Homer Fishing

On Sunday we drove back down to Homer for our fishing trip.   

 We boarded the ‘Sizzler’ around noon and were on our way by 12:30.  There were fifteen of us.

A Coast Guard ship was in port.

Some scenery along the way.

On a half day trip it takes 1½ hours to get to the fishing spot and back so you only have about 3 hours of actual fish time.  And you don’t get out as far where the big fish are. 

Looking at the map above, we cruised southwesterly to an area near that point where you see the town of Nanwalek.  We found our spot and were given rods and reels that were already baited with cod. 

Notice those weights!!

We were fishing in water about 150 deep so the line had 2 lb weights to take the bait down.  (A sign in the cabin said a lost rod and reel would cost $200 and a broken one, $80!!).  They had a neat system for fishing – everyone lined up on each side and the back and started fishing.  If you caught a fish, or brought your line up to check your bait, you had to go to the front of the boat and start over.  That way everyone had a chance to fish off the back of the boat.

The water was quite calm and it was overcast so we didn’t have the sun to worry about.  You can only keep two halibut so when you catch one, they estimate its weight.  If it is 15+ plus pounds, you might want to keep it.  Otherwise, they will throw it back, and, you hope to catch a bigger one next time. 

Judy and I each caught 4 halibut and kept two.  They weighed from 14 to 17 lbs. so we had about 55 -60 lbs of fish.  We were lucky because it started raining but we were done fishing by then.

The crew lined up all the fish up along the back (stern for you sailors) of the boat.

These are ours:

By the time we got back to the dock, they had the fish cleaned and bagged for us. 

At the dock they took our fish to the shippers and we had our sent to Julie and Ken for safekeeping until we get home in November.

We had such a good time that we may have to do it again before we leave the Peninsula.  We will be in Seward in another week and will check out the fishing there.

There is also a lot of salmon fishing in this area.  The Kenai Russian Rivers are very popular for fishing.  Actually, when we first drove here, we saw a lot of people fishing in the rivers.  I think we will go over that way this week to check it out.  I do know that in Soldotna (about 8 miles away), they have 3700 feet of elevated fishing boardwalks. 

Will report back later when we do drive over there…