Gone Fishing!!

Believe it or not, I actually took a vacation!! Better yet, it was without wife or children. (Just Kidding, Crystal and KaeLee) I went to a fishing lodge west of Juneau, Alaska for a week at the end of August. The lodge is called Doc Warner's. I had a great time.


This is one of the halibut I caught on my trip. We caught our limit (2 per person) 3 out of the 5 days. We only kept them if they were larger than 30 inches. The biggest one I caught was about 40 lbs.


Rex, Hiram and I with our catch of halibut (this was our best day). Rex's halibut weighed 58 lbs. We caught a couple of salmon that day also.


While fishing for halibut, I caught this yellow-eyed rockfish. It looks like a goldfish on steriods. We'll see what it tastes like soon.


Another day's catch. We each brought home 85 lbs of fish (60 lbs of halibut, 20 lbs of salmon, and the rest in rockfish).


Rex talked us into putting out a crab pot. It was like a poor man's version of "Deadliest Catch", but at the end of the week we had a feast with the Dungeness crab we caught. Rex was quite the "crabber", and this picture shows him enjoying the fruits of his labors.


Except for the first day, salmon fishing was a little spotty. We caught about 20 salmon the first day, although we released six of the best fish because of a "species identification problem." This would be one of them that "got away" because he convinced us he was a king salmon, instead of an impressive silver salmon.


Lucky for us, the weather was good all week. The first day was rough in the afternoon (causing Rex to make an offering to the fish gods over the side of the boat). After that, we had lots of beautiful weather, just like this fantastic sunset.


We saw lots of wildlife during our trip. Humpback whales, porpoises, eagles, sea lions, sea otters, and bears. This bear shared his fishing hole with us. He was more successful. He was often about 30 yds away while we fly fished.


Alaska is beautiful. This is a picture of the Icy Straits where we fished, with the mountains of Glacier Bay National Park in the distance. Every view looked like a post card. I never wanted to leave.