Fishing for Barn Doors & Lingcod

We got up in plenty of time to find our boat. We ate a good breakfast and got our fishing licenses and our derby tickets just in case we got lucky and got a big barn door halibut. The boat was called the Ivory Queen and the captain, Trevor, was a very nice guy that knew his fishing. We motored out of the harbor and headed north. Our first stop was going to hopefully be for some giant lingcod.

I thought there were fish everywhere in Alaska so I was surprised that it was a long run to our first fishing spot. It took somewhere close to four hours to get there. We got ready to fish a fast moving tide along a reef close to the shore of an island. We must have been doing somewhere between 5 and 7 knots of drift. I threw over a large white knife jig that weighed about 18 ounces and was about fifteen inches long. It sank to the bottom and I felt it touch so I reeled up a bit to keep from snagging it and I was hit immediately. I just started to bring it up real slow and easy. The fish never tried to run or dive. It just slowly swam up to the surface and the captain gaffed it as soon as it hit the surface. Bam 65 pound lingcod on the deck after two minutes of fishing. We went around for another drift and I dropped it in again. This time nothing and at the end of the drift the captain said bring em up so I did. Just as it reached the surface another big ling came following it up. I stopped reeling and gave it some slack line to let the lure flutter down a bit then I reeled hard to entice the big fish to bite. It worked and the ling took the lure. I reeled in about ten turns and the captain gaffed it. Bam Bam two big ass twin 65 pound lingcod on deck and we were only five minutes into fishing. Alaska is hot for fishing I was thinking. We went around for another drift and as I went to drop the captain told me that I was done fishing because I already had a limit. He told me I had to stop fishing. What? I argued for a minute but he was the captain and he knew the rules not me so I reluctantly stopped fishing and watched the other three anglers work the reef. We did several more drifts and nobody else got any fish. One of the guys tried the jig that I caught mine on and lost it as soon as it hit the bottom. Such is life.

The other anglers got tired of the difficult fishing conditions and decided that they would rather go fish for big butts. Yeah. I got to fish again. We went to a different location near a river mouth and dropped our gear into the water along with a big chum bag to attract the fish. It wasn't long before we started to catch some smaller halibut around 20-30 pounds, called chickens. No barn doors so the captain moved us to a few more locations and all we got was more chickens. A thirty pound halibut is only a disappointment in Alaska, anywhere else it is a great fish to catch. I wasn't disappointed. One of the other guys finally hooked into something heavier and the fight was on After about ten minutes though the hook pulled and we were back to catching chickens. That was it for that day and we headed back to the harbor.

After dropping my fish off at the processor, we headed out to find some dinner and fun. We ate a nice meal in a cafe then bar hopped with some friends for a few hours. There was live music that I really enjoyed listening to by a band called Twitching Sushi. They were local musicians but they were very entertaining and fun. I enjoyed myself but we were fishing again early the next day so I called it a night and we went back to the hotel to catch some sleep.

The next day of fishing was for halibut. The tide was huge and it was tough to keep our gear on the bottom without tangles. We were working an area and then trying a new area. I finally had some harder pull on one of my fish and after a short fight I landed a 75 pound butt. Not a barn door but still the largest halibut I ever caught. I again caught its twin about a half hour later. My friend caught an interesting fish that looked like a bright pink striped tiger. The beautiful colors on the rockfish started to fade right after he caught it. This type of fish is generally only found in much deeper water so not many of them are ever caught. Otherwise we were just catching and releasing smaller halibuts.

We saw lots of big salmon sharks so I put out a rig with a whole salmon carcass as a bait. I fished it for hours and got nothing at all. Finally our fishing time was up and we headed back in to the harbor. I enjoyed fishing with our captain and he brought his cute wife the second day also. They were fun to talk to. They had big ambitions and liked to talk about their plans. I wish I was still young and full of hope and ambition like they were. We had a good time and had lots of fish to send back home but I never got my big barn door. Maybe next time.

We drove around Homer and looked at the boats used for crabbing in the dry docks. Boats from the TV show were there like Time Bandit and several others. Then we had an all you can eat king crab feast before going out on the town with friends again. This time there was more live music at a different bar. They had a different name but it was the same musicians as the other night playing a slightly different type of music. The entire same group of customers and fans from the night before were at this bar tonight. They were like band groupies following them around from bar to bar.

Most of the bars we went to the men and women hung out separately for the most part. I thought that was kind of strange and I asked the people about it. It turned out that almost all the girls were lumberjack lesbians according to the men sitting around the bar by themselves. The men complained bitterly that there were no straight girls around for them to interact with. I thought that maybe it ws the guys so I went and talked to the girls and they told me that almost all of them were not interested in men at all, especially the macho men at the bar. I had to laugh at the disparity of the two groups but I could see why they weren't interacting very much. Any straight girls looking for men should go up to Alaska because there is definitely a shortage up there of eligible women for the guys.

I drove back up to Anchorage when my time was up in Homer. The drive back was uneventful and I drove straight to the airport and flew back to San Francisco. My fish arrived a couple of days later and I had to scramble to find people to take some because there was way more than I could ever store in my little freezer. It sure was tasty.