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Fishing Naked!
Skagway, AK |
Skagway, AK
Today was our first of three days of fishing. We were in Skagway, which was the base area during the Gold Rush of 1898, becoming the first incorporated city in Alaska in 1900. Joe was our charter captain today and a very interesting guy. He was living in Maui, Hawaii and came to Alaska about 17 years ago to help with installation of some piers. He is a certified diver and was working as one in Maui at the time. He loved Alaska so much that he didn’t end up going home. He has backpacked in 59 countries and last year, for his mother’s 60th birthday, he told he would take her anywhere she would like in the world and she chose India. They spent two weeks backpacking through India!
So onto the fishing for the day: we were fishing for King Salmon today, we used downriggers and we used herring as bait. When we had no attractors on the line, they called it ‘naked’ with just the bait and hook and that was the most successful way to catch them so therefore – fishing naked! I got the first and largest of the day (insert applause here) a 25 lb King Salmon! Larry was next with a much smaller one and then LJ with a ‘normal’ mid-sized one. It was a fairly slow day of fishing overall and they were predicting quite a bit of weather would come in and he warned us early we may not in our full day. Fortunately, we were able to stay out the entire time and had a very nice day with Joe aboard the “Badly Bent but Not Completely Broke”.
It seems like each stop we may have fish just jumping straight out of the water which is an amazing sight, the volume of salmon in Alaska during this time of year is over a million which is completely impossible for me to comprehend.
We actually had some time once we got back from the charter before leaving port but between the wind/cold and being pretty tired we just decided to get back onboard. We had dinner in the Main Dining Room and then went to the show at 7:45. Tonight was $3 Blackjack so we tried our luck and came out $2 ahead after almost an hour and a half so we tipped the dealer our big winnings and called it a night.
LJ and Bev 