#2013-36 July 4th Celebrations in Sitka

It's been a busy three weeks and the Blog has taken a backseat while the crews have been fishing like crazy. We'll be updating the Blog, going back in time, over the next few days.

July 4th in Sitka, like all Alaska communities, is a BIG deal.  In Alaska, fireworks begin on July 3rd, about 11PM, an hour or so before  July 4th. It's a huge show, with fireworks launched from at least four different locations around the community.  It's so big that the Coast Guard issues a special Notice to Mariners alerting vessels of the safety zone near the launch sites.  In Eliason Harbor, we are in the center of three displays: from the east at the high school, from the south in downtown, and from the west at the airport!  The fireworks are extensive and lengthy, continuing past 1AM. See the video of just one display below. In the afternoon, the town closes down for a big parade.

Fireworks from the Airport.

Fireworks from the High School

For the past 3 weeks or so, while hooking some 400 pounds of salmon, we've been hooked on cookies.  The Sitka Cookie Kids walk the docks selling fresh, homemade cookies, and these aren't like your mother's cookies....they're better!  The Wild Blue crew is one of the Kids best customers.  The cookie selections are chocolate chip, rice-crispy squares with M&M's, and backpack style oatmeal with fruit chewys, our favorite.  We interviewed these future business tycoons for the Blog below.

Our chef for the week has been Willie of Willie Bird Restaurants and Willie Bird Turkeys, Santa Rosa, California.  Willie has prepared some really tasty dishes for a top notch epicurean experience.  And not once did we dine on turkey!  

Willie describes our July 4th dinner.  

Next week we leave Sitka and head south in the Gulf of Alaska along Baranof Island's west coast.  We'll see what the Gulf deals us and plan to be in Craig on about July 14th or 15th.  Hope to Blog then.

#2013-35 How Many Fish Can We Lose?

By 8:30AM on our last day in Whale Bay, we're again fishing the hot spots.  Too sleepy and a bit hungover, our technique is rusty and within 1 hour we have lost 5 fish! But, by the end of the day we have landed 9 Cohos and released 3 King salmon, one a 36-inch 20+ pounder.  Commercial salmon season opened today and now the Bay is filled with many trollers.  It's a good day to return to Sitka, so we head back to town but stop short anchoring at Hot Springs Bay. Willie cleans fish while Joe and Mike bag them.  We end the day with delicious ribs or salmon steaks in our stomachs.

The Wild Blue college crew spent the next few days exploring Sitka and cleaning the boat.  Everyone was anticipating yet another spectacular 3-D July 3rd Fireworks show.

Two college graduates demystify the Seal-A-Meal.

This Canadian ship is from the International
Pacific Halibut Commission (IHPC) and enforces halibut fishing. 

Enforcer is a Alaska Fish and Game vessel.

The meat eaters dine on Cajun pork ribs.

The non-meat guy is stuck with day old fried King salmon steak.

#2013-34 Return to King City

After a good night's sleep we once again began trolling off Port Banks about mid-morning.  We also fish off Krishka Island and our old favorite King City.  We boat many Cohos and by 3PM we are releasing large King salmon.  The crew has reached their daily limit of one King salmon each, as well as the annual King limit of 3 each, on the very last day possible.  It's back up the Small Arm for the evening. After the fish cleaning and vacuum bag sealing, we sit down to Willie's Sashimi and clam linguine.  Awesome!

Eagle watches over our fishing.

Fish cleaning just like cleaning chickens, says Joe!

Fresh Coho salmon sashimi in soy with capers.

Baby shrimp over salad greens then clam linguine.

#2013-33 Emergency Fishing Order Flop

On June 26th the Alaska Fish and Game issued an Emergency Order opening up a section of Silver Bay for King salmon sports fishing.  Luckily (not), Alex just happened to peruse the AFG website and discovered the 3-day old Order. This order was unique because any King salmon landed did not count towards a fisherman's annual limit.  The current annual King limit was 3, dropping to 2 by Jun 30th, then just 1 by July 15th.  Silver Bay is just a 30 minute run south of Sitka, keeping us close to port.  So with visions of landing countless King salmon, we shoved off at 6AM for a full fishing day.  We began trolling just after 6:30 surprised not to see a gaggle of sports-fishers choking Silver Bay.  

This was not Whale Bay fishing.  The first 3 hours were biteless.  It took until near noon to land a fish, and it wasn't a King.  We struggled through to 2:30 finally giving up.  

Realizing we were spoiled, we headed into Sitka to provision for another Whale Bay expedition.  We were off the dock again at 5:30PM and made it into Still Harbor at Whale Bay by 10PM sunset, enjoying flat seas the last 7 miles. It had been a long day, the crew was ready to sleep in.

The Sitka to Whale bay route runs through narrow passes with
 flat waters for 25 of the 32 mile run, the last 7 miles in open ocean.

#2013-32 Fishing at 500 Feet, then Sitka Civilization.

On Friday we pulled two crab traps set last night and scooped up three large male crabs.  They were boiled before breakfast and ready for a crab taco lunch.  We returned to the Port Banks fishing ground and bagged several Cohos in less than an hour before putting out to sea, 4 miles northwest of Whale Bay in open ocean.  At 500 feet deep the location is considered a Halibut Hole.  We have just one rod rigged for DEEP water fishing and Willie dropped a white-wiggly lead head to the bottom.  We drifted along for a half-hour in the relatively flat sea without a hint of breeze.  Willie hooked up spending the better part of twenty minutes getting the monster form the deep up topside.  Expecting a Halibut we were surprised to land a very pretty yellow eye.  These fish are said the be over 50 years old for the 20-pound size Willie landed.

 It was time to get our fish into Sitka for processing and freezer storage and prepare for a night at the Sitka Summer Music Festival.  After crab tacos we hit the road.

Mike, Joe and Willie hold a 20-pound Yellow Eye.

Yummy crab tacos.

Salmon transporters haul fish to processors so trollers can stay out longer.

Sea Otter is surprised by the big blue hull. 

The route to Sitka winds through narrow but protected passes.

We enjoyed an early dinner won-tons, avocado shrimp salad, risotto, and fried Coho salmon bits. By 6PM we were on our way to the Sitka Summer Music Festival.  The Wild Blue crew had cleaned up.  Willie wore a new Hawaiian shirt with clean walking shorts.  And he hosed off his flip-flops so even they were sparkling, or at least without fish guts.  We were in our front row seats for the pre-concert orientation.  The presentation was a bit slow and Willie, as expected, began nodding his head.  Tonight's performance was videoed for later release, so Joe was assigned to keep Willie from snoring.  Joe did a great job and we all enjoyed pianist Natasha Paremski, violist Kirsten Docter, cellist Zuill Bailey, and cellist Melissa Kraut in a brilliant classical music performance.

Avocado shrimp salad, risotto, and fried Coho salmon bits.

Willie's spicy won-tons

#2013-31 Another Great Day of Fishing Whale Bay

On Thursday we awoke in our Port Banks anchorage and retrieved the two crab traps we set last week.  They contained 7 days of emptiness, but the morning was enlightened by the site of a moving brown rock just along the shore.  This furry rock was busy turning over other heavy gray rocks in search of edibles.  So we diverted the tender close ashore for some exciting Brown bear close-ups.  Mister Bear was not in the least disturbed by us humanoids.

Brown rock turns into Brown bear.

Brown bears can not be bothered by close humans.

Yum!  Something under that rock looks good.

Anchored at Port Banks

 After breakfast we got back to fishing just outside Port banks in flat calm weather and water.  The bite was on and by noon we hand our daily King limit plus so many Cohos that the fish cleaning crew, Willie and Joe, would be overburdened.  Joe caught a pretty good-sized salmon and we anchored in Kristoi Basin for lunch.  After lunch we headed to Small Arm anchorage for the evening.

Joe's BIG King.

Landing a Coho Salmon.

Cigar-smoking King.

After a several rounds of refreshment during the heavy fish cleaning session, Willie still was able to prepare a dynamite dinner that included fresh King Salmon Sashimi and giant prawns New Orleans style.

Willie's King Salmon Sashimi.

Willie's Prawns a la New Orleans.

#2013-30 The Cal Poly College Roommates Arrive

June 24, 2013

This afternoon three of Alex's college buddies arrived in Sitka for our annual fishing cruise on Wild Blue. Willie Benedetti, Joe Cebe. Mike Celentano and Alex are alumni of Cal Poly University, San Luis Obispo, members of the 1970 and 1971 graduating classes. As expected we did have fun in college, and each year we reflect on those wild "learning" times. Surprisingly, all of us ended up in business for ourselves: Willie runs turkey ranching, restaurant and poultry products business WillieBird.com; Joe runs a specialty chicken ranching business selling live chickens to the Asian and Hispanic markets CebeFarms.com; Mike has a CPA Auditing Practice for governments and non-profits, and Alex has a real estate and lodging business BensonProperties.com.  This is our 4th time crewing together on the Wild Blue.

As always, Willie arrives with a GIANT cooler full of food: smoked chicken, duck breast, chicken thighs, prawns, salad shrimp, seasonings, salad dressing, croutons, ribs, steaks, whole chickens and a couple bottles of his favorite beverage, cranberry juice.  Seems we're always running out of cranberry juice on the the boat when Willie is around.  He leaves all this food behind in hopes of filling his cooler with fish.  To that end Alex breaks the news to the new crew: the local fishing sucks but we found some good spots in Whale Bay.  So provision the boat tonight with fresh food, bait, hooks, leader, nose clips, lots of ice and beverages and we'll get an early start tomorrow.

June 25, 2013

We're on the way by 8am headed for the Bay.  The last hour in the Gulf, the seas are 5 feet but coming from the starboard aft quarter so the ride is OK.  We arrive and begin trolling out in front of Port Banks, an area that is protected form the ocean swells.  Soon we have 2 kings aboard both over 32 inches.  Later we move down to King City and land a 33-inch King.  We're done for the day and head over to anchor on the eastern shore of Port Banks.  As soon as the boat is anchored Willie is ready to serve a delicious baked chicken dinner.  

Surfbird shared the fish with us in Whale Bay.  A nice group charter boat.

Willies Baked Chicken

Salad with shrimp topping, potatoes, and dressing accompany
the half chicken.