Point on Biorka Island. It doesn’t look far, but it takes us a little over 3 hours to get out near enough to fish. The weather can get brutal very quickly – we only have had 2 days where the seas were under 8 feet, with 15 foot swells being very common. Go look at your house, and figure out how high that is – when it’s not blowing, it’s pretty neat. When the wind is howling and the chop is short, it is downright abusive. Want an ab workout? Go to sea!

We’ve fished the cape now for a couple of weeks, and keep hearing the same refrain from the other fisherman – where are all the fish? Judging from the fact that the price keeps going up and we keep catching very few, I suspect that it wouldn’t be considered red hot fishing right now. Hope we survive the cash flow problem until it gets better!

Todd and Emery came for a few days and brightened up the mix. They were loaned some electro-shock wrist bands by the Dennison’s for reducing the sea-sickness rate. The first day we took them to the Cape, we forgot the wrist bands, and found we had no Dramamine on board. Keith and I are both lucky enough to not suffer from seasickness in the least, so we sort of forgot to prepare for the less fortunate. The swells were big rollers, and not choppy, so everyone was deceived into thinking things would go well. Unfortunately, the motion when we slowed down to fish began to cause bad thoughts in Todd and then Em began to act about the same. The photo is poor Todd in the fetal position that he used to escape with, between trips to the rail to chum for fish. After a long day for them at the Cape, and 1 fish only, we decided to return to Sitka for the night. We had a hydraulic hose that was failing, and the pulse pump feed for the cook/heat stove died, so it made sense. One fish, about 90 bucks; hose – 30, pump – 100. Who’s winning here, anyway??

The following day, with electro-shock therapy on his wrist, and loaded with Dramamine, Todd headed back to sea. Em didn’t like the shocker, so she just ate the pills and toughed it out. For those who need a testimonial about the wrist gadgets, Todd’s your man. It worked—we caught another fish, then anchored for a more or less comfortable night behind St. Lazaria Island. About 40 other fishermen were working the Cape, and the anchorage was full of all sorts of craft for the evening. We caught several more fish on Saturday, and came home on a beautifully glassy sea that evening.

I sat in the door off my boat Monday morning at 6 AM, and listened to the guns, screamers, and other bird bombs go off at the airport, about a quarter of a mile from the harbor. The plane lifted off perfectly into the clear morning air, banked over Mt. Edgecumbe, and left me really, really lonely. Love my family….

Later on Monday, we had our courtesy Coast Guard inspection that gives a person an idea of whether they comply with all the rules and regulations. I had a couple of items to add to the boat, plus an emergency drill class I need to take, and otherwise things went well. We headed off to the Cape again to fish – seas were bigger, ugly, and we were one of only 6 boats out there for the day. We had the dubious distinction of being the very last boat to leave the line Monday night – Tuesday was equally rough, and devoid of fish.
After a strategic reassessment, we decided that Wednesday we would leave Sitka and head inside Chatham Strait and work our way to Petersburg to try our luck.