2025-06-20 Fishing Trip

Starting on July 1st I am booked pretty much for the entire month of July with trips with guests. So, I decided to take advantage of 3 days of good weather coinciding with no real commitments to keep me in town and do some fishing. My daughter graciously agreed to watch my dog Nova, so I did not have to worry about getting her to shore for potty breaks.

For this trip I left early on a Friday morning and returned on Sunday afternoon. I logged just a hair short of 100 nm. Here is my track as recorded by my InReach device.

The area circled in blue in the upper right is where I spent the night both nights. More about that later.

I started out trolling at Mountain Point. Of course, since I was alone, I could only troll one line.

There were a lot of commercial trollers working the area.

These boats fish by dropping either 2 or 4 heavy steel lines down with 30 - 40 lb lead balls on the bottom. Then they attach multiple leaders onto the main lines so they can effectively fish a great many rigs at the same time. They are not in it for the sport; they are there to make money. It's a business.

There were also numerous sport charter boats fishing in the area.

These boats have guests on board, usually from the cruise ships, but they could also be just visitors to town that flew in or came in by ferry. The charter fishing industry is a big part of Ketchikan's economy in the summer.

For all the boats in the area, both commercial and sport, I did not see any fish being landed, although I'm sure the commercial trollers must have been hitting fish, or they wouldn't have stayed there.

I trolled here for several hours without even a bump. I tried various rigs, and I moved the downrigger up and down to various depths, but to no avail.

Eventually I gave up for the day and started thinking about where I would hang out for the night. My first choice, Plan A if you will, was on the mooring buoy in Ice House Cove, which was just a few miles across from Mountain Point where I was fishing.

These mooring buoys are placed and maintained by the Forest Service, and they are "first come, first served," so there is no guarantee that it will be available when you want it.

Here's a more detailed look at Ice House Cove tucked in behind Carroll Point. The mooring buoy is circled in blue.

When I got over there I saw 3 or 4 commercial trollers anchored in the outer areas. When I threaded my way past them I could see there was a vessel on the mooring buoy already.

There is a company that runs kayak tours in this area and they have a vessel about 42' long that they leave over in this area all summer. They keep their kayaks on it and they run their guests out from town in small boats. For the last few summers they have anchored their main support vessel in a little cove outside of Ice House Cove. But it appears that for this summer they decided to move into the cove itself and take the mooring buoy.

This upset me a bit since the mooring buoy is supposed to be for recreational users, not for commercial purposes.

In any case, I moved on.

In this photo the blue star shows where I was trolling. The area circled in blue at the lower end of the photo is Ice House Cove where I was hoping to spend the night. The area circled in blue at the upper end of the photo is where I ended up going for the night. There is a mooring buoy there as well.

It took me about an hour to run from Ice House Cove up to the little cove where I stayed the night. Here's a closer look at that unnamed cove just North of Osten Island in Carroll Inlet.

The area circled in blue is where the mooring buoy is placed. One of my friends told me that some years ago when he was very active in the Ketchikan Yacht Club this was his project. Apparently, he was very instrumental in getting this mooring buoy placed in this little cove.

There was a stunning sunset that evening. The sun was a bright red ball hanging just above the trees. I shot photos with both my Nikon D7500 and with my cell phone, and they were all disappointing. They just did not capture the vivid color of that sunset. I take a lot of photos, but I am not trained in photography so I'm sure there were settings that I could have changed on my Nikon to actually capture the beauty of the sunset.

I had a quiet night on the mooring buoy. Of course, this is the summer solstice, so it did not get dark until very late. Later in the evening a couple of commercial boats were headed right for my little cove and I thought that I would have company for the night. But, at the last moment they swerved away and went somewhere else. I enjoyed the solitude that night.

In the evening it was 88 F inside the cabin, so I had all the windows and doors open. Thankfully, there were no bugs around.

In the morning as always, I was up early. I have started a new "thing" on the boat recently. When I sack out for the night, I leave my Apple Music playlists playing, sometimes all night. Of course, I wouldn't do that if I had guests aboard, but when I am alone, why not?

I pulled away from the mooring buoy at about 7 AM. Carroll Inlet was glassy flat, and the weather was sunny and warm. A beautiful day in the neighborhood.

As I rounded Rock Point in the southern exit to Carroll Inlet I came across a pod of Orcas. I stopped and got some pretty good photos with my telephoto lens.

My camera shoots video as well as stills, but I am uncertain if I can shoot videos through my telephoto lens. I will need to research that.

The weather was good, so I motored out to Cone Island which is at the head of Thorne Arm. This is a popular fishing area and back in the day when we had a salmon derby every summer this spot used to be fished heavily during the derby.

Here is a shot that shows Cone Island and the corner where I was fishing (blue double headed arrow on the right). The blue arrow on the left points to the route back to town. I was very surprised to see virtually no other boats here when I arrived.

I fished here for several hours but the only exciting times were seeing yet another large pod of Orcas come through, and getting a license check by the State Troopers.

Here are some shots of the Orcas that came through. I had always heard that if you see Orcas when you are trolling for salmon you might as well pack up and move elsewhere because the Orcas feed on salmon and the salmon will vacate the area. I don't know if that is actually true, but I waited a bit until after the Orcas had passed through before setting my gear.

The Orcas were quite playful. There was no breaching, but there was a lot of tail slapping going on. And the conditions for shooting photos were excellent.

I thought that I had gotten some terrific Orca shots, but when I got back to town and checked Facebook, I saw that someone had posted video of a large group of Orcas right in front of our airport and they were breaching multiple times. Kind of put my still photos to shame.

The only other excitement I had out here at Cone Island was that I got a license check by the State Troopers. They came bombing by in a fast boat and pulled alongside. An officer came on board and checked my license. When he saw my single line in the water and that I was alone on board he said I needed some friends. I told him yeah; I'm working on that.

In Alaska they allow seniors to get what they call a "Permanent ID." It is a permanent license which allows us to fish, hunt, and trap without having to get a new license each year. I don't hunt any longer and I have never trapped, but I do fish, so it is a great senior benefit.

I fished alone here for several hours with not so much as a bump.

When it got to be late afternoon, I pulled the gear and headed in for the night. I poked my head into Ice House Cove again just long enough to confirm that the kayak tour host boat was still on the mooring buoy. So, I reluctantly headed up into Carroll Inlet and was able to secure the mooring buoy in that little cove again for the night.

I had another quiet night on the mooring buoy there. Whenever I spend the night on the anchor, I am always up many times in the night to check my position. Being on a mooring buoy in calm conditions allows me to get a lot better sleep at night. I do still set the shallow and deep-water alarms because you never know what can happen in the night.

In the morning when I got up it was very foggy, but still warm and calm.

When I left the mooring buoy, I stopped in front of Spit Point and bottom fished for about 90 minutes. But I got no fish, so I moved along.

I went back to the Mountain Point - Herring Cove drag for another couple of hours but did not even get a hit. I pulled the gear a little after noon and headed in.

On the way back in I passed a private moorage dock called Doyon's Landing. They offer private moorage for larger vessels that cannot fit into our public harbors. There was a JARBY (Just Another Really Big Yacht) tied up there named the "JustB."

The yacht JustB is 193'5" LOA (length overall.) She was built in 1973 and has a 10.6-meter beam (width.) She can carry 14 guests and 14 crew. She carries 85,500 liters of fuel.

We get a lot of JARBY's coming through town in the summer.

I stopped at the fuel dock and took on 165 gallons of diesel, so I am prepared for my next few trips.

I logged just a hair under 100 nm on this trip.