Out of the Gates for 2006

The first big fish outing of the year was both a bust and a bang. I went with five companions to charter a boat out of Ninilchik, about forty miles north of Homer. Having to be there at 6AM was made a bit easier by the generous loaning of another friends cabin for Friday night.

We spent a little time that evening exploring the property and soaking up the views of Kenai Lake, spying on a dozen or so Dall sheep in the cliffs above us, and enjoyed a few barely pops in front of a fire in the cabin’s awesome stone fireplace. The fire was necessary because the temperature dropped into the thirties that night.

We woke at 3:30 AM to light rain. After filling our thermos with hot coffee we headed out. As we cruised down the Kenai Peninsula, we were fairly amazed at the amounts of fresh snow in the hills. In fact, there was a lot of old snow as well, thus explaining why the Kenai River looked so low. Many of the popular fishing holes had elongated gravel bars, or docks high and dry. The melt still hadn’t set in, thus leading to a many reports of no fish in the river as of yet.

We wove through Sterling, Soldontna, and several rain showers to arrive at our charter a few minutes before six and at 41 degrees. It was going to be a cold one.

The launch site was a mess of boats, but before too long we were on the water. Then it got cold, then it got breezy, then it got cold and breezy. After four missed hookups over a couple of hours the guide said we had better go get out halibut while the water was still “fairly calm”.

After an hour of three to four foot seas, we arrived on site at the prescribed halibut spot. Our guide wisely told us that it would be best if we just got our fish a got the heck out of there. Judging by the building winds and seas, no one was arguing, especially the one of our party who started to “chum” to waters. Poor guy.

The next thirty minutes could only be described a close quarters, hand to hand, combat halibut fishing. In that time, we landed our limit, having fish on from the very start. At one point, three people had fish on, and tangled in the other two lines, making a knot of three fish and five lines. The deck hand yanked one halibut in and freed two lines, leaving the other three lines and two halibut in the water. I took the guide about five minutes to work out the mess, but none of the fish were lost. In fact the two other freed line brought in three other halibut while we were untangling the mess. The last few fish to come in were done by a weird ballet of passing lines back and forth, over and under, to and fro, to keep another bad tangle from happening. We had no idea of who fish were whose, but rather focused on getting the boat limit in the hold.

Finally we were down to one fish left and one line in the water. By now, the seas stepped up another foot giving us the occasional six-foot breaker to deal with. It seemed like forever, but probably was only a few minutes till that last one came in. All told, we got our limit with fish from the mid teens to twenties in size. A bag of chickens for sure, but definitely better nothing.

An agonizing hour trip in with more chumming, airborne boating, and spray flying everywhere was all that was left. By the time it was over, everyone (including the crew I’m sure) was very happy to be on land again.


The tally for the day four missed kings, 12 halibut, two human chummers, and a boatload of memories that will “spawn” fish tales for years to come.