Rockfish, Lingcods and Butts......

[DocSpotty]

For various sundry reasons I have not been able to get out halibut fishing and put some meat in the freezer. Fortunately my favorite boat was still running this weekend and I was able to get on the next to the last trip of the season. It was the third day of sun in a row….haven’t had that since May. Got up at 3 am to get ready for the 140 mile drive down to Seward. Just my luck it was foggy for about half the drive…makes it hard to see any moose on the road. But I arrived relatively safe and headed down to the boat. Was greeted by this cute sea otter who was busy eating breakfast:



There were 5 other passengers and we headed out to Montague Island….another 2+ hour ride each direction. It was gorgeous heading out of Resurrection Bay and down the rugged coastline:





We arrived at the “fishy” area, anchored up and dropped to the bottom looking for halibut and lingcod. We had a couple from Washington DC with us….everytime you get a pretty woman on the boat all the crusty old farts turn nice and the crew defers ever rod that is getting bit to her…what a bunch of dopes.



Normally I do well on these trips….and after 4 hours of fishing I had only boated one small, released lingcod and nothing else. Meanwhile the other fisherpersons were racking up a pretty good tally of nice lingcod, several large yellow eyed snappers and a few good halibut. I just couldn’t seem to hang a fish….or anything at the time. Captain Kevin decided we would make a move and the fun really began. After trying to dislodge our anchor for nearly an hour it became obvious it wasn’t coming back in. The skipper found a friend in the neighborhood who needed to head back to port and he agreed to drop his anchor with a marker bouy so we could tie up and fish halibut there. Meanwhile we had to cut our anchor off and marked it with a bouy also…..captain said it was about a $4,000 dollar loss…..but he still kept a good attitude.

On the way to the other bouy we drifted a rocky spot for lingcod and my luck was instantly changed. In the first drift I tagged 2 lingcod in the 25-35lbs class….had my ling limit in one pass. The biggest was one ugly mother:



On the next pass we had 3 people hooked up with big lings simultaneously



In less than an hour everyone had their 2 fish limit of lingcod….including this extremely porky one who had swallowed something big recently:



We cruised over to the other boats’ anchor bouy, tied up and I started jigging instead of using bait. A very nice halibut in the 70lbs class hopped on my jig and was boated after a 10 minute fight. I landed a few smaller ones and called the last one my second for the day. Later it was followed by a few nice yellow eyed rockfish. Just as everyone finished limiting out on halibut the Captain grabbed an unattended rod and was hooked into a little salmon shark. First one I have seen in all my years in Alaska. There are very closely related to the mako shark and track down salmon for food. They also are very good eating but we decided to let this one go. It was probably about 150 lbs:







We then headed back to our “lost” anchor bouy….tied it off to the back of the boat and after another hour finally succeeded in breaking it loose of the bottom and retrieving it. This made Captain Kevin quite happy. We then took our long cruise back to port….enjoying porpoises just about everywhere and great scenery.





Spotted this mountain goat grazing on the way in:



Now this is the place to live (house is small in the middle on the water)…..one of the coves in Resurrection Bay…well protected…no access except by boat and great ambience:



So we made it back to port and my fish were hung for a quick pic before filleting:



Brought home about 60 lbs of fillet so I have once again reinforced my position with the family as the mighty provider…..oh yeah (my wife is rolling her eyes right now). Left the Seward boat harbor for the last time (and only time) this year very satisfied:



Nice drive home crunching corn nuts to stay awake and checking for cracked teeth (sorry bad dental humor).

Brian

[Ifishtoolittle]

Wow those are some toad LINGS! Very nice report. The Salmon shark almost looks like a Blacktip.

[gavin310]

Man that's a big, bad, ugly ling! Thanks for the great report! It sure is beautiful up there.

[troutdog]

Looks like quite a tasty haul of fish Doc, nice going! Your reports always take me back to the place I look forward to returning to someday very soon, thank you


TD

[Native Gal]

Nice way to stock the freezer! Congrats on the great trip, can't beat the BEAUTIFUL scenery, amazing. I saw an episode on the Salmon Shark on a Direct TV channel, just don't recall which one, was a good episode.

NG

[Wingnut]

Like I said before... I want to be like Doc when I grow up!
Another fabulous trip, what a way to fill up the freezer.

[murrieta angler]

I always enjoy your posts, just for the fact that I know there are going to be some great pictures in them.
Good job with the Halibut, Lings and rockfish.
I really liked the picture of the mountain goat.
Thanks for the report and pics,
Robert