Salmon and Halibut Fishing

Salmon and Halibut fishing

Mom and Dad came to visit us in Alaska! Yippy! There was some scheduling issues with my assumptions and Dad's failing memory (ha ha), but they made it here and we had a list of things we wanted to do with them. One of our highlights of the trip was fishing. We took Dad out Salmon fishing the first day they got here and he didn't want to leave. He had a blast catching and releasing pink salmon and trying his luck at getting some large rainbow trout. Those things weren't biting, but they were all over the creek.

Glacier Creek

Dad and me doing the Kenai Twitch. Salmon fishing is different than other kinds of fishing, the fish aren't hungry so you have to snag them through the mouth. You throw out your line about five feet in front of you, wait for the line to get perpendicular to where you are standing and pull the line in quickly to shore. 

First fish

Dad pulling one in

Dad's first Salmon

Dad's second salmon was huge, but it jumped out of his hands and back into the water. Aaron snagged a picture before it swam away completely.

Second fish

Third Fish

Mom enjoyed the view

Aaron mostly played camera man, but ended up catching one.

The next day we decided to head out to the Kenai river and catch some big red and silver salmon. Unfortunately, we forgot it was the weekend and walked into some really hairy combat fishing. There was a fisherman lined up every five feet for miles. It kept the grizzlies away, but we didn't get a good enough spot to catch anything.

View on the way

Shoulder to shoulder fisherman for miles

 But the only thing Dad ended up catching was me. He hooked the fly right into my jeans. ha ha.

Halibut fishing was a huge highlight of the trip. We were all so excited to catch a big fish, and with four of us, we knew we had eight chances to catch a big one. The limit was two each and they cautioned us not to throw away the twenty pounders in hopes of getting a hundred pound halibut because most of the time, those fisherman ended up with six pound fish after having throw back plenty of large ones. The picture above is right before we left land.

Our boat was the middle "Hard Eight"

Mom and Dad Fishing

The Captain, Arthur helping Dad pull in a Halibut

One of the ten Dad pulled in. He kept getting little ones so he would throw them back in.

Mom dragging one in. It was really hard! They didn't really fight, but pulling in a huge fish a 150 feet can hurt the shoulders a bit. Mom was super lucky, her first two casts in she pulled out twenty pound Halibut. They advised her to keep both of hers, so she was done fishing before anyone else. The captain told her to go and touch all the lines to give everyone else her good karma. 

My hubby fishing. The boat ride out there took about a half an hour and the waves were between two and three feet high. We were on a little boat and when he pulled the anchor, we all felt the waves. We were on with another family of four and everyone heaved over the side the whole time except Dad and the other group's mom. Aaron was trying to smile, but that is def his sick face.

We all caught our limit within the first hour or two, but Dad. He just kept throwing them back and having time of life. I was throwing up over the side next to him and he laughs and says, "Get it all out Jen, bring in all those fishes." We were miserable! I guess because it was a super foggy day and we had woken up at 3am, we were more susceptible to getting sick than if it were a clear day.

Aaron was hilarious. He was barfing over the side and reeling up his Halibut. The captain offered to take the pole from him, and he yells, "No. It's my fish!" It was so funny. The captain came and got me (I was in the cab with my eyes closed pretending I was on the beach) and said my husband might need my help. I went over and just seeing him barf, put me back over the edge and I was heaving all that was left in my stomach. Mom was taking a video of me catching my fish, and had to cut it short. She didn't even make it all the way over board, and she apologetically told the captain with her big brown eyes that she had thrown up on his boat. It was so funny! As soon as the boat started again, I felt better, but five minutes on the shore cured everyone. While I was on the boat I said I would NEVER EVER do this again, but afterwards I now think it was a great experience and really fun. We didn't catch a monster fish, but we did beat the other family. We pulled in 54 pounds of fillets, and they pulled in 47 pounds.

Us and our fish, just over a 100 pounds

Aaron and me

Filleting the fish was part of the service. We got it vaccum sealed and split it up into coolers to freeze. Mom and Dad took theirs home on their flight with them.

Carcasses, the cheek meat is supposed to be the most tender and delicious

We had fresh Halibut that night! Yum!