Fish On!

July 23, 2014 After breakfast we paid back Fred Meyer for their hospitality by buying our needed supplies there. I wanted to visit the Anchorage Botanical Garden so we made that our first stop. It wasn't quite as impressive for me as I had hoped so our visit was relatively short. Off to Seward. Driving back down through the beautiful mountain passes was relaxing. Traffic was light. We pulled into the campground Bob T. was staying at.

Forest Acres Municipal Campground on the right just as you entered Seward. We hadn't even seen this one on our first trip down. It isn't as well marked, but has some well spaced and treed sites. Flush toilets and water supply, a dumpster, and fire pits and picnic tables at most sites. In the first section we saw a large boat. We figured it had to be Bob. We picked out a spot nearby and went over and introduced ourselves. Bob was very welcoming, inviting us to join his campfire. When the crew came in who were going out to fish Thursday, it turned out that only 2 were going. Bob invited us to join the crew. They were leaving around 8 am. This sounded perfect. We eagerly joined up with the Thursday group and let Friday be as it may. Thursday (the 24th) began as a clear blue sky morning and you could feel the excitement in the air. We set our alarm clock as we have been staying up too late and didn't want to be the slowest one in the group. We had our lunch and extra warm clothes all packed up and met Bob at the boat, (our sites met together at the campfire in the rear) and we sat and had coffee and awaited the others. Soon enough two cars arrived and we hooked up the boat to the trailer and Bob's truck and the wives of the other fellows gave Bob and I a ride to the docks. There we purchased our 1 day fishing licenses and headed to the boat launch.

The water was quite calm and became gentle rollers on the way out to sea. Bob let me drive the boat most of the way! It was quite a thrill.

First we stopped to view the Stellar Sea Lions. I even saw one female marked E 108 on her side flank with a small pup. At one point she was swinging her tail back and forth over the edge of rock. I was unable to film that clearly with the boat rolling up and down. It was quite a sight to see them sunning and several pups napping or resting with each other in small groups. The males were squelching and making lots of grunts One even looked like "Jabba the Hutt"!

As we rode further out (we would go 45 miles out to sea but still near the sheltering effects of islands) we saw puffins and whales and some friendly pods of black and white dolphins. At first I thought I was seeing orcas. But it was a group of dolphins and they circled our boat a few times and glided up and out of the water very fast, making it quite hard to photograph before they moved on.

We started fishing in earnest and it wasn't long before we all had "Fish On!" We all caught several Rock Fish, the guys pulled in 2 nice sized halibuts, and several "Yellow Eyes" which are red snapper. I caught 4 green flounder that weren't large enough to take, and I was told they weren't as good eating so they were carefully thrown back. But It certainly was fun to reel them in. After 4 in a row we moved to another spot to fish. I'm sorry to say I was fishing in earnest as these fellas rely on these fish for their winter food and they cleaned them out while we fished the last hole. So there aren't any pictures of fish, you will have to take my word for it. I could take a picture of our camper freezer though, that is now full of vacuum packed fish. We were out on the water from 8:30 am until 9:45 pm. As we made our way into the bay the sky had darkened and you could feel cooler air flow off the Harding Ice Fields, and I got a shot of Bear Glacier. It is quite impressive.