Halibut Weekend in Seward

Lauren & Shannon

Hello From Alaska!

Wow, it’s sure and invigorating feeling to finally shed the last shackles of winter and find yourself able to blast out into the wilds of Alaska in search of some summer recreation. And last weekend marked this occasion in grand fashion!

It all started out with a 3:15 am wake up on Friday morning and a 3:45 am departure from Anchorage. It was a clear beautiful morning without a cloud in the sky and the 2 hr drive was a positively titillating experience. The environment was crisp and serene with almost no traffic or people and, as such, I was suddenly shocked to see a moose spring out of the roadside bushes and slowly amble across the highway right in front of me. I jammed on my brakes and stopped short of him as he took his time meandering to the other side of the road. Inasmuch as there was no traffic on the highway I stopped the car and took a picture of him walking though the meadow. As you can see there is already plenty of light at the time I took this picture (5:15 am).

I arrived in Seward at 6 am and checked into the office for my charter with Saltwater Safari and then made my way down to the wharf to get ready to leave. We departed shortly thereafter and began our trip out to the fishing grounds by Montague Island, a distance of approximately 60 spectacular miles. This took about 2 hours, 15 minutes with calms seas and I can say without reservation that, on a day like this, the boat ride out to Montague and back was, by itself, worth the price of the charter.

We actually took a little longer getting out to Montague due to an excursion we took to watch a pod of Pacific white sided dolphin. This group of 15-20 dolphins zoomed up to our 52 ft boat and began diving under us, circling around us and performing acrobatic maneuvers as if they were in a sea world show.

We arrived at Montague at about 8:30 am and eagerly began fishing. It was a perfect day to fish and we all limited out (2 fish each) although the big boys were not to be found this day. In the world of halibut a fisherman has no bragging rights when the biggest fish of the day is only 40 pounds. And yes, that was out fate of Friday. I caught probably 8-10 halibut in the 20-25 pound category. In fact, they were each so similar that it appeared that I’d raided the local halibut nursery school. Thus is the fate of a fisherman - one day you’re strokin’ ‘em like Babe Ruth and the next day you’re dribblin’ a soft grounder back to the mound.

By late afternoon we’d had enough and headed back in. The afternoon sun was shining brightly on the mountains that lined the ocean along the entire 60 mile journey back to Seward (see attached picture). And as tired as we were, we nevertheless took a few minutes to stop and admire the stellar sea lions that were lying on the rock outcropping basking in the afternoon sun. Pretty tough life, it looks like to me! Although the pictures may not show it, these animals are enormous with adult males reaching lengths of over 12 feet and weights of more than 3,000 pounds.

We got back to the dock at about 6 pm, got our fish cleaned up and all said our good byes. I then called Rose McSwain who I had made arrangements to stay with that night. She’s the mother of a good friend of mine and we had a lovely evening together visiting and exchanging stories.

I hit the sack around 10 pm, slept until 4:30 am and then got up to do it all again. Saturday turned out to be an overcast day but a windless day so all was well out on the water. On the way out we were treated to bald eagles and spouting orca whales and we arrived back out at Montague Island at about 8:30 am. This day turned out to be one of the most unusual days I’ve ever had fishing halibut.

I was on a smaller boat (28 ft.) and we carried only 6 fishermen. We therefore fished with three on the left side of the boat and three on the right side of the boat. Now here’s the weird part - ALL of the halibut were caught by the fishermen on the left side of the boat. Not a single halibut was caught, even hooked, by anyone standing on the right side of the vessel. Never before have I seen that happen out in the open ocean. Mmmmm….strange stuff but here’s how it all worked out.

After a few hours one of the guys on the other side of the boat said he needed to go smoke a cigarette so he asked me if I wanted to fish in his spot for awhile. I said “Heck, why not” - I couldn’t do any worse than I’d been doing. So while he smoked a couple of cigarettes I fished and since there was no action at all I asked the skipper if I could try my luck with the jigging rig that I’d spotted leaning up against the railing right next to me. He gave me the green light so I tossed the lure overboard and began bouncing the apparatus off the bottom of the ocean floor. Within a few minutes I had a hit and soon landed an Irish Lord which I promptly released. Next I caught a couple of yellow eyed rockfish, then another Irish lord and a black sea bass. After about 30 minutes and no halibut I suddenly got a god solid hit and skipper Steve immediately informed me that I had hooked into a King Salmon - Yahoo!!

I was fishing with very light tackle on this jigging rod (20 pound test line) and therefore had to be extremely careful not to fight him too aggressively. After 10-15 minutes I finally had him up to the boat and Steve was able to net him. There was a minor celebration and I promptly cast out again in search of a halibut. Roughly 10 minutes later I got another hit and, surprise, surprise, another King Salmon! I landed this one a little quicker and was informed by the skipper that I was limited out on Kings. But, wow, what a blast - a 37 pound King and a 23 pound King within about 30 minutes. Skipper Steve told me to put it back down and see if I could get a halibut so I did as instructed and, you guessed it, another King Salmon!!! Unbelievable!!

Realizing that I couldn’t land another King, I handed the pole over to the fisherman who’d yet to catch anything and let him have a shot at an aggressive ocean king. He fought it for about 10-15 minutes and got it up to the surface so we could all get a look at it but lost it as the hook pulled out of the fish’s mouth. He quickly dropped his bait back in the water and within about 2 minutes he got another hit. Sadly, it was an exact duplicate of the first encounter. He fought if to the surface only to lose it just as he was getting it close to the boat - jaw clenching agony!!

I left him with the jigging rig and went back to the more standard method of halibut angling. However, no big boys were to come my way that day. I caught two small halibut (20-25 pounds) but put them back in the water in hopes of landing an older relative. We all fished the rest of the day without another bite. Sometimes that happens, lots of actions and then BOOM everything stops.

I could hardly complain though. I’d gotten two ocean fresh King Salmon and the skipper gave me his two halibut that he’d caught earlier in the day (about 20 pounds each). The net for this 2 day trip when I got back to town and weighed in was about 90 pounds of fillets - not a bad weekend at all!!

As a final bonus, the trip back to port was a beautiful one. We followed the coastline back to Resurrection Bay and as soon as we turned into the bay we could see blue skies and sunshine. We motored through the calm waters, admiring the breathtaking glaciers, mountains, stellar sea lions and birds.

What a day we’d had - and, oh yes, the stats

• 1 - 117 lb Halibut
• 4 - 40-60 lb Halibut
• 1 - 37 lb King Salmon
• 1 - 23 lb King Salmon
• 5 - 20-25 lb Halibut

Back at the dock we processed out catch and said out good byes. I then ate dinner and lollygagged around the marina for awhile to enjoy the waning portion of another memorable outing in Seward.

The drive back to Anchorage was on par with the preceding two days - clear skies, light traffic and by 11:30 pm I found myself driving along the rugged coastline of the Turnagain Arm with a tiny sliver of moon hanging over the mountains on the other side of the inlet. Behind this bright splinter was a dark blue iridescent sky which gave way to the orange glow of a lingering sunset in the Northern region - yes, that long, lingering midnight summer sun.

I finally made it home about a half hour later, exhausted but very satisfied with the incredible experience that I’d had in just one weekend.

Ah, Alaska, I love ya.
And I love both of you, too!!!

Dad