Feeding the Lion

A friend, Mike, and I took the boat out for a shake down fishing trip yesterday.

The weather was marginal, blowing 25 on 11 foot seas, so we decided to run inside a tangle of islands to fish tucked insideBiorka Island.

  We left the dock at 5:30 am and road the big swells until we could get inside the islands past Long Island. The ride from there was very mild. Sea Otters were everywhere. They floated on their backs cracking shells of clams for their breakfast. 

  When we rounded the corner near Biorka we spotted whales puffing steamy breath into the crisp morning air. Birds were diving for the schools of bait fish swarming beneath the surface.

  "I guess this is a great place to start fishing," I told Mike.

  We trolled for nearly an hour without so much as a bite.

  We decided to head over by the Monkey Cliffs to try our normal fishing grounds. We had trolled only a few minutes when the first rod snapped out of the downrigger clip. Fish On!

  Mike snatched the rod out of the holder and began working the fish.

 "Fish on!" I yelled as the second rod snapped into action. I grabbed it out of the holder and tied into a big King Salmon. It was stripping line off the reel like crazy.

  Poof. Mike's fish came unbuttoned. He reeled in the flasher and bait.

  My fish suddenly went from a good fight to a blistering run with line screaming off the drag. "What in the world?" I questioned.

 This just doesn't seem right.

  I had no longer voiced that thought than the line streaked for the surface. Kings rarely jump so this was not good.

  A huge head broke surface with a very nice King Salmon in its mouth.

  "Sea lion!" I shouted to Mike.

  I was pulling as hard as I could without breaking the line, my thumb pinned the line to the reel as hard as I cold hold.

  The Sea lion shook the fish violently above the surface scattering fragments everywhere. Seagulls came bombing in for easy meals.

  I suddenly was given slack in the line and reeled as quickly as I could turn the reel handle, pumping the rod to gain even more time on the Sea lion.

  I reeled in a King Salmon head on a hook. It had bitten the fish off right behind the gill plate.

  We stood and watched as the huge animal slowly finished his meal of our fish!

  We got the boat back into shape and started trolling, watching for the lion. Sure enough, he was plastered to our boat. He would swim along with us off to one side,

take a deep breath and then cruise down to check our two lines. We would watch him on our fish finder, a big red streak heading down to our shallow line, then on down to our deep line.

  We hooked eight big Kings but with the lion cruising nearby were only able to land one. It sure was frustrating. All we wanted was a couple of fresh fish to eat,

but instead fed five big Kings to a huge ravenous Lion.

  Living wild in Alaska is never easy, but does come with some great adventure.