7/13/06 - alaska

[alantani]

man, i'm wupped! it's been a long 2 weeks.

my vacation started on july 1st. we have a small beach house in cayucos, ca., down along the central california coast and we always head down for the 4th of july. a friend of mine in cayucos was in the process of selling his boat, so we lost our ride for the weekend. i asked the kids if they wanted to fish the local rockcod opener on july 1st instead of leaving for the beach. that discussion lasted about 5 nanoseconds. either i'm getting older, or 4 am is getting earlier....



my 8 year old is turning out to be tougher than the older kids.



and this is her first fish ever!



of course, it wasn't too hard to catch one. often, the screen looked solid red!



we arrived on july 2nd and boogie boarded and kayaked. we spent the evening of fourth of july on the beach, made a bonfire, roasted marshmellows and watched the fireworks.



we returned on the 5th. i stayed up all night to finish honeydo's, bills, pack and get my tackle together, and i was off to alaska at 5am on july 6th.





from the airport in anchorage, i took a bus south to seward.





i checked into the breeze inn, right across the street from the harbor.







day 1, july 7th, i boarded the boat with 13 total jackasses. i brought a few reels of my own, but, of course, the first thing i do is check out the gear. a full set of the new penn v series international 50 reels and rods ....



and a full set of accurate reels with loomis rods.



meet andrew mezirow, captain, fishing vessel crackerjack voyager. don't let the smile fool you. he kills fish for a living. he abuses deckhands for sport! even as a paying passenger, you do not want to screw up too many times. but if you're looking for someone to put you on serious fish, this is the man!



here's our competition. in the next few days, we will catch fish. they will not.



chuck and tyrus are checking out the reels that i brought. progear classic series 550's with 65# spectra. they're probably thinking that these reels are too small. not so. i topshotted them with 80# ande for abrasion resistance. plus, these fish are not line shy. the drags were set to maybe 20#'s. i had one reel lock up on me. it seemed to work fine after that, but you will get a post mortem on this reel at a later date. otherwise, these little progears were more than a match for these fish, including halibut up to 150#'s.



i know we headed 4 hours east from seward, stopping along the way, but beyond that, i had no idea where we were.



one the first spot, we had a choice of bait or jigs. we had large herring and salmon parts on a 15/0 mustad circle hook with a hoochie and crimped 500# leader. the accurates were loaded with 100# spectra and short 80# topshot. most guys went bait, i went with a jig. i make these 6 ounce shad heads, and a good friend of mine makes these 7 inch fatbaits. lime green is my favorite, as you will see later.



here's the second fish taken on the first stop, maybe a 45# ling. i thought i had the jackpot for sure. it turned out be one of the smallest lings in the box. i think they only let me keep it because they felt a little sorry for me. in the next 3 days, i released over 30 just like it. i don't know how many halibut we caught, but we released a breeder that was 175-200 pounds. other boats struggled, but we had consistent action and would continue to catch halibut when other boats did not.





then it was off for our first night at the jumping salmon lodge. we had steaks on the menu, but i also cut up fresh salmon, yelloweye rockfish, and halibut sashimi. the halibut was absolutely the best sashimi i've ever had.





after dinner, i grabbed the little sit-in kayak and stuck 20 rockfish in a row, all released. here's a shot at 11pm from the kayak.



now on day 2, july 8th, i stuck my first of two halibut on that same lime green jig. the progear locked up on me. i couldn't even turn the handle. the deckhand held the fish and the captain cut the spectra and did a uni-to-uni and i had a new reel. what i wanted to do was to grab my other progear and switch side plates. hey, it's only 3 screws. that's when guys started calling me "sideplate".



on day 3, july 9th, everyone was fishing jigs, so i switched over to bait. i felt a nibble and knew i had butt #2 on the hook, so i handed the rod off to dick hilliard, watched this fish kick his butt, and just laughed. brad later was goofing around and caught a small salmon, so i had the deckhand filet out this fish and stuck the whole salmon carcass on the hook. the captain said, "make sure you let him eat this one," because the bait was so big. well, 2 minutes later i get a hit. he must have swallowed that whole carcass because he immediately started taking line. i got two long runs out of him, then hollered out, "has anyone NOT caught a big halibut yet?" fishbelly answered, so i handed that rod off, and laughed some more. this fish ran under the boat and picked up four other lines. what a mess, but the captain was able to get the lines untangled without cutting anyone off. this fish turned out to be 150 pounds, and the jackpot fish for the third day!





day 4, july 10th, was a blur. you'll see lots of photos from the other guys. it was a catch and release ling cod day. all fish were 40-60 pounds. on one of our first drifts, we had 12 of 14 guys hooked up on these big ling cod all at once. i found a 12 ounce bullet head jig and filed off the barb. then i sharpened it down to a long point. i had my technique down so that i could bring the ling up to the surface, wave the rod tip back and forth a few times, and get him to spit out the jig. then he'd flip me off and he was gone! i horsed up a dozen, maybe more, all 40-60 pounds, all cleanly released.







here is our new deck hand. he's a 16 year old kid named taylor. he was kidded merciously. we decided to give him a nickname, but couldn't decide on one. scott "rabid angler" asked what his girlfriend calls him, and he made the mistake of answering "tay-tay!" the entire boat erupted in "tay-tay" 's. it was hilarious. then the captain put that out on the radio. seward is a small town. when we got back to the dock the next day, everyone in town was calling him "tay-tay."



on the evening of day 4, i grabbed the kayak and headed out to fish again. the water was getting rougher as i got farther out, so in turned back and fished "the point." even saw a bald eagle sitting on a buoy.





we had a very attractive young lady, stephanie, staying at the lodge, who was not with our group. one of the guys, chris, that worked at the lodge had taken her out fishing in a flat bottom skiff. i paddled up to say hi, and get some suggestions on where to fish. chris said that there was a ledge between the point and the island that sometimes held halibut. he didn't have to say that twice. i paddled out with my progear and my lime green swim bait and sent that swim bait down to the bottom. within 30 seconds, something hit and it almost pulled me into the water, and then took me on a 25 yard sleigh ride. so i'm thinking to myself, "ok, dumb ####, you wanted a big fish, NOW what are you going go do? you've got a gaff and that's it. think, think, think! hey, what about steffie .....!" i had the fish up to mono topshot, so i backed off on the drag and let him go back down the botton. then i reset the drag and called chris over. he motored up right next to me and i told stephanie, "i'm going to hand you this rod. hang on tight and don't let go!!!!" she must have thought i was going to climb aboard, but i pushed back, gave her a little smile and said "see ya!" you should have seen her eyes bug! "what do i do??!!!" chris calmly says, "just reel." i was laughing pretty hard. so was chris. he was standing there with a gaff when got a look at the fish, then he went for the spear and buoy.





back at the dock, chris grabbed a scale. 48 pounds!!!!!!! stephanie got the third fish of her lifetime, and i got a big hug!





day 5, july 11th, we were headed out for salmon and lings. unfortunately, right at the dock, we picked up a quarter mile of longline cable that wrapped up around the the portside prop. we had to limp back on one engine and it took all day, but we already had a limit of halibut and more lings than anyone wanted.
yesterday, july 12th, was a 10:30 am bus ride from seward to anchorage, then a flight to seattle, then home to san jose and through the door at 11:30pm. and today i'm catching up on dozens of phone messages and a hundred e-mails. THEN i have to catch up on everyone's posts. and yes, there are still reels to fix! so please be patient, but i really needed this break.

as far as the service went, everything was great. crackerjack charters, the jumping salmon lodge and captain jacks fish processing were great! i'm going back next year! now, back to work!