Alaska Wildlife

Alaskan Wildlife
Trolling Week of May 27th
Magoun Island Cove
I know I mention the wildlife a lot – it’s just so fantastic to be in a place where there is still an abundance that can be viewed in their natural environment in a safe and non-obtrusive fashion! This week was a good one for brown bear viewing!

Tuesday’s opener started out with fair weather. However, there was a swell, which was making me a bit uncomfortable so I tried one of our friend Amado’s motion sickness pills that he shared with me when we were in Seattle – worked well and no drowsiness. Thanks Amado! After another slow day of fishing in Sitka Sound, we decided to anchor in the same little cove we stayed in before getting to Sitka, behind Magoun Island. Both Doug and I prefer to anchor out then dock in the harbor, especially if there is such a sweet little cove for us to spend the night in. We were rewarded with a splendid sunset here!

Fishing rainy Salisbury Sound
On rainy Wednesday, we ran to Salisbury Sound. I really like fishing here! It is more remote than Sitka Sound (less boats around) and we fish close to the islands so we see more wildlife. We saw 2 grizzlies on the way to the grounds and 5 on the way back to our cove that night – a 7 brown bear day! I was thrilled to see a big sow with her 2 (year-old) cubs. They were enjoying the fresh green grass along the beach on Partofshikof Island. She was wary and kept raising her head looking around while the young ones ate. Then again a few minutes later on Partofshikof, we saw 2 bears hanging out together that did not look like siblings – likely a bruin and a sow enjoying their spring time together : )
 

Partofshikof Island from the boat. 


Thursday we headed back to Sitka Sound since Salisbury is closed today to fishing. The sea was glassy in the morning and a humpback whale appeared crossing maybe 50 yards in front of us. Such a thrill to see so many of these magnificent creatures, especially when they come so close to the boat that you get to really see them without the add of binoculars.

Comments

  1. M & JJune 2, 2018 at 3:38 PM

    Hi DeLise, Hope you guys have a great season. Be safe. Beautiful pictures. When I was at Boeing we had a employee in my group from Sitka. Love your blogs . Going to my grandsons HS grad in two weeks in Gig Harbor, WA. Love,
    Uncle Mike

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2022 Season Begins and a 2021 Recap

Image
A Good Morning in Haines Alaska  We left our beautiful mountains-to-sea town of Haines, Alaska this morning and headed out for our 20 22  summer fishing season. It was a glorious sunny  morning and the all-day trip to Juneau was smooth and  lovely.  Both Doug and I were looking forward to  getting back out on the water and pulling up those big  King and Coho salmon – especially after the 2021  season we had.  2021 Recap 2021 was a good year for most trollers – there were fish to be caught and a nice price point per pound. Unfortunately, Doug hurt his ribs right before the start of the season so we didn’t fish as hard as we usually do. We started late and had to take a couple weeks off mid-summer for healing. It was a different kind of season for us but still delivered spectacular sights and long days of wilderness fishing. We often spend much of the season fishing in the Gulf of Alaska – from Cross Sound south along Baranof Island. Due to our adjustments for the season we chose to stay
Read more

End of the Summer Season

Image
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 be
Read more

Alaska Homesteading Update #3

Image
Our little guest cabin now has quite a sweet outdoor space with its fire pit, benches, serving counter and cowboy hot tub (heated by the fire pit). It’s very inviting and we spend as much time there as we can.  The house itself got new stain and an arctic entryway, which helped during the cold winters that we spent here during Covid isolation times.  We bought a tractor last fall and a mill this spring so we could use the trees on the property to make our improvements.  Doug dropped a few trees and milled a bunch of lumber while I was recuperating with my broken arm. We are now in the process of building a pole barn for all of our equipment. Next spring we will work on an addition to the house. It’s really fun to watch our little Homestead grow!
Read more