A Day on the Water 2003

In August Dave and Sue Use took a trip with me aboard the Reel Job. The day started out pretty normal, Dave and Sue were in Juneau vacationing. They were staying at a B and B and wanted to spend some time on the water, try a little fishing and checking out the local whale activity. Since there were only two I gave Jess the day off and set out with Dave and Sue to enjoy a day on the water.

Fortunately they brought their cameras and used them. The first shot is leaving Auke Bay Harbor. I can't tell you how warm and fuzzy Auke Bay makes me feel. Living on an island isolated from the world this is my portal to the 21st century. I belong here. People wave and greet me on the floats. All physical contact between Whale's Eye and the rest of the world comes through Auke Bay; our guests, our groceries, our mail. It's a lovely little harbor although sometimes too busy.

Point Retreat on the northern tip of Admiralty Island is a favorite fishing spot. We decide to through in a line and see what happens. They got this shot of the lighthouse with the Eagle Glacier in the background. Beyond those mountain peeks is the Juneau Ice Field, over 5,000 square miles of ice some of it over a mile thick. The glaciers around Juneau are just small, slow rivers of ice descending from this mother load ice field. In between the peeks on the mainland and Admiralty you can see the northern part of Shelter Island.

Its hard to concentrate on fish with all this spectacular scenery but the ever diligent guide keeps one eye glued on the rods. Dave lands this nice coho.

Sue, not to be outdone, lands two with a little help from her friend.

As the day unfolds Sue hooks a whopper halibut. She tries to talk Dave and I into helping her but she can't bring herself to give up the rod. If that sounds like a contradiction I can only offer that at 52 I remain somewhat confounded by the female nature.

Fighting for it's very life the halibut takes Sue to new plateaus of endurance. After several runs and about a half hour battle Sue's tenacity finally wins out. We boat the monster and head to the Lodge for a look around and some photos.

Not a bad day so far, we had some beautiful weather, lots of excitement, saw some whales and procured some great food right from the source--what else could you ask for? Oh, how about some bubble-netters--in your face.

We saw them go down in front of the lodge. They had been going down for about 5 minutes and exploding to the surface in a flurry of panicked herring and hungry gulls. You can see Favorite Reef Marker just past the whales, Hump and Lincoln Islands in the background and the Chilcat Range furthest back.

I was backing up to put some distance between the whales and us. Whales are usually pretty good about avoiding boats but they were thinking about their bellies now and I know how that is so I wanted to give them lots of room. I told my grandson Cody, who had come along to take the Uses back to town, to watch for the gulls and the tiny fish jumping because that is where the whales would come up.

I kept backing away hoping to keep my distance. The whales seemed to stay down longer then they had been. I hate that feeling of not knowing where they are. Finally Cody shouted Gram pa the fish are jumping behind us! I jammed the transmission in forward.

Luckily we were not too close. Someone, John or Sue had the presence to swing around and snap these photos just as the whales erupted. We are so close not all of the whales can get into the picture. Look at the huge billowed out throats of these predators. Straining thousands of gallons of water through their baleen for hundreds of pounds of herring. You can see one of the little buggers leaping to escape in the spray near the lower right of the left whale.

The whales sink slowly catch a few breaths and it starts all over again. Cody was impressed! Back to town we go and so concludes a near perfect day on the Reel Job. Thanks Dave and Sue for sharing your photos. Sharing days like this with people like you is what makes my job so rewarding.