A fishing kind of weekend

This weekend I had the opportunity to go halibut fishing on my supervisors boat with a few of the guys on my crew.  It was by far one of the best fishing trips I have ever been on!  The four of us (and 2 dogs) left Friday afternoon from Petersburg and fished for herring in the narrows right off of Mitkof.  After we caught several dozen, we headed up to Portage Bay, which is on the north end of Kupreanof.  We navigated our way to the West Point cabin (another FS cabin) to drop off our gear that we wouldn't need on the boat, as we were staying the night at the cabin.  After dropping a crab pot in the bay right in front of the cabin, we skirted around the bay finding ledges that were about 40-90 feet deep to fish in.  Nine hours later, we decided that 5 fish was a great catch for the day, and we were hungry and still had fish to clean and filet.  Around 11pm we started the fish prep process on the beach, which was interesting considering it was done by flashlight and we couldn't keep the gravel off the fish, even when we rinsed them.  Dan caught a 50 pounder, the biggest catch of the trip!  We ate elk burgers at 1am for dinner, and passed out from a long day fishing.

Saturday we searched for  the crab pot, which was weighted down by kelp and floated with the tide further out into the mouth of the bay.  Thank goodness we found it!  Didn't get any crab, only a cod.  We fished for 6 hours that day.  The weather was absolutely beautiful.   We couldn't have asked for better conditions.  I caught a 30 pound halibut, the biggest catch of the day!  And we kept 5 total fish that day.  After getting back to the docks in Petersburg, we cleaned and fileted the rest of the fish, then headed to Dan's house to package them.  All in all, we each went home with several bags of halibut filets.  We're guessing we netted about 70-80 pounds of fish in those 2 days.  Not too shabby!!!  I can't wait to go out again and catch more!

Today's the first day in over a week that I haven't seen the sun.  It looks like Alaska is going back to being Alaska, so no more California sunshine.  That's okay though, it was quite the treat!

I am heading off to Kake Wednesday for a short hitch, during which I get to work for the first time ever on my birthday.  Welcome to the real world! 

  

My 30 pounder

It's been a while

Greetings!

I realize that I haven't posted anything new for a very long time...I have a few minutes to spare, so I thought I'd catch you all up on life up here.

I've been on two 8-day hitches to Kake so far, and I am learning a lot.  In college, I was really sharp when it came to understanding the science and reasoning behind forest practices, but being in the field and actually practicing what I studied is awesome.  I'm really enjoying my job, and definitely glad that I decided to work up here for the season.

Two weekends ago, a couple of my crewmates and I took the ferry down to Wrangell, rented kayaks, and kayaked across in the ocean to the mainland.  We thought we had planned it well enough where we were going with the tide, but, as we came to find out the hard way, we were going against the tide.  The 4 1/2 mile journey turned to 6, and we made it to the mainland around 8pm.  Our final destination was the cabin at Virginia Lake, which required us portaging two kayaks a mile up a trail to the lake, then kayaking across the lake (in the semi-dark and rain) to find the cabin.   We ended up reaching the cabin around 1 in the morning, and spent the entire next day relaxing by the fire and reading.  It was raining all day, and we all wanted to fish, but after our tiring afternoon the day before we gave ourselves a break.  On our way back to the trail to portage back to the ocean, we ran into a fisherman and his family.  When we told him our plans, he called us crazy and offered a ride in his fishing boat to Wrangell.  Of course we accepted, and got back to Wrangell in time to enjoy the nightlife until our ferry left the next morning at 330am.  Looking back, it's definitely one of those trips that I'll never forget.

I celebrated the 4th of July here in Petersburg by participating in the log rolling contest, held in the bay.  Which is in the ocean.  Which is extremely COLD.  Awesome experience though! Even though I lost (birling never was my strong point).

Tomorrow I am (hopefully) going halibut fishing in Portage Bay with some of the timber crew.  I was supposed to go to Juneau with some others from my crew, but I chose to stay behind so I can work on my grad school application for Humboldt this spring.  Cross my fingers it gets accepted!


I am loving Alaska, missing some people and things about California, and taking lots and lots of pictures to show you all when I get back.

xoxo

Alicia