The Day I was a Fisherman!

Oh my, that is a lot of fish!

                                                 

Valdez, Alaska, how you amaze me. First of all, you are absolutely gorgeous.  Take a look:

Here is the fish hatchery in Valdez. There are often a lot of bears here, though we didn't see any this trip.

Lots of salmon!

There are SO many waterfalls along the highway right outside of Valdez. Here is one of the many:

My lovely husband, conquering Horsetail Falls!

Thompson Pass in the Chugach Mountain Range. It is the snowiest place in Alaska in the winter (according to this site).  

So I really love scenery pictures more when there are people in them. Here is my attempt. The sun was so bright in my eyes and I was feeling pretty sick (it honestly hurt to smile), but I made it through nonetheless! 

And this is just us being cute, with Valdez in the background. 

In the background you can see the final terminal for the
Trans-Alaskan Pipeline System.

Secondly, Valdez has some amazing fishing. Last year, Marshall went on a very successful Army-sponsored fishing charter, and he wanted to do it again this year. On first thought, I was going to let him go alone because of the cost of the charter. But the more I thought about it, I realized that I wanted the experience too. How lame would it have been to have lived in Alaska but never experience deep sea fishing? Especially if I was given the chance? Words cannot describe how happy I was to join my husband on this fishing charter. Like I said in my last post, money is money, but experiences are priceless!

We booked our charter through Fish Central, and our boat was the Halibut Grove. Seth, our captain, was absolutely phenomenal.  He knew exactly where to take us in order to be successful. I have only fished once in my life, but never have I deep sea fished.  But even though I had no experience, somehow I was the first person to pull up a fish on our charter that day! And here is my beauty: 

It was so amazing to watch this brightly colored fish pull up through the water!

This one is for you, Dad!

We nearly caught our limits that day, though we were short one rock fish. Marshall kept on pulling up lingcod, but he had to throw them back since we had already reached our limits on those. When we got out to the halibut area, I was on fire. I pulled up four halibut, one right after the other, to the chagrin of the experienced man next to me. It was so satisfying to be so successful!! Since I was only allowed two halibut per day, I gave the other two to other people on the charter. I do have to give some credit to Seth, our captain. Near the beginning of the charter, my fishing was slow, but Seth would come over and assist. He would put the correct bait or lure on the end and watch to let me know how to tell when a fish was on. Bonus factor: Seth knew everyone's name, and was using them, by the time we were fishing. Now that's what I call good customer service! 

We were on the boat for 11 hours. It took 2.5 hours to get out to where we fished. Here was our final tally:

Halibut: 4

Yellow-eyed Rockfish: 3

Rockfish: 4

Lingcod: 4

This is our charter's entire haul: 

Marshall and I brought home 15 fish, totaling over 91 pounds of filleted fish. Our deep freeze is full! And to gross everyone out, I made sure to keep all of our carcasses and heads...do you know how delicious those are in soups and chowders?  My case was validated when an Asian lady came over to us while we were processing our fish and asked for three fish heads. We gladly gave her what she wanted, though I wish I could have learned from her expertise about how to make legit fish head soup. I guess I'll have to make my own journey on the learning curve.  

What a wonderful trip we had. We sure got a lot of fish.  Imagine how awesome it would have been if we had fished for more than one day...

Along the Denali Highway. This is close to the beginning of the Nenana River.
 I love how green everything is!