I fished for a week in Petersburg Alaska. Petersburg is about 80 miles south of Juno in Southeast Alaska. It is the only city on Mitkof Island. The year round population is about 3000. They are all fishermen. Imagine any city of 3000 in the lower 48. Now ask yourself if any of these cities have their own airport with two flights (737s) a day. Unusual to say the least. As elsewhere in most of Southeast Alaska, the Petersburg geography can best be described as a group of islands adjacent to the mainland. The Stikine River, draining a large part of northern British Columbia, is a major geographic feature of the area as well as a tremendous draw for salmon. Most of the waterways in the area are protected from the open Pacific. The substantial annual precipitation gives rise to many rivers and small lakes.
We planned the trip last year, after seeing Petersburg while cruising Alaska with Jane on Cruise West. While there, I had the opportunity to speak to some of the locals about the fishing available in the area. That, combined with surfing the net for fishing reports gave me the background I needed to choose my charter, Captain Peter Troy of Petersburg Fishing Adventures. Joining me were two of my fishing club members and officers, Walt Eismann and Terry Winn. My long time buddy and fishing partner from Chicago, Brian Cieply, made it a foursome. Brian became known as Norm because of his wardrobe. You see, he always wore a new Chicago Bears sweatshirt daily. Remember “Da Bears” from SNL? Enough said! Here’s a picture of our crew.
Captain Pete’s boat, the “Fast Cat” is a 30ft catamaran with a 12 foot beam. Plenty of room for us “full figured guys” to fish. Here a picture of our wonderful host, Captain Peter Troy. Notice that the cabin is enclosed. We ran 30 or so miles to reach the fishing grounds and the weather was, well, the weather was wet and cold. It was great to be able to run in comfort while most of the self guided fishermen were in open 18ft aluminum boats. Did I say it was wet and cold?
The first day we headed off the do some shoreline stream fishing. Many of the rivers in “urban” Alaska have Salmon, but most of the fishing is “combat fishing” that’s where you stand shoulder to shoulder with a few hundred of your fishing brethren to compete for the passing fish. Petersburg’s Blind Slough is. shall we say, not crowded. Here’s a picture of Pete standing with the fishes.
Here’s a look at the surrounding area.
The King Salmon run was on and the fish were chewing. We caught lots of Kings. We released the brown colored Kings so they can get up to the hatchery. We did keep many of the bright colored (silver) Kings for the freezer. The kings that just arrived from the salt water are silver in color. Their meat is very high quality because their body has not begun to change. Once they enter fresh water they change and stop eating. They literally absorb their own body, concentrating their energies on that important task of making more salmon.
Our second day was a Halibut fishing day. The Halibut is an interesting and delicious fish. Google it to learn about the changes they go through. It was a cold and wet day, but the fish cooperated enough for us to bring home our limit. We did catch many more, but the limit is one per person. Here’s a picture of three of the four. The fourth was already on it’s way to the table for our dinner that night.
Day three presented a unique opportunity (at least for me). Before trolling in open water for Salmon, we got to pull a few shrimp pots to gather the Alaskan Spot Shrimp. We filled a 5 gallon bucket with these beauties.
When we opened one trap, we discovered a hitchhiker eating “our shrimp”. The nerve!
We did some Salmon trolling and got our limit of four. Here’s a picture of me with “The Big One”
Our fourth day brought a successful day of Halibut fishing. Capt. Pete said that the weather forecast was for bad weather. Yes, it could be worse that cold and wet. We told him we really really wanted to go for Halibut and we would not complain if the weather was bad and the fish were un-cooperative. We got lucky with the weather. The NOAA forecast was dead wrong (as usual). We were happy to see flat seas and calm wind. So were the whales and seals that joined us.
Here’s Terry with the big Halibut of the day. This one tipped the scales at 82 lbs. YUM
The weather on the last day (have I mentioned cold and wet?) forced us back to the Blind Slough for more shoreline fishing for Salmon. We did not keep as many as we did on the first day, but we had enough action to keep us “in the game”. Here’s Brian pretending that he caught all the Salmon. LOL
We had a great time with great friends and an awesome Captain and host. Pete is a fantastic cook and Captain. We put on a few more pounds on this trip. See below. We do look “fat and happy”.
1 comment:
Great trip Patrick
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