Halibut Fishing in Homer

 

Our day began quite early as we were to meet our captain at 6 am.  We motored out for an hour to a depth of about eighty feet deep.  Our captain had  been in the business about three decades and is going to retire at the end of the month.  We each caught two halibut and an additional two for the captain.   Each halibut was about twenty pounds.  To fish, one simply drops the weighted line with a dead mackerel and weights for a tug on the line.  Then reel in.  It is fairly heavy to reel in, but halibut don't give much of a fight.

A crew came and took our fish from the boat to filet them and send them for processing, packaging.  We kept one filet for dinner that night.  Yum.

Halibut Cove and dining at The Saltry

Riding across Halibut Cove on the Danny J

Dining at The Saltry by the fire pit.  Notice the hats and layers!

August 4, 2012

We drove to Homer and visited the Alaska Islands and Ocean Visitor Center. It was nicely done with exhibits and movies.  Our lodging was the Almost Home Accomodations which was a two bedroom apartment about 4 miles up a steep hill from town with lovely views of the water and mountains.

For dinner, we took the Danny J across the bay to Halibut Cove.  It was quite windy and a bit of a drizzle so we put on rain ponchos to keep us warm.  I got to steer the boat for a bit.  The cove area was very quaint.  The ride took about a half hour.  We dined at The Saltry  which is  the only restaurant in town!  We sat outside next to the fire pit, and the food was very good.  After dinner we walked along the boardwalk and saw some cute art boutiques.  We took the ferry back about 9 p.m. and we were tired after a full day.

Big River Lake near Soldotna, Ak

Float plane

Getting ready to fly out.

Silver Salmon

Grizzly on search for his salmon dinner

our

Grizzly swimming about 75 feet from us.

The drive down was nice and the clouds were clearing.  I had packed a picnic lunch and we stopped at a remote state recreation area.  Quite to our surprise we ran into our friends, Connie and Winston Shero there!

Karen and Jim came to visit us.  This day we took a float plane out of Soldotna to Wolverine Creek and Big River Lake.  The plane flew over the Kenai area where we dipnet, and then across the Cook Inlet to an area near Lake Clark.  It was gorgeous scenery seeing glaciers,  Redoubt Volcano (inactive) and Illiamna.  We were fishing for silver salmon and hoping to see bears.  Altogether we caught three salmon and one white fish. I had the worst bite to land ratio.  The rod was quite heavy with a fish on and I was not fast enough at setting the hook, so  many of my bites got away.  The legal limit is three salmon per person per day.  

Midway through our day a grizzly came across a field and swam right by us.  Our guide, Skip, said a different outfitter was fileting salmon nearby and the bear was after the carcass.  Sure enough the bear swam about 75 feet away from our boat. I was amazed to watch it, but not really scared because bears don't attack boats.  He swam over to get his dinner and then swam back and walked across the same field.  Very cool.  The outfitter was not supposed to filet in a lake.  It is okay to filet in a river because the carcass will float down stream with the current.

We flew back and then took the fish to a processor and had dinner at the St. Elias pizza place and then to the River Raven B and B.  Don had stayed at the Raven before and it was a nice place.