Well I just returned from a weekend fishing the sound. It's probably one of the most beautiful places in the world to fish... You can fish your brains out, but ya gotta stop and look around every minute or so. Our home port is in Valdez, which is considered the "little Switzerland" of the US. Glaciers, abundant wildlife, craggy mountains, and big tasty fish keep us going back at least twice a year.
We originally were targeting the awesome silver salmon (aka coho), which grow up to 20+ lbs., but the commercial fishery had their opener while we were there, which slowed the numbers of fish to a trickle.
Soooo as any good fisherfolks would do, we decided to target rockfish and halibut. I had to take some pictures for my buddies here at MFF. Below are just a few examples of the oddities from the depths. That's really the greatest thing about fishing in saltwater, you have no clue whats tuggin' on the other end of your line!
The "Crippled Herring" getting ready for the first day of fishing. Looks kinda small amongst the monster commercial fishing rigs eh?
My partner Jimmer said "there sure are a lot of boats off the reef" well the Jimmer needs new glasses cause those boats were iceburgs calved off Columbia glacier! Thank the good lord Jimmer wasn't the driver...
Commercial fishermen like this guy were all over the sound putting the "clamps" on our salmon fishing
Wish the state would let them fish every 5 days instead of every other day.
The native village of Tititlic
One of our fishin' holes at the foot of the falls
One of the local fishermen! Little blurred
Irish lord
Holy Wa! these little heathens love to hit anything
Only a mother could love this one!
A sabber-toothed flounder! Yeah, it's a flounder with big teeth! AKA arrowtooth flounder
No clue what this guy was thinking! The jigs bigger than him
Copper quillback rockfish MMMMMM good eats!
A real rarity in the sound. Vermilion rockfish are one of the prettiest in the world
The young Brian hooks a nice halibut and I attempt the harpoon job on him.
The harpoon flies! and hits it's mark. The angry butt heads for the bottom but only meets resistants from the boat. Gotta harpoon these guys, because it's not fun putting an angry 80 lb. fish in the boat!
Gaffed and "calmed" he's ready for the cooler
The happy fishermen with his biggest fish. A real beauty at 80 lbs.
Nice silver
and another
and yet another salmon, but this is a "humpy" aka pink salmon
4 person limit of rockfish. The large orange fish are yelloweyed rockfish and the others are quillbacks and black rockfish.
The highway road crew on the voyage home...