Fantastic Four Fish Stories - Chapter 2

        Here is one of the great fishing outings I had with my Dad that was very eventful and another great bonding moment for my Dad and I.

I will start by saying that Dad and I were not the smartest guys to have ever challenged the great Pacific Ocean.  This story will more than prove that! One day this almost proved to be our doom.  The world's largest ocean will take full advantage of those lacking logic, common sense or as in the case of my Dad and I, a combination of the two.

One day we went out in our ginormously, huge 13-ft aluminum skiff that my dad had used for years.  It was pretty beat up and we used a souped up (how my Dad says jury-rigged) 10.5-hp motor that worked about 40% of the time.  Most people who had the privilege of seeing the motor thought that my Dad had actually built it himself out of a bunch of random parts he found.  It was something you might see a couple of young boys using to putter themselves around a small pond. To use it in the grandest body of water on Earth was quite..... remarkable. Yes, that is the word we will go with.

       We put our boat in the water near the mouth of the Anchor River. We took the traditional 15 minutes waiting for the motor to start and then putted out about 500-700 yards out off the coast just outside of Anchor Point.  We set the anchor and dropped our lines in hopes of landing a nice halibut. For bait, we were using pieces of Irish Lord, the ugly fish mentioned in my previous post. As we quietly floated we talked and enjoyed the cool summer air and the relaxing sounds of the ocean as it gently rocked the boat. It was a beautiful day and those moments in the great Alaskan outdoors were the ones I cherished the most.
After about 30 minutes or so, I looked out in the distance and saw a large black sailboat.  I thought that it was interesting that someone would use a black sail.  It reminded me of the pirate stories I'd read as a kid.  After a few moments of watching the sailboat we noticed that it went under the water line and didn't come back up for a while. When we saw it again it had moved a considerable distance while it had been under water.  This is when we realized it was not a sailboat at all, but rather a whale.  I normally didn't think much of seeing a whale in Kachemak Bay or the Cook Inlet but something was not right about this whale. It wasn't a big harmless krill eating whale. It was a meat eating Orca Killer Whale! Dad told me he had never seen a killer whale out there before.  It was pretty cool to see.  We were alarmed at how big the whale was for us to think that it's dorsal fin was a sail! We laughed hard at our mistake as it was a pretty funny goof.
It was only funny for a short time, however, as we began to realize that the giant dorsal fin had turned and was now heading directly for our boat.  At first we had no reaction other than continuing to watch it.  But it didn't take long for us to realize that the whale was getting closer than we were comfortable with.
"Pull the anchor!" my Dad said slightly raising his voice.  I was pulling the anchor before he even finished telling me to do so.  As I was hoisting the anchor rope as fast as I could my Dad quickly reeled in his line and began to prime the motor.  Of course it wouldn't start on the 1st pull of the cord!
I finished with the anchor and began to reel in my own reel while my Dad yanked the cord a second, third and fourth time.  When I finally had my reel ready my Dad was on the eighth or ninth pull.  In the mean time the whale had made considerable distance and was now only about 30 yards away.  Dad looked at me and I looked at him and then he said, "I love you, Horace."  I knew what he meant and the realization of what was about to happen began to envelop me.
We watched the whale submerge below the surface just 15 yards from the boat.  It seemed like forever as I braced myself for the inevitable.  I had seen the movie Jaws many times and this whale was much larger than that shark.  It could just about swallow the boat whole!  I was sure that it was shooting it self from depths of the sea up to our boat to devour us as if we were just a large blubbery walrus floating on the waves.
It was just when I was about to release my bowels into the bow of the boat that I saw the whale resurface on the opposite side of the boat.  It continued to swim away from the boat until we lost sight of it in the distance.
After a few moments of time our heartbeats slowed to an above normal pace and Dad looked at me in relief.  Then he said three words I shall never forget. "Drop the anchor".  He REALLY likes to fish!

Fantastic Four Fish Stories - Chapter 1

       One of the great things about Alaska was all of the fishing we did.  I had fished most of my life.  At least during the times I lived with my Dad.  Alaska fishing was different, however, because of all the fishing locations, amounts of fish and the size of the fish.  If you went fishing in Alaska and you came home empty handed, then you had better stick to buying your fish at the local supermarket.  That would be just as easy. Here is the first of 4 fish stories that I thought I would share from my time in Alaska.
The Anchor River ran very nearby our little home and we could go fishing in the evening and it would literally take us an hour to leave, fish, make our catch and return home.  This was nice because it wouldn't take up so much time when there was homework or other family things that needed done.
Dad had a knack for catching fish.  It was a trait that was handed down from his father and for the most part passed on down to me.  One time we went up to the Kasilof River where many of the large King Salmon were. The Kasilof was one of the larger rivers where fishing was more than a leisure activity. It was sometimes very dangerous. Which is why it was referred to as "combat fishing". People would line up and down the banks of the river pretty much elbow to elbow. This made it very important to follow the rules of the river. The rules were fairly simple to understand, somewhat difficult to follow, and downright suicidal to not concede to.
    The rule was to cast in rhythm and in perfect timing with all of the other fishermen. Everyone would pull their lines in, lift their poles slightly and toss their lines back into the water upriver about 10 or 12 feet or so. Then you would let the line drift past and then wait as everyone seemingly at the same time would pull their lines in, lift their poles slightly and again toss their lines upriver. You would continue to repeat this unless you heard someone shout "fish on!". If you heard that and you were upriver from the person who shouted it, you just continued on with your rhythmic casting. However, if you were down river, you needed to quickly reel in your line and back out of the water. This would allow the lucky fisherman to follow his fish as it fought to swim down river. Once he had past you, you could walk forward and resume your fishing. Sounds easy, right? Well you should see what happens when someone gets a snag and can't keep with the flow! Or if they cast out of time, throwing their lines up and over multiple peoples drifting lines. Let's just say that Alaskans are really nice people. Unless you get in the way of their fishing! Big, lumberjack looking dudes that would scare even your tapeworm out of you!

    This day was a bit of a blustery day, looking like it would soon rain.  That had never stopped us before and wouldn't on this particular day either. We arrived at our spot somewhat late in the morning, pulled all the fishing gear out of the Subaru and headed down to the bank of the river.  We passed along a number of fishermen and asked how they'd been doing.  They said they had only seen one fish caught in the past couple of hours.  That did not sound very promising but we continued on anyway.
We found a nice little area down near the end of the line of about 25 fishermen and began to get our poles ready.  It started to rain fairly hard and the other fishermen began to pack up to go wait out the rain in their vehicles. Dad smiled and shrugged at me and I knew he wasn't going to let a little rain stop his fishing.  We finished putting our "Spin & Glo's" on the end of our lines and I cast mine first.  My line no sooner began to follow the current than, BANG, my pole nearly flew out of my hands.
"Woohoohoo!" I yelled and gained control of my rod. I didn't have to yell "Fish on" because everyone had left the river.  It was a matter of seconds and out of the water jumped the biggest fish I'd ever hooked.  Dad started talking me through the process of reeling it in as I was inexperienced in bring in such a large catch.  He also did not want me to break one of his nicer poles either.
I fought the salmon for about 4 or 5 minutes and then was about to bring him close enough to the bank so Dad could net it when the hook came loose from the fish's mouth.  I sulked as I realized I had just lost a huge catch.  Dad said he figured the fish was about 50 pounds.
He saw that I was disappointed and encouraged me to recast.  "Trust me, Horace," he said, "there are plenty of fish in this river." Then he promptly cast his own line into the water.  Before I could get my second cast out I heard Dad again saying, "Fish On!"

I chuckled because I think he was only yelling it so that those that had left could hear him. He was more successful with his fish than I was and he actually landed his.  It was also around 50-55 pounds and Dad was pleased.  We had no sooner fetched the hook from the mouth of the fish when we noticed that everyone else had decided that a little rain would not be so bad.  They were coming back to the river bank almost as fast as they had left.
It took about another 15 minutes and then I was able to land my own fish.  Though only about 35 pounds it was fine with me and was huge in comparison to the fish the other fishermen were catching.  It was at least 35 pounds bigger!
We received a lot of glares from everyone when we packed up our gear and our fish and headed back to our car.  We had only been there for about 30 minutes and had only seen 3 fish hooked and only 2 that were landed.  They were the exact same fish that we were hauling up to our car and that didn't sit well with all those who had been there since the wee morning hours.
I often thought that there was some divine intervention that day.  What are the chances of my Dad and me going fishing among a group of ornery, tired, native Alaskan fishermen and arriving at the same time as a down pour?  It was like we were supposed to have the entire river to ourselves.  We quickly caught our fish and went home.  It was awesome.