Hook, line and sinker

Saturday, July 21, 2007

HOMER, ALASKA — Up and down. That might describe today’s fishing trip on many fronts! Up we got at five o’clock to go down to Homer Spit for our fishing jaunt. We were amazed to see how busy the spit was on a Saturday morning before 6:30.
We gathered up our gear and went down to the dock to climb aboard the good ship Whistler. Our captain, Gary, said it would take about an hour and a half to get to our fishing spot. The sun was coming up behind the boat and, as we were facing that way, our hat brims went down to shade our eyes a bit. Up and down went the waves in our wake, a wide swath of churned water fringed at the edges by sea foam. The weather was clear and it was fairly calm as we headed out, but when we got further from land the wind picked up, sending plumes of spray toward the stern each time we hit a wave.
After we traveled for about an hour and a quarter, Gary came aft to tell us we had about an hour to go (huh?) and softened that with word that whales had been sighted in the area. So we looked up and down the waterway for the telltale spout and spied two or three of them in the distance as their blue-grey backbones curved up above the waves and down again. Val saw a porpoise leap out of the water as well!
We knew we were finally getting close when Megan and Avery, the two crew, started baiting the hooks on the 14 fishing poles, that were lined up along the back of one bench, with heavily salted fish heads and tails. Each pole had a lead sinker weighing two pounds and a very large, curved hook that would have curled easily around a lemon.
Gary finally cut the motor and it was time to get up and let our lines down. The water was about 200 feet deep at that point, so the line reeled out for a long time before the sinker hit bottom. It took getting used to the weight of the rod, reel and sinker, after our gentle little fishing trips on Lake Temiskaming back in Ontario when two pounds was the weight of the fish we were catching, not the sinker!
Up and down bobbed the boat. Up and down went my stomach, in spite of the Gravol I took before leaving. But I was hanging in there. Wow! I got a bite! Man, it felt like Moby Dick at the end of the line! I was cranking that reel like mad trying to pull in my catch. Crank, crank, crank — 200 feet of line takes a lot of cranking! Finally I got a glimpse of something coming to the surface — large, wide, long...it was a stingray! Or a skate, as the crew called it, chopping away the hook and letting it slap back into the water. I barely had time to see what I’d pulled up before it was fluttering down again to the deep.
Now Val was cranking like mad — he got something too! He worked away and up it came: a shark! Well, a very small version that looked like a shark, but the crew called it a dog fish and flipped it back as well. We were off to a great start! Oh! Another one on my line! Crank, crank, crank, crank....another dog fish! Splash! Down he went. He was off the hook, literally.
By this time I was not feeling all that well. Down I went inside for another dose of Gravol from my bag. In the hold, the churning and bobbing was even worse. I had to grab at anything I could to keep from crashing into door jambs and counters. Up I came again with that sinking sensation. Woops! Down went my breakfast to the waves below. With that little episode over with, I began to feel a bit better. Val was looking a bit green about the gills as well — Val, of the rock-solid stomach no matter how unstable the lake was, had had his downs and ups as well.
After a bit of a break, we were both revived and at it again. Val pulled up a beautiful 40-pound halibut — the biggest fish he has ever caught! Before long, he had nabbed two more, slightly smaller. Megan kept reassuring me as I continued to feed bait to the fish. Several times I got bites and began reeling in, only to feel the line go slack as they got away.
Finally I felt a good one on the line! Gary came and helped hold the rod while I cranked, and up came a nice halibut, about 25 pounds. At last! Have you ever seen a halibut? They are the weirdest creatures, brown on one side, white on the other, with the eyes planted both on the brown side, but with the mouth perpendicular to the eyes as if it was placed wrong! They flop along the bottom rather than swim. But they taste really good.
On the trip back to the spit, Megan and Avery sorted out the fish and let us pose with our catches. Then, with a slice or two and a flick of a blade, they flayed off four fillets from each halibut, nicked out the cheeks and hurled the rest back for the seagulls to fight over.
The fish processing teams were ready for us when we got back. They can freeze and store your catch until you are home to receive the shipment, which was what we were interested in. We went over to make arrangements, and learned that they don’t ship to Canadian destinations! We couldn’t believe it. The woman we spoke to vacuum-sealed one fillet (of our 16) to take with us to the trailer — that was all we really had room for. She suggested giving the rest to the crew, as they are not allowed to fish when they are running charters for clients, and would really appreciate it. Rather than see it go to waste, that’s what we did. So, as I said at the start, up and down describes our day rather well! The big ones got away, but we have some great photos, and we fished for halibut in the halibut capital of the world, Homer, Alaska.