A Summer of Salmon

Many years before I became an avid hiker, my favorite outdoor activity was fishing. Growing up in Southern Utah, I have fond memories of my dad taking me fishing for bass and trout. When I was in high school, sports and other activities kept me preoccupied and my interest in fishing slowly fizzled out. However, in my late teens and early 20's, something revived my fishing enjoyment. My renewed interest led to me to spending many days and countless hours fishing for bass and trout in Southern Utah. I made an effort to research some of the best methods to catch fish and it paid off. The more fish I caught, the more addicted I was to fishing. Nothing could beat the adrenaline rush of feeling a tug on the end of my line and the anticipation of what might be hooked at the other end.

My passion for fishing remained until I left for Washington in 2010. It was during this summer that I became an avid hiker and backpacker, and fishing became less of a priority. I still enjoyed fishing, but more and more I found myself wanting to get out and explore and put some mileage on my boots, rather than dedicating a road trip to standing by a lake or river.

Then, I accepted a job in Alaska.

Early in the summer, fishing wasn't really on my radar. I was more excited to bag peaks and explore than to search for fish. Then, a couple of weeks after I arrived, I got a new roommate named Brett. It was Brett's second summer in Juneau and first since 2008, and he made it clear from the first day he moved in that the local fishing was pretty spectacular. This immediately sparked my interest and I knew I'd have to fit some fishing trips in on my days off, around the obvious hiking trips.

After buying a cheap rod/reel combo at the local Fred Meyer along with a few lures, I was anxious to hit the water and see what I might be able to reel in.

Most of my fishing time was spent at Auke Bay, which was the closest and most convenient place to Forest Service housing. We'd usually take the public bus to DeHart's, the local convenience store located right on Auke Bay. DeHart's had everything we needed to load up on supplies, and conveniently had two separate entrances: one for alcohol and fishing stuff, and the other for everything else. We usually didn't bother with the "everything else" section.


My first couple of fishing trips were pretty uneventful and I didn't catch anything. I quickly learned that even Alaska fishing can be a test of patience. It was pretty frustrating one day watching several other people reel in some big king salmon while I didn't catch a thing. Luckily, my persistence would eventually pay off.
There are five different types of salmon that come into the ocean shallows of Southeast Alaska before making their up streams and rivers to spawn. The early season spawners are the sockeye, king, and pink salmon (pinks are the most abundant and will continue spawning through the majority of the summer.)

My first successful fishing outing came in early July. This pink salmon was my first fish of the summer, and first salmon ever!

After that, things slowed down and not much was caught between me and my friends. We stuck with it though, and waited for the tide to start coming in. Along with it, so did the fish. We started to see some big salmon cruising the shoreline, no more than a few feet out. We'd usually add some length to our casts by wading into the water up to our knees too (surprisingly, the water wasn't very cold in Auke Bay). Suddenly, I felt a strong tug on my line and knew I had something big. I fought the fish to the shore, and several times it made runs, taking my drag before Brett could snag it with our net. I was worried that my cheap reel wouldn't hold up. Kings have a reputation of not being the best fighters, but this one wasn't coming in without some serious resistance. As I reeled, my reel gears felt and sounded as if they were cracking! Finally, I got the fish close enough to shore that Brett was able to scoop it into the net. I was happy with what we pulled out of the water. A nice king salmon! About 32 inches and fat.

Back home I normally catch and release, but I spent the extra money for a king salmon stamp when I bought my license and the temptation of cooking fresh salmon was too much. I kept it, along with pink I had caught earlier.

A size comparison between my pink and king salmon (my foot is a size 13, in case you were wondering.)

The next day, filleted the salmon and marinated it in a delicious concoction of soy sauce, brown sugar, lemon, and spices. That night, I took the salmon over to my friend Tim's house, and cooked it on his propane grill. It turned out pretty amazing, probably even better than I could have hoped for. There are few things more satisfying than catching your own fish, filleting it, and preparing/cooking it yourself. There was plenty to be shared with Tim and his roommates, and I was happy to offer it up. It was one of my most memorable experiences from Juneau.

As the summer went on, I continued fishing but it was hard to top the experience of catching my first king salmon. Soon, most of the kings and sockeye had spawned and most of the fish in Auke Bay were pinks (still fun to catch, but not nearly as delicious as most other salmon.) One day, I had a hard time not accidentally snagging a pink on almost every cast. It always made for a tougher fight but there became a point where that wasn't very fun.

Here's one of the many pink salmon that I reeled in over the course of the summer. This one is a male (which only get the hump after they come into the shallows and get ready to spawn.) That's why pink salmon are sometimes referred to as "humpies"

One day late in the summer I woke up early to go fishing with my roommate, Brett before work. For some reason, he had the hot hand that morning, and he caught several chum (AKA dog) salmon while I was completely skunked. Here's a look at one of them while he reeled it in.

The unique striping made these salmon unique from the other species. They were also known to be one of the worst salmon to eat, and were usually caught and released. The only one I caught all summer was an accidental snagging (which doesn't really count, in my book.)

I've yet to figure out what kind of fish this one was (it was quite a bit smaller than any of the salmon I caught) but it had a really weird wound, as if a predator took a chunk out of it. My guess is it was either from a seal or another fish.

One day, my roommate Brett and I got the genius idea of going out to Lena Point (north of our usual spot at Auke Bay) during low tide, casting out some bait as far as we could in hopes of maybe luring a halibut or some other type of large, deep sea fish to bite. Halibut are usually caught from boat, but the water at Lena seemed to drop off pretty deep right away, so it seemed reasonable that we could be in the depths of where halibut hang out. We cast out our salmon setup and set the rod down while rigging up another rod for salmon fishing. We checked on the rod periodically, and at one point Brett got my attention and pointed to the rod. Sure enough, the rod tip was bouncing around as if there was something hooked. I ran to the rod and started reeling in. Unfortunately, whatever was making the rod move seemed to have gotten away, and I just reeled my way into a snag. To this day, I wonder what was jerking the rod.

Later, we reeled in this sunflower seastar:

 Of course, it ended up back in the water, unharmed.

A while later, I got a phone call from my girlfriend. I decided I could use a break from fishing so I took her call and found a spot to sit down just up from the shore. About five minutes into my conversation, Brett got my attention and pointed into the water. My backpack was floating several feet out from shore! Although my backpack had been safe just a few minutes earlier, I had underestimated how fast the tide was moving in. I got off the phone and retrieved my backpack, and suddenly, a sense of panic set in. My backpack was unzipped, and among other things, my digital SLR camera had been inside (although not anymore.) I searched around the shore to no avail, and yelled out loud with frustration. Meanwhile, the tide was still coming in, and Brett was doing his best to help by hopping into the water and retrieving some of the fishing lures that fell out of my backpack. As he stood waist deep, he reached down, and one at a time retrieved several lures. I was happy for his efforts, but still...no sign of my camera.

I was super bummed out, but it could have been worse. My work keys were also in an unzipped compartment of my backpack, but somehow they didn't fall out. Phew!

After the tide had moved in far enough that there was no longer any hope of retrieving any other items, I sat there in disbelief for a few minutes before we decided to leave. I think Brett would have stayed longer, but he knew at that point I simply wasn't in the mood.

I had to work the next day, but Brett had the day off and offered to head back out to Lena Point to search for my camera. I had already come to terms with the fact that the camera was probably ruined (I hear that water isn't good for expensive cameras, let alone salty ocean water), but I was more interested in salvaging the memory card. We had just hiked to Mt. Jumbo a few days earlier and I had hadn't saved the pictures yet. During my lunch break I texted Brett and asked if he had any luck in finding the camera. His response: "It was dangling from a barnacle, above the abyss."

If you've read my Mt. Jumbo entry, you already know that the pictures were salvaged from the memory card. The camera? Not so much, but I already expected that.

The last of the five species of salmon to spawn in Southeast Alaska are the coho (AKA silver) salmon, and many people argue that coho provide the best fishing of all.

The coho were the only salmon species that eluded my roommate, Brett, during his previous summer in Juneau. His determination to catch a silver this time around rubbed off on me, and we spent multiple fishing trips in search of the silvers. Time and time again, though, we were eluded.

One day I got home from work, and Brett (who had just gotten home from fishing) was outwardly disappointed. When I asked how it went, he looked at me and shook his head. I asked "Let me guess, you had a silver hooked, and it got loose?", to which he replied "Mike, it's so much worse."
This is Brett's story, as I remember it:

He was fishing at Lena Point that day, and he saw a silver jump out of the water. He casted towards the splash and he immediately had a fish on. The fish was a great fighter and it took him a while to get it close to shore. Finally, the fish came into view: it was a silver! However, the shoreline was rocky and it was an awkward spot to hoist it out of the water. The fish wrapped itself around a rock where it broke his line, but the fish continued to lay there, stunned from the fight. Brett jumped into the water, grabbing the bit of line that was still attached to the fish and wrapped it around his wrist. As he tried to pull it out of the water, the line broke again. At that point, he tried hoisting the fish out in an underhand motion, but he was unable to push the fish to shore. Just then, the fish swam away. It was gone. Brett was beside himself. He glanced behind him to see some people that had observed the whole debacle, where he made eye contact and let out a booming scream. His first silver had literally slipped in and out of his hands.

Brett's story only added to my determination to catch a silver. A couple of weeks later, Brett finally caught his. He was so happy with the fish he couldn't bring himself to bring it home and eat it. He released the fish and his summer felt complete.

By then, the summer was winding down. Brett's season was over and he had left Juneau a few days prior. I still had a couple of more weeks remaining, and my dad came up for a visit from Utah.

Of course, I had to take him fishing.

We started where Brett had caught his silver about a week before at Montana Creek. After a couple of hours with only a small dolly varden that I inadvertently snagged by the tail to show for our time, I decided it would be wise to try somewhere else.

My dad had a rental car, and it was a good opportunity to go check out a place that I didn't have access to on the public bus. The area that encompasses the 45-miles stretch of road north of town that eventually dead-ends (referred to by locals as simply "out the road") had some great fishing and hiking spots. Unfortunately, the public bus didn't go that way. During a few occasions that summer, I was able to creatively find ways "out the road", but for the most part I was limited to the areas between the Mendenhall Glacier and downtown Juneau.

Located about 38.5 miles "out the road" is Cowee Creek, a place that I heard has good silver fishing. I had been there a few weeks before, only to find nasty pink salmon nearing the end of their spawn. Surely by now (mid-September) the silver spawn would be in full force. 

We parked by the Cowee Creek bridge and hiked along the Cowee Creek Trail. The creek was pretty overgrown so access points were limited. We tried to make the most of the few good spots we found.

The last time I was in the area, I saw a small black bear. Obviously, there were still bears around.

I had also heard of brown bear sightings in that area in years past, although for the most part, brown bears are uncommon around Juneau.

We found some good fishing spots and about half an hour into our trip, I felt a strong tug on my line. It had to have been something big. I fought it for a couple of minutes before getting it to shore where it appeared: a nice silver! Unfortunately, I was in a pretty awkward spot to land a fish. I got the fish close to shore, where my dad helped to hoist the fish out of the water. Then, I'm not exactly what happened, but it was nothing good. the fish got wrapped up in a log and snapped the line. Off it swam, lure and all. I yelled out with frustration and I remembered Brett's similar encounter when his silver got loose. I couldn't believe it. My dad obviously felt bad for me, but I didn't feel bad for myself. I just wanted to catch another.

Later, we made our way back towards the road as the creek became progressively trickier to access the further we hiked. After I lost the fish, my frustrations were made even worse by losing a couple of lures on bad casts. Now I was on my last pink Mepps spinner (which seemed to be the lure of choice.)

I was now casting into a wider, more open stretch of the creek. A few casts in, another fish hit my lure hard. It felt jut like the first, but his time, I was ready. This time, I had room to backpedal when the fish neared the bank. I had room to pull the fish a couple of feet out of the water, but even then, I was worried it would get loose. The embankment was sloped, and for a second the fish began to slide back towards the creek! Luckily, my dad was there to scoop it up and toss it up to level ground. Finally! And sure enough, it was a nice silver.

(Also, notice how well my beard had progressed from the beginning of the summer.)

The fish was about 28 inches long. A beauty, at least to me.

We were fairly rough with the handling of the fish, so I decided to take it home for dinner the following night. As for my dad, he didn't end up catching anything, but I give him just as much credit for that fish. I'm not sure I would have landed it without his help.

Unfortunately, my dad had to leave the next morning so he missed out on the consumption of the fish. At least I was still able to share it with some friends. It turned out every bit as delicious as the king salmon I caught earlier in the summer. Silvers are a little more lean than kings, but I found them to be equally tasty.

My summer would be ending soon. At that point, I was completely content with my summer accomplishments. I went on some awesome adventures, I caught and prepared some delicious fish, and I made some lifelong friends. What more can you ask for during a summer in Alaska? Well, there is a lot more, and I barely scratched the surfaces of all of Alaska's offerings. I have a feeling that one day I'll be back, experiencing more of Alaska, and making more friends. Even if I do, the summer of 2011 will be a tough one to beat.