Kya let us all sleep in on Monday (which we all needed) so we didn't get out on the boat until 10:45 am. Our fishing buddy Ted joined us once again.
The plan:
- Lay two long lines out by triple humps (a 45 minute boat ride from Kodiak)
- Fish for salmon the "old fashioned way" with fishing pole and lures
- Pull into the bay at Long Island and take the skiff raft to shore for hiking on Long Island
- After hiking, get back to the boat and pull in the long lines
- Return home by dinner time
After we left the long lines ...
Corey caught his "old fashioned" salmon! It is a red/sockeye salmon. Congratulations Corey!
This has been Corey's goal since we arrived on Kodiak.
We rafted to Long Island and Kya was once again happy as a little clam out in nature.
Long Island is uninhabited (that we know of) and was a WWII base.
There is a very cool primitive campsite and swings on the island.
Long Island, AK
Long Island is like no place I've ever been. I felt like an elf while walking in the mossy forest.
My parents and Ted have been there many times before so they took us inside this old bunker. Corey and I were not sure it was safe but we're happy to report we make it out in one piece. There is no electricity, so it was pitch black. These is lots of leftover "stuff" in the bunker.
We were told that this base was "blown up" when the troops pulled out of the island ... and there it sat.
These Quonsets were everywhere (old WWII housing). Many many of them ... and each as creepy as the next.
Great place to film a horror movie.
Heading back to the boat.
We arrived back at the boat and then headed out to triple humps to check the long lines.
The first long line came up great - we caught a few small (but keeper) halibut. From the start, the second long line was very heavy. This long lone was the one we made last week and this was the first trip for the new line. Corey and Ted took turns puling it in. We caught a few more halibut and few ugly fish. After about a third of the hooks were up, we started to wonder why it was so darn heavy. The guys slowly pulled the rope in, inch by inch, with lots of grunting. They had to tie it off to keep the tension and to keep the line from being pulled back in the water. This was like no other long line Ted or my dad had seen. It was SO heavy. The hooks were about 10 feet apart, and most of them had a fish (halibut or junk fish), so that kept us excited. It was soooo unbelievably heavy. While pulling it in, the guys wore life jackets and were very careful not to get the rope tangled around them ... but I was still nervous. Ted was thinking that since we were able to pull the line in (albeit very slowly) that we had a huge fish on the line. So ... slowly, slowly, one inch at a time, we kept pulling the line in.
After about two thirds of the hooks were up, we had to use the boat to help us pull in the line. We'd have my Dad back up or slowly drive forward to give us the right angle for pulling. We'd count each hook to figure out exactly how much line we had left in the ocean. We figured that we still had a little line on the bottom of the ocean. At one point, we thought the best plan was to drive the boat back to Kodiak, while the rope was tied off (on two of the tie-off hooks) in hopes that it would tire the fish and/or dislodge the rope. When we tried this plan, the boat started to tip. Not a good plan. Back to pulling. After another hour of pulling, they got a little bit more line up. At that point, they deemed the best plan was to cut the line. The line was cut, and we shall never know how big the fish was ... and/or how stuck the rope was.
All in all, we caught about 12 halibut. Plus, Corey's salmon. And lots of ugly fish and a few star fish (which we threw back to the ocean).
We got back to the Kodiak harbor after 10 pm ... very late for dinner ... and the sky was still very bright.
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