Alaska 2009 - Part 3 - Seward & Halibut Fishing

After Settling in at Lorri's house in Moose Pass, we spent several days sightseeing. Below are pictures of our hike to Exit Glacier.

It's amazing to see how far the glacier has receeded, even just the change since the previous year. I'd hate to be a park ranger and have to rebuild trails and keepout ropes each year.
So one of the other tourists, looks at that glacier and asks if they can eat the ice. When the guide told her no, she asked "Why? Is the water not pure." I guess some people just aren't that smart. I mean, just look there's all kind of dirt and wind blown items in the Glacier. It's still reall beautiful, though.

Hiking back down Exit Glacier.


We also took a drive to the port town of Seward, Alaska. Below are some pictures of the town, and later on pictures of our fishing trip for Hallibut.

A fishing trip just came ashore with their catch of Silver Samon.

This Bald Eagle swooped down right in front of us, grabbed a samon carcass and flew up to the top of the telephone pole.

On our way back to Moose Pass, we stopped by some of the local streams that were full of samon making their run to their breeding grounds.

The next day, we headed back to Seward for our fishing charter.

Here's our boat...

Jaclynn really liked Halibut fishing (said it was her favorite part of the trip...I couldn't believe it!). Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that you bait the hook, then just leave the rod alone until you see the fish bite.....a lot less work than samon fishing.

The first "fish" I caught wore me plum out...You'll see a picture of it in a minute.

The view of a glacier from our fishing spot. Not bad scenery, right.

Ok, here's my first "fish." A 5 foot long skate. It was like reeling in a piece of plywood from 300ft. I was pleased to discover later that it was a lot easier to reel in the halibut.

FYI: the other guys on the boat with us, including their fearless leader in the blue plaid were pure geniuses on their 1 week of vacation from working the oil fields in North Alaska. The genius being demonstrated here is holding the very angry, flapping skate between your legs with his stinger trying to make contact with your crotch.

Ok, now onto the halibut fishing, and to my "the big one that got away story." It should be noted that Jaclynn and I listened to our tiny female (I think) captain's fishing advice and caught our limit. Our three genius cohorts caught a combined 2 Halibut between the three of them weighing a total of 28lbs...oh, and about 6 Tom Cod which one of them said "that's good eating there. Don't throw it back."

Here's one of Jaclynn's fish. A 42 lb Halibut.

Ok, I know you're not going to believe it, but the following pictures are of me reeling in a roughly ~200 lb Halibut for about half and hour. Got it all the way up to the boat, but it was too big (the length of the back of the boat...probably 5.5 - 6 ft long) to pull in to the back without killing all of us. The captain harpooned it with a bouy that floats 200lbs...well, that just made him mad...he broke my line and went straight down. Spent the next 1.5 hours waiting for him to tire out and surface...but he never did...argh. So, all I have is this picture with a funny look on my face after he swam away.

For comparison take, here's a 4ft Halibut caught by another boat. It weighed in at 174 lbs. Until then, our captain had tried to downplay loosing my fish and estimated it was probably 150lbs. After seeing the one below, she appologized for loosing my fish. "Damn, you're fish was over 200lbs. I'm really sorry we lost it...can't believe it stayed down with a harpoon in it's side attached to a 200lb bouy. Oh well, it was a fun experience.