Salmon Fishing

One of the things that is typically Alaskan is salmon fishing. The state is known for its salmon and all 5 major species of the fish (Chum, Sockeye, King, Silver and Pink) can be found there. One of the excursions Royal Caribbean Cruises offers on its Alaska cruise is salmon fishing. My last fishing excursion with Royal Caribbean was a fiasco. I went deep sea fishing out of St. Maarten during my first cruise with Royal Caribbean. It cost $200 to go. Out of 6 people on the boat, only 1 of us caught a fish. You can say fishing is always iffy and, I would agree with you. However, the thing that made the trip a fiasco was when the captain of the boat refused to return us to our cruise ship. I ended up walking 2 miles to get back to the ship. As you can see, I didn't forget it. Between not catching a fish and the fiasco of getting back to the boat, I was leery of doing another fishing excursion and yet, it would be neat to go salmon fishing. I checked with folks who actually live in Alaska to find out if the salmon were running during June. They said the king salmon would be. Ok. That sounded like I had a decent shot at catching a fish. According to the description of the excursion (Knudson Cove Salmon Fishing), it sounded like the fishing boat wasn't that far from the cruise ship pier so, I figured it wouldn't be that hard to get back to the ship if I was stranded again plus, I had the local currency i.e. U.S. dollars since the excursion was in Ketchikan, Alaska. So, I signed up.

My travel friend Harvey also signed up for the excursion and, the 2 of us walked off the boat and did a combination lumberjack show and Ketchikan town tour (I'll blog about that later) before returning to the cruise ship pier. Once there, we looked for the sign for our fishing excursion. We found it and to our surprise, there were 46 people that had signed up! On our drive in, I found out how it worked. Apparently, they find out how many people want to go fishing and then, they find the required number of spots of various fishing boats. Then, they notify the captains of the boats they will have so many customers. The people going fishing get assigned randomly to the boats. I would be assigned to the M/V Silver Lady captained by Ivan Leighton.

The M/V Silver Lady was a nice fishing boat as far as I could tell. One interesting aspect of our fishing was we would troll for the salmon. That means, we would regular rods and reels with weights attached to the fishing line that enabled the captain to take the line down to a certain depth (presumably where his fish locator saw where the fish were). Also, it enabled him to space the lines so there was a minimum chance of them getting tangled. There were 5 of us on the boat and, each of us picked our rod that we would watch during the excursion. One tricky thing about trolling was the pull of the boat on the lines caused the rod tips to jerk a lot which to me was a sign of a bite. It seemed a bit tricky trying to figure out when your rod was moving because of the boat vice getting a hit from a fish.

Harvey was the first to get a hit. The way Harvey had to fight to bring his fish in, it looked like it would be a big one. Sadly, it turned out not to be long enough to keep (it has to be 27 inches I believe). Still, it was the biggest fish Harvey had ever caught. After Harvey took a picture of his biggest catch, Captain Leighton removed the fish hook from its mouth and let it go. The second person on the boat to catch a fish was unknown to me. He caught a 14 pound chum salmon which looked enormous. Captain Leighton landed the fish and put it in a cooler filled with ice which was used just for the purpose. The third and last fish our group caught was brought in by me. When the fish struck, I was uncertain I had a bite because of the pull of the boat on the line. I picked up the rod and, the fish struck again. This time, I was pretty certain I had a fish. Captain Leighton told me to set the hook which I subsequently did. Then, the fight ensued to bring the fish in. The fish gave a surprisingly good fight. At times, the line wouldn't come in because of the resistance the fish was giving. Like deep sea fishing, I'd have to raise the rod up to get some slack line to reel in. After possibly 10 minutes of our tug of war, I finally got to see the fish I'd hooked. It looked huge. Captain Leighton identified it as a king salmon, said it was a keeper and broke out the landing net. The fish continued to fight and, the captain had a time landing the fish. Finally, he succeeded and, he put in the cooler with the chum salmon the other fisherman caught. Because I'd caught a king salmon, my fishing was done. The captain had a rule where if you caught one you could keep, you were done. This was to ensure that hopefully everyone caught a fish. Captain Leighton then worked on spotting more fish so that Harvey and the 2 others who hadn't caught one yet could catch their prize fish. Sadly, it wasn't to be. While trolling around, the captain was nice enough to provide some drinks and some delicious salmon dip his wife made.

Our cruise ship was scheduled to set sail from Ketchikan at 4:30 p.m. Captain Leighton tried to give us as much fishing time as he could get away with. Finally, we had to head back Knudson Cove. There, the 2 fish our group had a caught were weighed and, we could get pictures taken with our catch. The chum salmon the unknown fisherman caught came in at over 14 pounds. My king salmon tipped the scales at just over 20 pounds. My salmon had been tagged by some government department who wanted the tag back so they could log the date the fish was caught, where and how much it ended up weighing. Supposedly, I'd be emailed the history of the fish which I thought was interesting.

At this point, you get to decide if you want to keep the fish and if so, how do you want it processed. There are 2 methods. You can get it cut up fresh into weighed packages, frozen and shipped via Federal Express OR, you can get it smoked, cut up into weighed packages and shipped via Federal Express. It costs $3 more a pound to have it smoked. Also, apparently some salmon are better smoked then sent fresh. The person who took processing orders recommended the guy who caught the chum salmon have it smoked while in my case, she recommended I have it prepared fresh. As I don't know diddly about salmon, I took her recommendation.

After we finished the paperwork for the fish processing, we dashed for the bus that would take us back to the cruise ship pier. To the annoyance of the ship, we arrived back 20 minutes late. The ship does have a rule where they can leave you if you are excessively late but, I figured since I was on an excursion sanctioned by the ship, they couldn't blame me for being late and, I didn't think they'd leave me or my friend Harvey. Still, I don't think I've seen the security folks process me back on board the boat as fast they did when we got back from the fishing excursion.

Overall, it was a fun fishing trip. Harvey and I both caught a fish. Also, tt was very scenic as we got to see bald eagles flying around and snow covered mountains in the background. I was surprised by how many fishing boats were out trying to catch fish. I think Captain Ivan Leighton did a bang up job. I'd gladly go fishing again with him. If anyone is interested in contacting the captain about going fishing, leave me a comment and, I'll pass on the information I have from his business card. This is one Alaska experience you should try. Stay tuned for more post on my Alaska adventure.