Feeding the Fish

So we left Petersburg with high hopes for equaling last years fishing results in Fredrick Sound.  As we entered Pybus Bay on the way to Cannery Cove, we dropped three prawn pots in the same location as we did last year that gave us good results.

After a quiet night at anchor being the sole boat, we headed out to the fishing grounds on the west side of the West Brother Island. First we stopped to reap a disappointing prawn harvest. Probably it was the hubris of taking the area for granted and putting three pots down instead of our normal two.  We reset two pots in a different area using the tried and true method of looking where somebody else, hopefully better informed than us, placed theirs.

When we arrived on the fishing grounds, Marcia began her utmost to repeat her 2014 performance.  As Marcia joked, she must have caught the two stupid halibuts last year because the wily fish underneath our boat repeatedly stole the herring and octopus off of her barbed circle hooks.  The worst offense occurred when one fish (or perhaps a “gang”) took all three chunks of herring from each hook of a treble hook.

Eventually we called it quits and headed back to Cannery Cove for the night.  Perhaps it was the forecast for wind and rain that prompted boats to head for the protection of Cannery Cove, but in any event, there were four other boats in the anchorage that night. 

The next morning, after a rainy and blustery night, we headed out and pulled our two prawn pots from the previous day.  We had been sufficiently humbled by the prawn gods so they rewarded us with a nice haul, sufficient for a couple of meals.  The halibut gods, though were not appeased and the fish remained elusive.  The night was spent in the nook between West Brother Island and the small islets on its west shore.  A very scenic anchorage but not one we’d want to weather a storm in.

From there we continued up to Gambier Bay and some more disappointing fishing, both for halibut and prawns.  We tried a new (to us) anchorage behind Good Island.  It too was scenic but not one we’d want to be in during any significant weather.

The next day we crossed Stephens Passage headed for Port Houghton and Sanborn Inlet.  We dropped a couple of prawn pots near the entrance just in case our luck had changed.  The next morning upon departure for Tracy Arm Cove we were pleasantly surprised to find dinner waiting for us in the pots.

As we approached our destination, Marcia saw what she first thought was a log or dirty piece of ice floating in the water.  As we got closer, we saw it was a moose swimming in Holkham Bay.  We were quite far from shore and its origination or destination weren’t totally clear.  Currents are pretty swift there so it could have easily been taken well off its intended course.

From Tracy Arm Cove, you can visit either Tracy Arm and the Sawyer Glaciers or Endicott Arm and the Dawes Glacier.  We’ve been up Tracy Arm twice but had never been up Endicott Arm.  We decided to try the new (to us) area and headed out the next morning. 

As we started down Endicott Arm, the ice chunks in the water were large but infrequent enough they were easy to dodge.  As we got further in, smaller chunks of ice were common and often difficult to see in the filtered light from the cloudy sky.  At the head of Endicott Arm was the Dawes Glacier, the source of the ice in the water.

Our original plan was to do Tracy Arm the day after Endicott Arm but a weather forecast for 30 knot winds persuaded us to head for the public dock in Taku Harbor and wait out the blow.  Other boaters had similar ideas and the dock was pretty full when the winds started to pick up.

From Taku Harbor we made our way to Juneau and its Statter Harbor Marina in Auke Bay, where we were fortunate to find a spot without a lot of searching.  From here we’ll pick up Marcia’s Arizona cousins whom we’ll take first to Glacier Bay National Park and then to Sitka where they will depart on July 22.