Articles & Other Destinations
Beyond East Texas
I have fished in Alaska, Minnesota, Washington, Costa Rica, Mexico, Brazil, Florida, and other places. I can make suggestions to help you plan that special fishing vacation.
I'll periodically post articles about these other places, just click on the title that interests you and be taken to that article.
Alaska trip, 2012
Fri May 9, 2014
This is an old article, describing one of my annual trips to my favorite Alaska lodge, the Sea Otter Sound. Even though this article was written in 2014, the still operates the same way today, just is a little larger ( can now accomodate up to 23 guests) and uses new, larger boats, but is still an unguided adventure.
Thirty degrees cooler than East Texas! That's what it was up at the fishing lodge in Alaska, an average daytime high of 63. This is how it went 2 years ago when I took my annual trip up there, and once again it was great.
I went with my friend and old Air Force buddy from Mineola, Bob Wilson. This was our third trip up together, and we again really enjoyed ourselves. It was a five days of fishing and five nights at the lodge trip, and took a total of 8 days off to do.
The lodge we go to is the Sea Otter Sound Lodge (www.seaottersoundlodge.com), located about 90 miles west of Ketchikan on Hecata Island. We got there by flying on an Alaska Airlines 737 from Seattle to Ketchikan, then a float plane out to the lodge. The lodge itself is floating, it's made from an old lumber station, so the floatplane just taxies right up to the lodge dock and unloads people, baggage and supplies. Room assignments, clothing and equipment issue, a quick breakfast, a briefing from the proprietors, Tim and Murtie Comer, then off to fishing.
This lodge specializes in unguided fishing, so guests set their own pace and fish how and when they want to. The boats are docked right beside the rooms, so guests don't have to comply with a transport schedule, just the breakfast and dinner times. A lunch is packed so that it can be had on board, rather than return to camp.
Nineteen foot covered boats, with GPS, fishfinders, and marine 2-way radios, plus all the tackle needed to go after salmon, lingcod, halibut and rockfish.
Bob and I immediately set off for salmon, but were also armed for the bottomfish. We also had plans to go after halibut on one day, which we did, plus we like fishing for the black rockfish, which look a lot like our black bass and school up like our white bass.
Our trip was marked by an intermittant salmon bite caused by the unusually cold water, average water temp about 47 degrees, instead of the normal 53 degrees for this time. We still managed to bring back about 25 pounds of silver salmon fillets apiece, plus another 25 pounds of halibut, ling cod, and rockfish each. Our largest silver salmon were about 10 pounds, the halibut about 25 (we didn't fish for the really big halibut).
For the salmon we primarily trolled, using diving planes (like the Pink Lady) and plastic squids, but all of the bottom fishing was done hands on using jigging spoons, curly tails and cut bait.
Alaskan wildlife was everywhere. Each day we saw sea otters, bald eagles, and humpback whales. At times the whales put on spectacular displys of feeding, jumping, and waving their huge fins, and every evening we had about 40 eagles around the camp to get the fish carcasses.
Two meals a day were served in the lodge, breakfast and dinner, at a large table that seats all 16 guests. Meals were served family style, and most had either a Southwestern flavor from the hosts' Texas and California backgrounds, or uniquely Alaskan seafood based recipes.
It was a great trip, and coming back to the East Texas heat made us all the more ready to go up again next year.
Newer Other Destinations
If you're interested, you can see what the conditions on Lake Palestine were like on:
Older Other Destinations
If you're interested, you can see what the conditions on Lake Palestine were like on:
