We were given the opportunity to go on a halibut fishing charter, and jumped at the chance. It was out of Seward, which is a two hour drive, and it left at 7am in the morning, so we opted to camp the night before just outside of town. We camped in the rain, and i was worried the weather would be no better the next day. I wasn't interested in fishing off the side of a boat in driving wind and rain. The next morning things seemed the same. Although i thought i'd gotten a terrible night of sleep, both of us turned out to be in far better shape than many of the other passengers, who had spent the entire night drinking at a party. With the tossing boat, some of them were truly suffering. Lucky for me we had two hours of sitting on the boat drinking coffee to wake up, so i was ready to go by the time we arrived at the fishing grounds.
The lands of Kenai Fjords
It didn't take long to catch a fish. I was probably trying for around 20 minutes before i hooked my first fish, after numerous false leads that were the result of lines getting tangled in the current. The fish took nearly ten minutes to reel in. We had a limit of two halibut each after which we would still be able to fish for our limit of salmon.
Maree tries her luck....
The crew was very nice and patient while spending large amounts of their time untangling everyones' lines. Soon after Maree caught her first halibut the captain decided to move the boat because we were apparently drifting off the fish. It was then that we had a problem. Something was wrong with the motor that reeled in the anchor. Eventually it was decided that it was broken and we were going to have to pull the anchor up ourselves. It didn't sound like that would be a problem until i was told that the anchor was 450 feet down on the seafloor, and it was a very heavy anchor. It took two teams of 4 of us around 15 minutes to pull that anchor up out of the water. It was a very heavy anchor. It was so heavy, in fact, that we all decided we had absolutely no interest in hauling the anchor up again, so we opted not to continue halibut fishing, and instead to go and look for salmon.
Someone said there was a bear on shore, but i could never see it.
I didn't have any luck with the salmon but it was a nice time anyway. The boat was much closer to shore for the salmon, and the shore happened to be Kenai Fjords National Park, so not catching fish was still as nice as a sightseeing boat tour. We had a lot of salmon already, it seemed like people just kept giving it to us at home because everyone had too much.
It wasn't long before all those party goers started losing consciousness, heading below deck to a bed or passing out at a table, or outside where they stood, so as afternoon approached the captain decided to take us back in. The crew spent that time chopping up all our fish. They were very good at it, and even though we didn't catch our limit, the two of us still ended up with around a years worth of halibut to eat.
Notice the passed out guy on the deck in the background.
Fishing charters may seem expensive, but halibut are such large fish that, when compared to market prices, i think you come out on top. Think about it, if the charter is $300 and you catch 60 pounds of halibut then, even if you are in a place where halibut is cheap, you'll still have caught more than your money's worth. Also, halibut can get up to 400 pounds.
