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Published: October 22nd 2017
Seduction Point Trail
Hiking in Chilkat State Park, HainesGeo: 59.2367, -135.437
It was a long push to get to Haines from Anchorage! If you've looked at the map of Alaska, you will see that there is no such thing as a direct route to anywhere in this huge state. To go south, you usually have to go north first. To go east, you will probably have to go west at some point. It's kind of like Idaho that way I guess. You're always skirting some wilderness area or roadless desert, which is precisely one of the things we love about our state. In Alaska, however, that scale is magnified greatly. Instead of going 100 miles out of the way to circumvent the Frank Church, you might have to go 1,000 miles out of your way to catch the Tok Cutoff road. But one thing we've gotten good at on this trip is enjoying the journey itself, not just the destination.
We came to Haines in southeast Alaska to catch the ferry, where we will begin the final leg of our journey—south, this time, toward home. But first, there were fish to catch! We headed out with Mom, Keith, and Caleb on a fishing charter boat in search of halibut, but
caught and saw so much more. Kaia and Jack even got to come aboard, as we were the only clients on the boat that day. They did great! Though Kaia especially kept a close eye on the salmon steaks we were using for bait. She was sure she could get her mouth on one when we weren't looking.
Within the first twenty minutes of the boat ride to our fishing spot, we had seen several bald eagles, and even watched one dive down and catch a salmon. He made it look so easy! We also saw porpoises and even the spray of a humpback whale in the distance. There is such diversity here! And what a different environment to experience compared to the tundra and the forest of the interior with its bears and sheep and caribou.
Fishing for halibut is just a little bit different than fishing for trout in Idaho. Well, OK, it's COMPLETELY different. We were fishing at depths of 110 to 160 feet (instead of on the surface), and as I mentioned already, we were using huge salmon steaks for bait (instead of teeny-tiny size 22 mayflies). The lead weights were nearly the size of pool
balls, and we used TWO hooks, not just one. You'd release your bait and let it sink clear to the bottom (which took almost a full minute), where you'd feel a
thunk as it landed against solid ground. And then, you'd wait. And wait. And wait.
And pretty soon, you'd feel a nibble that would most likely be just a flounder or small sculpin, snacking on your bait. But you'd be wise to treat each nibble like a halibut, and we sure did. With each tug-tug, we'd pull up hard on the rods to set the hook in what we hoped would be the biggest halibut we'd ever seen. And after only 20 minutes or so of fishing, Sean did indeed hook a beautiful halibut! There was no mistaking it, watching him reel in. Catching halibut is like reeling in a refrigerator. In fact, we soon learned that catching even a small fish took a lot of work because you had to fight against the fish and 150 feet of sea to get it up to the boat.
Over the course of the next six hours, Sean caught two more halibut (the smaller of which we threw back), and a Ooo! Halibut!
Kaia and Jack were pretty curious about all the stuff we were pulling out of the sea! huge cod (which we kept). I didn't land any halibut, but did catch a decent-sized cod, three sculpin (odd, prehistoric looking fish that we returned to the sea), and a huge Dungeness crab. He scuttled to and fro and fought like crazy as I was reeling him in! Caleb landed two halibut, Keith caught several sculpin and a halibut, and Mom caught the biggest halibut of the day at 15 pounds. What a day!
That night, Sean and I met up with Aaron and Mary at Chilkat State Park where Aaron's aunt and uncle work. We'd been planning to rendezvous here together for quite some time, but to see them here—in Alaska—was a surreal experience. Here were our good friends in this strange, almost foreign place. The familiar amid the unfamiliar. It was so good to see them! They joined us in camp for dinner: freshly caught, steamed Dungeness crab with pasta and sourdough bread. We built a campfire and talked and laughed late into the night.
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Jeri
non-member comment
It's been great reading all of your entries. As you can imagine, we've gone from abnormally cool temps down here to 100 degree days. Enjoy the rest of your trip and see you soon!