Orca, Halibut and Rubber Boots

Seward, Alaska
Memorial Weekend, 2009

When I go on an adventure I generally leave home very early in the morning or immediately after work so I won’t missing spending time at my destination or waste a vacation day. Since I moved to Alaska I’ve been working at slowing my life down, not forcing things and just doing what it feels like I want to do at any given time. I’m taking more time to plan a little and not having my fingers in too many pies at once. So far it’s working for me.

The day I went to Seward, instead of leaving at o-dark-thirty like I would normally do, I puttered around the house, tended to my seedlings, leisurely packed for cool weather, stopped by my garden, got my fishing license and finally arrived in Seward after a very leisurely drive, stopping along the way to enjoy the scenery and get to know my new camera.

Seward is a pretty, walker friendly little town, set between the Kenai Mountains and Resurrection Bay. Except for the drives to and from, the weather was overcast and cool. On Friday I went on my first Alaska hike and, being a little worried about bears or other large critters (moose, to be exact), had several one-sided conversations with various people. I also did a little light singing. At one point along the trail, I heard a noise approaching from behind…! My heart skipped several beats until I discover the sound came from a pair of hikers and their unleashed dog. If the foliage had been evergreen instead of deciduous, I could have easily believed I was hiking in Western Washington. After the hike I gathered some rocks along the beach before heading back to the hostel for some hot tea. Most of the beach rocks in the area are very small, flat black rocks.

Saturday dawned a little grey and windy but not too bad, weather wise. Before checking in for my boat tour, I stopped by the Kenai Fjord National Park office to get my National Parks Passport stamp. When I checked in for the tour I was told that there were weather warnings in the area and I had three options (1) reschedule the trip, (2) go on the trip and if we didn’t make it around Aialik Cape and into the Gulf of Alaska to see glaciers I would get a bit of a refund or (3) cancel for a full refund.

I selected curtain numer two. I was prepared to battle seasickness with a huge piece of ginger root and water and my focused intent on seeing some whale and puffin. As the boat got going, I stayed out on the deck experiencing the spray until we were told that, because of rough water, anyone not already doing so needed to sit down.

The ginger partially worked. I didn’t get sick but felt close a time or two. The climax of the entire trip was when we saw a pod of 8 or 9 orca. The scenery was beautiful! If it wasn’t for the ever-present mountains, I could have thought I was at the Oregon Coast or taking a ferry trip in San Juan Islands. We saw a couple of puffin, orca, sea otter, seals, sea lions, cormorants, common murres, mountain goats and more. The closer we got to leaving the bay and entering the Gulf of Alaska to round the cape, the higher the seas were. We experienced 15 minutes or so of 8-10 foot waves and after a couple of 14 footers the captain decided that it was time to turn back. Our goal had been the Aialik Glacier.

The captain was also a great tour guide and I learned a few new pieces of information. For example: did you know that puffin take to the water soon after hatching and don’t set foot on land again for four years or so when it’s time to come to shore to mate? Mountain goats often die from falling off cliffs? Orca fall into one of three subgroups: transient, resident or off shore. Not much is known about the off shore group but a good amount is known about the others. There is physical, habitat and feeding differences between the transient and resident pod groups and it is believed that they do not interact with one another, not even for mating purposes. Follow this link for some good basic information: http://www.pbs.org/kqed/oceanadventures/episodes/killerwhale/indepth-orcas.html. The following link is to some orca footage, captured by Donna Graves-Faught. The reward is toward the end of the video. Thanks, Donna! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_lnn4sJz5E

I had a great time and the fact that we didn’t see the glacier was not a big deal. It allowed us time to see wildlife of the bay which we would possibly would have missed seeing if we’d gone out to the glacier.

Sunday was my halibut fishing day! I was prepared to bring home a lot of fish and had dressed to battle a day of standing around waiting for the fish to bite while hoping the skies didn’t open up on us, sending water from above. I donned my rubber boots, my motorcycle riding gloves, two pair of long johns, lots of layers of shirts, wind pants and a snow hat. I was toasty warm and dry.

The fishing charter I took was in a small 6-person boat. After discussing expectations and showing our fishing licenses to the captain, we left the dock at 8:30 AM. A bit of stormy weather was still hanging around from the day before so we had to stay within the confines of Resurrection Bay and it took us only 20 minutes or so to get to the first location. After puttering around to find a good spot, we dropped anchor in 240 foot waters. The captain set up our lines and within less than 10 minutes my fellow fisherpeople and I were getting bites and landing fish.
No halibut but some fair to middlin’ grey (Pacific) cod.

We stayed at that location for a couple of hours, until the cod had passed and all we were pulling up were arrowtoothed flounder which we didn’t keep. Arrowtoothed flounder are generally not kept for eating because “a proteolytic enzyme released from a myxosporean parasite causes softening of the flesh” (http://www.afsc.noaa.gov/species/Arrowtooth_flounder.php). Yuk!

All in all from the time we left the dock until the time we returned, we were out on the water for 10 hours but it felt like only a few. I never tired from standing, got sick only once and was the only one on the boat to hook a halibut! Some of you know that sustainability of fisheries is a concern of mine so I rarely eat fish. I want to make sure, as best I can, that the fish I eat and serve is caught in a manner that causes little disturbance to ocean habitat, is not a species that is overfished or one which is caught using practices that results in a large amount of by-catch. The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch Guide is my seafood buying bible. http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/SeafoodWatch/web/sfw_regional.aspx . Okay, I’m getting down off my soapbox…

For sustainability reasons, I had decided that if I caught a halibut under 30 pounds or so, I would not land it. It takes a long time for a halibut to grow and become of mating age so when the one on my line was estimated to be only 15-20 pounds, I let the line go slack so that it fell off. I knew that I’d not have another chance to catch one on the trip because we were nearing the end of the day and were at the last stop before making a bee-line back to the dock. We were all pretty tired by then and sat in the cabin of the boat, warming the bodies we suddenly realized were chilled.

Two of the six passengers were headed back to the East Coast within a day or two so opted out of sharing in the fish catch. The remaining four of us each went home with slightly over 9 pounds of cod. I put my mother lode on ice and headed home that same night, stopping along the way to take a nap. The next day I “played foodsaver” (inside Kinser family joke, right Ryan!) and put the fish in the freezer.

I knew it would happen…I’m hooked!! Kelley and I used to do a fair amount of fishing when the kids were little and I really liked it. Over the years I’ve grown impatient with inactivity but I’m settling very nicely into a more relaxed mode and am in a much better “space” to be a fisherperson.

Within the next week or two I'll be going out on a boat to fish for King Salmon. A high percentage of people fish for King from the shore but if a boat is available, it's nuts not to accept the offer! The two fishing poles I ordered have arrived and, after my garden is fully in and I retrain myself about how to tie a hook and what lures to buy, I’ll be hanging out at the lakes and rivers making friends with the mosquitoes!

This posting was a long one. You deserve a prize if you read the entire thing. Let me know what you want your prize to be (Okay, now, be reasonable. I didn’t win the lottery, simply landed a few cod!).