Fisher Girl DeLise

The very first pull of the first day of summer fishing season was a big King Salmon! It looked like it was going to be a good start to the season, but then the lines got quiet.  It’s been unusually slow everywhere from what we’ve heard. There just aren’t many kings around and the troll fleet is dispersed everywhere looking for fish. Usually the July opener is only a few days for kings but we are almost three weeks in and rumor has it we are only at 50% of what they expected us to catch.  9pm Bay of Pillars Doug and I have been cruising around looking for fish. We’ve found a few here and there but we’ve also seen quite a bit of southern Chatham Strait, lower Sumner Strait and into Davidson Inlet and Sea Otter Sound.    Through the Spanish Islands Into Sumner Strait

Our first day of fishing there were whales everywhere on the grounds- bubble feeding, breaching, slapping their tails.  There were bait balls of fish all around us and lots of activity, but the whales were the real show.  It led to one of the most exciting and/or scary events I’ve had in a long time. Doug was in the pit fishing and I was driving the boat, watching a group of whales bubble feeding off in the distance. Suddenly two whales surfaced heading straight for the boat on our port side. I immediately turned to the starboard and slowed the boat so that they could cross in front of us, as obviously they hadn’t seen us. Two more surfaced, and then two more! They were moving quickly, straight across our bow. I had to throw the boat into neutral to avoid driving right into them. They crossed about 10 feet in front of us! One lifted his head, took one look at us and immediately dove recognizing how close we were to a collision. Basically when I looked over the bow, it was just whale -

We had a beautiful ride down from Juneau through Stevens Passage. I love going by the Tracy Arm / Holkham Bay area. There were so many icebergs and they’re so beautiful! Their blue color is so multi-faceted and unique. I love how surreal they look and all the different shapes. It was sunny and lovely and a really nice way to start our season. Good weather, beautiful surroundings and magical chunks of glacier floating by.