Sitka 2010 Part II 2

The second half of our Sitka adventure featured some new faces, new places and a couple complete surprises!

After the weekend storm that left us looking for inside areas to fish, the "deck had been shuffled" with regard to the migrating chinooks distribution along South East Alaska's coastline. Our challenge was to again locate fish without taking a beating from the still formidable but receding ocean swell.

The rare June gale that blew through Sitka produced winds to 45kts and 21 foot combined seas all but brought fishing to a standstill. Those bold enough to venture out were forced into a now crowded, protected north end of  Kruzof Island known as the Shark hole. Not the wide open, plenty-of-elbow-room fishery that we had hoped for.

Some charter operators discounted the forecast and took their clients out into open areas, only to find conditions too rough to fish and a storm that was just getting cranked up. The ride home for some of these unlucky anglers were far from comfortable and a bit scary, as some were asked to put on their life jackets as guides fled the following seas which were threatening to swamp their vessels. I mention this not to chastise the charter fishermen in question but to point out the even the professionals make bad calls regarding the weather. Remember that no fish is worth losing your vessel…or worse!

Some guys have all the luck: Seattle Fire Lieutenant  Dave Busz hopped off his cruise ship where he was training the crew in fire fighting tactics, jumped in with us and caught his first Alaskan chinook and halibut! We even dropped him off at the dock in time to catch his sailing!  

The state of the downrigging art: Ambassadeur 7000i HSN riding a Fetha Styx 1064 aboard a Cannon Digitrol IV customized with a velcro mount for a TR-1 remote auto-pilot. Just stand aft of the rigger, place your hand on the remote, and the rod touches your wrist. You can steer the boat, control the downrigger and feel a bite while keeping your eyes forward to watch your sounder and boat traffic. In other words: "Dialed in!"  

"Team Grunden" scores! Larry Stauffer and yours truly with a pair of cookie cutter kings. If your cookie cutter stamps out 25 pounders that is…  

Clay Griffith couldn't wait for this halibut to settle down before weighing it! He always did like a challenge! When it stopped fighting, the scale read 60 pounds. A perfect eating size 'butt anywhere!  

One of the most interesting aspects of handling so many king salmon is getting treated to the full spectrum of all the coastal stocks colorations. Check out this king with almost Atlantic Salmon-like spots on his cheek!  

If you look in the left background you'll see a sealion with a look of disbelief on his ugly mug. I hooked a nice king that was putting up a good fight when a sealion surfaced next to the boat, looked me in the eye and dived toward my king… You can guess what happened next…  

Sure enough, the overgrown waterdog has my king and he is swimming toward Sealion Rocks! Fortunately my friends and I had seen this drill before and were not going to give up without a fight! It took all hands on board running the boat to stay on top of him, dropping seal bombs to force him to drop the fish and finally to net the unfortunate chinook but we emerged victorious!

The finger in this shot indicates where the sealion grabbed my king and the rest of the fish was intact! Talk about luck…and, teamwork!!!  

According to my friend Larry Stauffer, your angling career is not complete until you catch a fish that weighs as much as you do! Here's Larry with his career halibut to date: Larry weighs 155, the halibut comes in at 157 pounds!  

Dave Heiser, Clay Griffith and myself with our final days catch, four nice kings and a keeper lingcod.  

Sitka 2010 is in the books and was another great experience shared with good friends in a good, solid boat in one of the most wonderful places on the planet: Southeast Alaska!