End of the Summer Season

Coho salmon were not abundant this year. Other stocks did ok, and the local sockeye run was a good one, but coho numbers are what we rely on as trollers, so this was not a good year for us. In fact, Alaska Fish and Game stated that this years' coho run was the third worst in the last 40 years with a harvest 42% below the 20 year average! 

We spent our last week of fishing in northern Chatham Strait. We didn't catch many fish but we had some really nice wildlife viewing. Again we had a group of whales bubble net or lunge feeding near us for a couple of days and that is always a spectacular site. There is also a really great sockeye stream in the bay we were anchoring in that draws lots of bears. It’s the classic Alaska photo op. There’s a beautiful waterfall that then streams down into the cove. At high tide the salmon can jump up the waterfall with some amount of effort, at low tide they get stranded in the rocks down below. A feast for the bears! One morning there were four bears there. Another evening two younger bears, that may have been siblings, were swimming in the water in front of the stream and wrestling. We were anchored too far away for a good photo but the view thru the binoculars was fantastic!

We then headed back to Haines and are working to finish building our pole barn to put our tractor and the rest of our equipment in for winter. Covered, dry space is a must in Alaska!