Commercial Fishing

[Skillet]

I woke up to this...

Pretty much paradise, as far as I'm concerned.  It must have been pretty damned cold the night before to freeze that bay over.  Check out the vid, crank the sound. Can  you hear the goldeneye flying and the mallard highball calls??

[Skillet]

So, I could either decide to stay there for the winter like Shackleton, or bust out and get to open water.  I had places to check out, after all!

So I pulled the hook and headed out to open water- leaving much bottom paint behind in the process 

[h20hunter]

Dude that's kinda nuts.

[RB]

1000 feet up and 1.8 miles away is a big lift though the Southeast Jungle. I was sure I'd cut a game trail along the way, and I did - but SE game trails duck under 2 foot high brush every 100 yards... it was a real slog to get up there.

I saw a couple of does on the edge of the clearcut, and thought about popping one, but realized I passed up easy does 100 yards from shore two days ago.  This represented real work to harvest a doe, something I wasn't into at that exact moment 

So the fat doe got her walking papers, and I just enjoyed the scenery from up there. I could just see my boat when I was up on a berm, pretty cool.  I made it back to my skiff just before dark, and noticed the wind shifted to the east and it was getting really cold...

Dude this is awesome, I have stayed at the Otstoia shelter and hunted North arm, also spent many nights in the Kakul shelter hunting fish bay, and Chichagof Island. We were going to head to Rodman one day but decided to duck in to another spot. Keep it coming this is awesome to read!

[Skillet]

Dude that's kinda nuts.

The beauty of a steel boat.  It was only about 1/4-3/8 thick at the most, and ice on salt water is pretty "sugary", so it breaks easy. But it still scrubs off your paint...

You remember what it sounded like with the water slapping the hull down in the bunks below?  Imagine that, but with ice breaking against it.  It is pretty loud in there!

[Skillet]

1000 feet up and 1.8 miles away is a big lift though the Southeast Jungle. I was sure I'd cut a game trail along the way, and I did - but SE game trails duck under 2 foot high brush every 100 yards... it was a real slog to get up there.

I saw a couple of does on the edge of the clearcut, and thought about popping one, but realized I passed up easy does 100 yards from shore two days ago.  This represented real work to harvest a doe, something I wasn't into at that exact moment 

So the fat doe got her walking papers, and I just enjoyed the scenery from up there. I could just see my boat when I was up on a berm, pretty cool.  I made it back to my skiff just before dark, and noticed the wind shifted to the east and it was getting really cold...

Dude this is awesome, I have stayed at the Otstoia shelter and hunted North arm, also spent many nights in the Kakul shelter hunting fish bay, and Chichagof Island. We were going to head to Rodman one day but decided to duck in to another spot. Keep it coming this is awesome to read!

Oh ya, so you know what I'm talking about when I talk about those game trails! 

Rodman is pretty ducky, but every bay in Peril holds ducks.  Up in Hoonah the geese are thicker.  But so are the bears...

[RB]

1000 feet up and 1.8 miles away is a big lift though the Southeast Jungle. I was sure I'd cut a game trail along the way, and I did - but SE game trails duck under 2 foot high brush every 100 yards... it was a real slog to get up there.

I saw a couple of does on the edge of the clearcut, and thought about popping one, but realized I passed up easy does 100 yards from shore two days ago.  This represented real work to harvest a doe, something I wasn't into at that exact moment 

So the fat doe got her walking papers, and I just enjoyed the scenery from up there. I could just see my boat when I was up on a berm, pretty cool.  I made it back to my skiff just before dark, and noticed the wind shifted to the east and it was getting really cold...

Dude this is awesome, I have stayed at the Otstoia shelter and hunted North arm, also spent many nights in the Kakul shelter hunting fish bay, and Chichagof Island. We were going to head to Rodman one day but decided to duck in to another spot. Keep it coming this is awesome to read!

Oh ya, so you know what I'm talking about when I talk about those game trails! 

Rodman is pretty ducky, but every bay in Peril holds ducks.  Up in Hoonah the geese are thicker.  But so are the bears...

Oh for sure, one year we hunted Redoubt lake and were following a nice side hill game trail and came to a good size windfall tree that I had to literally take my pack off to get under, but the Deer had NOT jumped over just crawled under!

[h20hunter]

Dude that's kinda nuts.

The beauty of a steel boat.  It was only about 1/4-3/8 thick at the most, and ice on salt water is pretty "sugary", so it breaks easy. But it still scrubs off your paint...

You remember what it sounded like with the water slapping the hull down in the bunks below?  Imagine that, but with ice breaking against it.  It is pretty loud in there!

I do. Very much so. To a 9 to 5ver that sounds like I'm chewing up.hull, not just polishing the bow.

[Skillet]

One last pic from Appleton.  This is a crab pot bouy that froze in while the ice was pushing out of the bay overnight.

[Skillet]

Headed out of Appleton, up towards Fisk Cove.  Had a humpback show along the way.  Catching jumping whales is pretty tough, but these guys were lazy enough to not dive when I got close.  I didn't notice them until they were about 100 yards away, and they were probably 100 feet off my starboard when I passed them.

[Skillet]

It was a grizzly bear show from here on out.  Lots of goldeneye and scoters, found a solid population of honkers too, but the deer sign was scarce and I never saw another in the flesh. It was full moon time by then, so they probably went nocturnal, but the bears were pulling full daytime shifts. I went for a few walks with the gun, but honestly - the bears were so thick and deer were so scarce I didn't put much effort into it. I couldn't go a 1/4 mile in the woods without seeing fresh bear tracks, bear scat, bear hair on brush, etc.  I never saw one in the brush, but I did see plenty from the safety of my boat - were I spent the most time

We had a pretty dismal pink salmon year, which usually means the bears are hungry and more aggressive before they finally bed down.

Here's a few pics and vids of those darn things. We also had one day with 6" of rain - the day with the sow and cub video.

[Skillet]

That pretty much sums up the season so far.  The deer are rutting pretty good now, and I still have 6 tags in my pocket - so I'm going to take one more shot at deer hunting before I head south to sell some fish!

Hope everybody is doing well, and keep an eye out for the Happy Prawnakuh sale 

[Sitka_Blacktail]

Pretty much paradise, as far as I'm concerned.  It must have been pretty damned cold the night before to freeze that bay over. 

Must be a good source of fresh water in that bay. And looking at your picture it probably gets trapped in the bay. It will float on top of the salt water until currents or wave action mixes the two, as it is lighter than salt water. Salt water takes a much lower temperature to freeze.

[Sitka_Blacktail]

So, I could either decide to stay there for the winter like Shackleton, or bust out and get to open water.  I had places to check out, after all!

So I pulled the hook and headed out to open water- leaving much bottom paint behind in the process 

That skim ice is dangerous to a wood boat, especially a plywood skiff.  When I lived on Kodiak, there is a bay (Anton Larsen Bay) that has a good source of fresh water and a small opening for the fresh water to disperse. So it would end up with skim ice like this.  Even very thin ice will act like a saw and cut into your hull on a wood boat. We learned in a hurry to do all ice breaking with a fiberglass or metal boat. Otherwise your hull was going to be very damaged.

[RB]

Ok I have been day dreaming about running Sergius narrows and pulling into places like shotgun alley, or Phillapino cove, where are you now???