Alaskan Sea-Duction: July 2019

Exploring the “Outside and Inside”

After leaving Sitka, we decided to try Klainin Bay again. When we arrived, the bay was packed with 14 boats, all chasing the mysterious King Salmon. We decided to stay a few days and give it one more time. All to do for nothing. We did see a few kings, but the attitude was the fish just wasn’t there. We tried for two days in the wind and rain and nothing.

So off to Fish Bay. A Fish and Game biologist told us that Fish was a good place to catch buts. The anchorage behind Piper Island was small and room for just 2 boats. It did cut the wind a lot. We found fishing very early in the morning was best as the water was flat. By noon, the west wind would start and it got rough. We did not land any halibut, but we did land several rockfish, which we released. We did see bears on shore. We also put out a crab pot, with no luck. After two nights, we decided to move on. One reason was the amount of “trash” in the water at low tide meaning kelp and other floating plant material. I would not run the generator as I did not want to plug the cooling water intake. Our next stop was 8 miles up the creek called Baby Bear Bay.

Baby Bear Bay is a really nice place, but small. Getting to it will increase your pucker factor and you have to navigate around rocks. The dog leg at the end of the bay would only fit 1 or 2 boats. The main bay had commercial crab pots. This was a quiet and relaxing place. The wind does swoop in a little, but that good as it kept horse flies at bay. What we didn’t count on was the -2.3 low tide the next morning. We were land locked!! There is one place on the entrance that is only 5 foot at low tide. With a -2.3 there isn’t enough water, so here we wait for the tide. We do have satellite TV reception, so it isn’t bad. Technically we are now on the “Inside” of SE Alaska.

We headed to the south arm of Hoonah Sound. This is really remote! No Coast Guard radio contact or weather. We were the only humans here! We anchored up in Douglass Bay after putting down our shrimp pot. There is a huge shoal that spreads out over half the bay! All the books and the chart showed it, but wow. At low tide the shoal was exposed and it was huge. Good thing I stayed to the east side. A little bit of wind entered the anchorage, but not bad. Once the wind stopped, we were attacked by horse flies, again!! Thousands of them. We wished the wind would come back up. At least we had satellite TV.

The next morning, we tried a little halibut fishing with no luck. There were crab pots all over the place. We hauled up the shrimp pot and we had 1 shrimp. Missed again. We will keep trying. Our next stop was Fick Bay, but once we got back into it the flies drove us off this was the last stop in Hoonah Sound. So off to Appleton Cove.

This was a nice place and lots of room. We could see and smell the smoke from all the fires in South Central Alaska. A few crab pots. The next day we entered into Chatham Straits and headed over to Angoon and floated around outside hoping to get a good Verizon cell signal. Nope, not even 3G. Our anchorage for the night is Pavlof Bay. This had a small river flowing into it. Out of the winds of Chatham Straits this turned out to be a beautiful anchorage, but popular. We had 8 boats and a mini cruise ship anchored. The fish seem to be late everywhere. Normally this bay is full of pinks and chums. In two days, we only saw 2 fish roll. Kay got 2 hits but that was it. Then her salmon reel exploded! The banks are usually full of bears. We saw 3 bears. Time to get back to civilization. We headed to Hoonah on Icy Straits.

On our way in we stopped at Spasski Island and did some Butt fishing. We have always had good luck for halibut in Icey Straights and we did. Kay caught a nice 35lber. But after an hour or so we headed into Hoonah. We were surprised by the two huge cruise ships.

We will stay here for a few days and catch up on ship stores, laundry and find a new reel for the fisher queen. We will then spend some time at Swanson Harbor which is on the other side of Icey Strait and concentrate on halibut. We need 7 fish to close our halibut season for the year. Swanson Harbor is the most northern point for us. When we leave there, our direction will be south.