Boats in Homer Harbor (the day before)
There was one dark day in Alaska, one day I would preferred to have slept through - the day we went Halibut fishing.
It started innocently enough. Nonna, Colin, and myself paid for an all day trip on the Dutch Treat, and we were at the boat at 6:30AM in the Homer harbor - “Halibut Capital of the World” - where we met the captain, Tony, a disabled vet, and the deckhand Bob, a middle aged guy who certainly knew his way around a fishing boat. There were three other passengers - Tom, a retired spark plug dealer from Ohio and his wife Betty, and her cousin Daria.
We sailed out for over an hour, and the further out we went the rougher the sea became. When we reached our destination Tony said it was “too nautical,” referring to the five foot waves and the fact that only Bob, the deck hand, could stand up for more than ten seconds. So we motored off for another half an hour and found a place where the sea was calmer. We started to fish, and it started to rain. We didn’t get a bite, but we all got soaking wet and very cold. Only Daria stayed dry - she was not fishing - she was moaning and lying down, seasick...
Tony knew a better spot so we pulled up our lines and motored through rough seas. By this time my hands were so cold I couldn’t feel them, my pants and feet were all wet, and my polar fleece and gore-tex were no match for the Alaska weather. But now the fish were biting, really biting, so that as soon as my baited hook made it down to the bottom a halibut took the bait. You can tell you have one on because they shake the line, and as you pull up you feel the head shake. Otherwise they just lay there and it is like pulling a small refrigerator up from 200 feet - lift up, reel down, lift up, reel down, over and over. What felt like 500 pounds turned out to be too small to keep, maybe 15 pounds, and Bob, with merciless efficiency, pulled the hook out of the fish’s mouth, threw it back in the ocean, and put a new herring on my hook. “You’re good to go,” he said, as if I didn’t need a rest. Numb hands, aching arms, freezing feet - back down went my bait, and within ten seconds after hitting bottom I had another one on. And so it went - thankfully some were big enough to keep.
The halibut is a big fish, as big as 900 pounds in the early days of fishing, but nowadays ones over 50 pounds are unusual. They’re a weird looking fish; flat, gray on one side and white on the other, and both their eyes are on the same side. They have big mouths and eat anything that comes their way, including puffins that are unfortunate enough to dive in the wrong place. It is a very mild tasting fish - “fish for people who don’t like the taste of fish,” someone said.
When we finally got back to Homer Bob had filleted our fish, two for each of us, and they took them up to a processing plant to be cut, packed, and frozen. We picked up the fish the day we flew home - thirty two pounds of fresh frozen halibut fillets. Those fillets had better be good for all the misery I (we) endured to get them.
It started innocently enough. Nonna, Colin, and myself paid for an all day trip on the Dutch Treat, and we were at the boat at 6:30AM in the Homer harbor - “Halibut Capital of the World” - where we met the captain, Tony, a disabled vet, and the deckhand Bob, a middle aged guy who certainly knew his way around a fishing boat. There were three other passengers - Tom, a retired spark plug dealer from Ohio and his wife Betty, and her cousin Daria.
We sailed out for over an hour, and the further out we went the rougher the sea became. When we reached our destination Tony said it was “too nautical,” referring to the five foot waves and the fact that only Bob, the deck hand, could stand up for more than ten seconds. So we motored off for another half an hour and found a place where the sea was calmer. We started to fish, and it started to rain. We didn’t get a bite, but we all got soaking wet and very cold. Only Daria stayed dry - she was not fishing - she was moaning and lying down, seasick...
Tony knew a better spot so we pulled up our lines and motored through rough seas. By this time my hands were so cold I couldn’t feel them, my pants and feet were all wet, and my polar fleece and gore-tex were no match for the Alaska weather. But now the fish were biting, really biting, so that as soon as my baited hook made it down to the bottom a halibut took the bait. You can tell you have one on because they shake the line, and as you pull up you feel the head shake. Otherwise they just lay there and it is like pulling a small refrigerator up from 200 feet - lift up, reel down, lift up, reel down, over and over. What felt like 500 pounds turned out to be too small to keep, maybe 15 pounds, and Bob, with merciless efficiency, pulled the hook out of the fish’s mouth, threw it back in the ocean, and put a new herring on my hook. “You’re good to go,” he said, as if I didn’t need a rest. Numb hands, aching arms, freezing feet - back down went my bait, and within ten seconds after hitting bottom I had another one on. And so it went - thankfully some were big enough to keep.
The halibut is a big fish, as big as 900 pounds in the early days of fishing, but nowadays ones over 50 pounds are unusual. They’re a weird looking fish; flat, gray on one side and white on the other, and both their eyes are on the same side. They have big mouths and eat anything that comes their way, including puffins that are unfortunate enough to dive in the wrong place. It is a very mild tasting fish - “fish for people who don’t like the taste of fish,” someone said.
When we finally got back to Homer Bob had filleted our fish, two for each of us, and they took them up to a processing plant to be cut, packed, and frozen. We picked up the fish the day we flew home - thirty two pounds of fresh frozen halibut fillets. Those fillets had better be good for all the misery I (we) endured to get them.
A sea otter on a different, sunny day
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