The Last Fishing Frontier

Despite all of the odds stacked against me, the time finally came to go to Alaska. We were to spend a week on Kodiak Island's Kodiak Legends Lodge in early August. I was ecstatic, and spent hours drooling over the pictures of large salmon and halibut on their website. However, I spent an equally unhealthy amount of time worrying about the unlikely possibility of getting skunked. I would be the laughingstock of the fishing community if I got skunked in Alaska of all places, and this thought was heavy on my mind as we packed our things in the car and drove to the airport.

We flew with Delta, but this post is about ALASKA. 

Immediately, things began to go wrong. The PDX airport had changed their carpet since the last time I was there. I realized that I forgot my suitcase at home and had to buy clothing for the week at a Columbia store at the airport. While going through security, I was randomly selected for a "minimally invasive" pat down procedure that got a little out of hand. The flight got delayed, and since the PDX airport can't get direct flights to anywhere, missing a single flight leads to a domino effect of missed layovers and suffering. I just wanted to get to Alaska.

I didn't even have time to think about this. 

I'd normally describe in vivid detail the rest of the connecting flights and the rude flight attendants on each one, but I figured it would be best to skip to the actual Alaska part. Yes, I did eventually reach Kodiak Island. After being acquainted with the employees of the lodge and the lodge itself, I went to bed and prepared myself for the following day's fishing.

I'm used to the ocean charter boat scene. You pile on a boat with fifty other people and spend half of the trip heading out to some distant speck in the middle of the ocean. By the time you get there, you've already gone rail bunny twice and feel like punching the deckhand who's been ladling out chum the whole time. The fishing usually sucks, with a few people catching most of the fish. These are either experienced locals or a loud, obnoxious family who claimed the best spots on the boat through their loudness and obnoxiousness. Somewhere along the way, I catch a few fish and forget about how miserable it was. Of course, this is Alaska. Aside from a friendly Dutch couple, we were the only ones on the boat and immediately began catching fish at the first spot we tried. A few minutes after my first drop, I hauled up a decent-sized Cod.

Of course, Alaska standards dictated that it was too small to keep, and back it went. As soon as my line went back down again, up came another one. This one was even larger than the first. Soon, everyone on the boat was hooking up with dozens of Cod. 

Take that, Mark Kurlansky. 

In addition to the hordes of Gadus macrocephalus, there were lots of other assorted bottom species. Chicken Halibut, Sculpins, Yelloweye Rockfish, and Arrowtooth Flounder (possibly the only completely inedible bottomfish species) were all being caught across the boat.

There are few things attractive about this picture. 

Adorable.

After catching our fill of assorted bottomfish, we reeled up our lines and motored off to do some salmon trolling. I hadn't been salmon trolling, or even salmon fishing in awhile. A few bad experiences when I was younger made me hate salmon fishing and associate it with getting skunked in the cold. I catch plenty of salmon, but normally while jigging for bottomfish. When trolling with a guide, I feel as if I'm not even fishing and just being handed the rod when a fish strikes. However, when we started trolling in Alaska the immediate triple hookup made me forget about everything.

For the next hour, we couldn't troll ten feet without something clobbering one of the rods. The captain and deckhand were frantically netting fish as Silver, Pink, Dog, and King Salmon nailed our lures. The fishing was ridiculous by my standards, even as the deckhand commented about how slow it had been. I reminded him that in Oregon, catching one or two is considered a banner day. It was by far the best salmon fishing I had experienced, a far cry from my usual attempts at catching these fish. 

The salmon bite stopped as quickly as it started, and we soon gave up and headed back to the bottomfishing grounds. The fishing was just as good as we had left it, with Cod and Halibut coming over the rails. The weather began to worsen, but nobody seemed to notice. 

Bottomfishing for huge Cod and Halibut is exactly how I expected sturgeon fishing to be. There isn't a lot of fight to these fish, but reeling up heavy fish in hundreds of feet of water can be grueling. Since I don't believe in electric reels, I declined when offered one and insisted on reeling up every single fish by hand. The dutch couple (who were using electric reels) looked like they were having a great time. So was I, but physically I wanted to die. It wasn't the physical effort that was killing me but the fact that I couldn't find a comfortable place to rest my rod butt. For future reference, putting it between your legs is a BAD idea. 

These guys don't like to come off of the bottom easily. 

The weather here is ridiculously unpredictable. In many of the pictures above, it was sunny and clear. However, at the drop of a hat it would start pouring rain and everyone on the boat found themselves being barraged by buckets of it. I had forgotten to bring my waterproof case for my camera, and the quality of pictures began to get worse and worse. 

The severe ugliness of this Sculpin isn't properly encapsulated by the foggy camera lens.

My camera had stopped working at this point.

We also did a little crabbing. Of course, the Deadliest Catch references started coming out, which is probably one of the top three things Alaskans hate, along with liberals and clothing that isn't flannel. Unfortunately, by this time "Wanted Dead or Alive" was running on repeat in my head, which is bad considering how much I hate Bon Jovi. However, I was able to get through the crabbing without any major issues.

It began to rain harder, and my camera had given up entirely. We headed back in with the cooler overflowing with fish. The fishing had been beyond belief, even for a less-than-average day of fishing. Any fears I had of getting skunked had been obliterated. In addition, the atmosphere on the boat was better than almost any charter I've been on. I've had to deal with all sorts of captains and deckhands over the years. I've been around uptight guides, condescending guides, irritable guides, perpetually stoned guides, and guides who wanted nothing more than to throw me overboard. These guys might have fit in that last category, but they (whose names are omitted for privacy or something) were still great. They knew a ridiculous amount of fishing knowledge and understood customer service very well. I'd recommend coming to Kodiak for anyone. At least if you like fish. 

Thankfully, the resort had an extra camera. 

Trying to get a new camera,

Kamran Walsh