It’s been a while since Andy and I went on a date, so since it’s fishing season I suggested we go fishing as a couple.
We’ve always gone salmon fishing as a whole family, but it would be a lot less work and responsibility if we went by ourselves.
Wednesday morning we left a little before 6 am to drive to Homer to launch the boat. Another couple came with us (double date!), so it was four adults. Titus and Hannah moved to Alaska this past winter, so we were excited to show them our fishing spot and give them a tour of some of the wild rugged spots in Alaska.
When Andy and I got down to Homer I got a text from Hannah. “The website for Alaska Fish and Game is down and we can’t find anyone who has paper copies. We can’t get our fishing licenses!”
Well that wasn’t encouraging. We told them a couple places around town to try at and decided to at least get the boat started while we were waiting.
Beep! said the engine when we turned the key. Dead battery. Our own boat was having engine trouble and we had borrowed Matt Snader’s boat for the day. We’ve noticed a recurring theme with his boats – the batteries are often dead.
Andy pulled the boat over close to the ramp and drove the truck down. Jumper cables soon fixed the problem and the boat was running!
Finally Titus and Hannah arrived, an hour late, but they had their fishing licenses! We cruised on out into the Inlet and across to China Poot Bay.
When we got to the mouth of the creek we could soon see that salmon weren’t as plentiful in the creek as they were the last time we were here.
Andy and I left Titus and Hannah fishing the creek and took the net up to the waterfalls to dipnet. There were certainly salmon there! You could see their fins and tails sticking up out of the water as they rested before trying to jump the falls.
We both had our limit (6 each) in under 15 minutes. It would have been less time, but Andy kept throwing back the small ones.
After the salmon were safely on the stringer, we hiked above the falls to some blueberry bushes we had found on other fishing trips. Those were some yummy blueberries! We were hungry from all that hiking and fishing!
On the way back down to the mouth of the creek, I carried the net and Andy took the stringer of fish. We reached the bottom to find that fishing from the creek was still slow, but in time we each managed to snag some salmon.
The key was to walk slowly along the creek watching for fish, and when you could see the blue gray forms in the water, toss out your hook and give it a good yank toward shore.
The shore itself was extremely muddy, and my first two fish got off the hook soon after they were out of the water. Desperately I grabbed for them, butbthey slipped away again and again. Finally I just sort of flopped on them to hold them still while I got a finger in their gills. The result is that I was covered in mud and it was splattered all over my face and hair – even in my ears!
Andy is the pro at fishing, so he caught his limit (6) pretty quickly and then just started fileting the salmon right there on shore to save time later. The boat had been marooned on shore at low tide, but as the tide rose again the guys were able to get it afloat and we headed back to Homer with 29 salmon all fileted in the cooler.
As we came out of the Bay into the open ocean the water was pretty rough. There were 4-5 foot rollers, and we’d ride one only to dip down deep into the trough between waves. Thankfully the boat handled the waves pretty well and we were able to continue on instead of waiting for better seas. I was glad we were in a borrowed boat that was bigger than our little skiff!
We finished the evening by vacuum sealing the filets for the freezer and putting some in jars to can. As soon as we got home I put some salmon steaks into a marinade and Andy grilled them. We didn’t finish up packing fish and eat supper until 8 pm and we were all so hungry by that time!
Then it was bedtime for the children and showers for both of us. We’re super ready to sleep tonight! What a long and wonderful day!