Kenai Peninsula - Halibut Fishing

Thursday, June 25, 2009 - We got up at 3:15 AM and notice I said got up as opposed to woke up to go fishing. At the suggestion of the office staff we took a motion sick pill before we went to bed so it would be into our systems before the boat trip. Well, apparently the pills have something in them that keeps you awake because at 2:00 AM we were both still wide awake. If we slept at all it was some dozing between 2:00 and 3:15 AM. We met at the office with 5 other people and loaded into what looked like a paddy wagon for the ride down to where the fishing boats are launched. They do not use a launch ramp but a large tractor hooks onto the trailer and launches right off the beach. The captain of the boat took us about 40 minutes out into Cook Inlet and anchored the boat. The deck hand gave us a quick lesson on technique then handed us fishing rods and turned us loose. We all started catching fish immediately and released many more than we kept. Each person is allowed to keep two halibut and the average size is about 20 – 25 pounds so anything smaller than that we let go. One lady caught a 57 pound halibut and I caught the second and third largest fish of the day. The two I caught were close to 30 pounds each and the two Bill caught were a little smaller. We ended up with 43 pounds of halibut fillets that will be vacuum packed, frozen, and shipped home for us. We got back to the camp around 10:30 in the morning and picked up Bill and Pam to drive down to Homer, AK. We drove down to Homer Spit and stopped at the Salty Dawg Saloon to take pictures and get a couple of shirts. The Salty Dawg is an interesting place with dollar bills on every inch of wall and ceiling space – that seems to be a common theme up here in Alaska. We couldn’t stay for long because the place reeks of cigarette smoke and the pool room had some other odor that I thought smelled like urine. I guess the drunken red-necks who hang out there either don’t notice or don’t care. The whole Homer Spit area is lined with small shops, galleries, restaurants, and fishing charters built along boardwalks. We didn’t walk around because it was cold and windy and the shops and small towns are all starting to look alike at this point not to mention that Bill and I were almost falling asleep on our feet. We headed back to our camp and stopped at a little Chinese Restaurant. The food was OK and we had the whole place to ourselves. Hopefully there are other nights when the place is busier or they won’t stay in business for long. Earlier today I received a text message from Amber telling us that Farrah Fawcett had died after her long battle with cancer. Then this evening as we were driving back from Homer, I got text messages from both Amber and Corey telling us that Michael Jackson had died suddenly. When we got back to camp we watched a little news which was non-stop coverage of Michael Jackson’s death and by 9:00 PM we were in bed and sound asleep.