l I invited my brother, Gary, his youngest son, Luke, a long time friend, Ivak, his son, Colton, and Jimmy. This sounds more like a goose hunt in Idaho to me, but the entire goose gang sauntered off the plane into the Sitka airport.
For some reason, the sun decided to grace these guys nearly the entire time they were here. I kept hearing, "Thought you said it rained all the time here." No matter, we made the best of the miserable sunny weather and fished anyway.
Luke and Colton had never been on the ocean so this was going to be the testing grounds to see if they were real fishermen material.
Their dads insisted on having them wear the ear patch for seasickness... claiming the old adage, "better safe than sorry." Only one of the boys did his best to disprove the working of the patch and "chummed" briefly the first day. Hey, I've seen seasoned commercial fishermen spend much more time than that over the rail.
The week before the boys arrived the king salmon fishing had been heating up. I was excited but of course in the two days before their arrival that batch of kings started thinning out. With no rain in the forecast it did not look good for new fish to move into my favorite fishing areas.
I read the weather forecast to the group that first evening: "Gale warnings, North West winds to 35 knots seas 8 feet. The next day: "Small craft warnings due to seas. South East winds 25 knots seas building to 10 feet"
"Doesn't look good boys," I kept repeating each time I looked at my Ipad. I kept hoping that if I looked every five minutes I would find a different forecast, but nope, same words every time.
I had just mounted two new motors on the boat and this was going to be our break in fishing trip. I was going to get to see what the new motors would do in nasty ocean. Oh boy!
We headed out of the harbor at 5:30 am and not a breeze could be found.
"We will go out as far as the weather will let us," I informed the boys as we motored past the end of the airport.
We passed Vitskari Rocks, Bird Island, and then found ourselves at the Cape with still no wind.
Good ol' weather man missed again, but fortunately for us, missed with calm winds.
The first morning we worked hard for just a couple of kings. I really was intent on getting the two boys their first King Salmon. By noon we had at least accomplished that. Of course the dads sat with trembling chins and teared up eyes hoping for a fish of their own. (Ok, I just made that up, but that's probably what they were thinking inside, even though they pasted smiles on their faces).
Late in the day we raced off to a far out halibut area. This is a place I only fish when the ocean is calm and the waves look friendly.
As soon as the halibut lines hit the bottom the boys started bring up bottom fish. Yellow Eye Rock Fish. Ling Cod, mouths large enough to swallow a basketball, and finally some halibut started trickling in. Ling season does not open until later in the year so it was catch and release on those.
We fished hard and made it back to the dock at about 5:30 that evening. A long day for flatlanders and an old wore out charter captain.
After a quick stop by the cleaning dock we made home for hot showers and a nice supper my wife had cooked up.
All the guys were nodding off in their chairs by nine, so it was off to dream land and only two days left of fishing.
Luke with his first King Salmon
