31 July 2017
Tomorrow is our oldest Grandson’s birthday. We remember the day he was born like yesterday, wow 2002. Happy Birthday Brandon, we love you!
Anchor Point SP
The name Anchor Point comes from a legend that when Capt James Cook discovered the area, he lost an anchor. Not sure if they ever found it….but good story.
Settlers came beginning in the early 1900s with a current population of about 2000 people. It is located on the Sterling Hwy, about 14 miles north of Homer, and is the furthest west point of the U.S. highway system.
From east to west, our “tail” has swung a long way, as we were close to Lubec, Maine the eastern most spot when we traveled to Prince Edward Island last year!
And the “tail wag” of traveling from the Southernmost US in Key West to northernmost city with public road access of Fairbanks,, and not to mention the Arctic Circle (not so public road…)
We have been waiting for this day for over a week when our last fishing charter was canceled due to bad weather. This morning, we woke up to 48 degrees and a beautiful sunrise. We do not see to many of those, just a bit too early for us.
At 0530, we walked to the boat launch from our campsite, just 200 yards away to meet the boat. Along the beach, there were many eagles and gulls feasting on salmon due to the low tide. We struck up a conversion with a lady selling breakfast burritos, coffee, and coffee cake. Bought one of each, ate the burrito, more on that later.
The boat arrives, we meet our Capt, Hunter and deckhand, Haley, along with four other fishing mates. We climb aboard, and a big tractor takes us down the hill and out into the surf and launches us.
Seas were rough as we cruised 40 mph, 25 miles southwest into the Cook Inlet. Two volcanoes, Redoubt and Iliamana were displaying their height in the early morning sun. After about an hour we set anchor in 250 feet of water. Did I mention the seas were rough? Remember the burrito…… Oh boy, I was feeling a little green.
Within an hour, the six of us lowered our baited hooks, tied to a 4 lb sinker, 250 feet below. As we rock and roll with the seas, I’m thinking about looking for the tail of Capt Cooks anchor and let this burrito sink, but I recovered.
Fishing for halibut is a bit like fishing for a grand piano. You wait for the tip of the fishing pole bend, you see a couple of tugs, and then you commence to reel, and reel, and reel. Remember 250 feet pulling up a piano. We were getting tired and others wanted to help reel, and I said heck no, it’s all mine…..Lots of fun and some work.
Ann Marie, caught the 2nd and 3rd fish. She reeled and reeled and caught a 10 pound cod that turned into bait fish. She no sooner dropped her baited hook again, and the fight was on and so was the reeling, and reeling……This time a 30 inch shark. Ann Marie was happy to catch the shark until she had to throw it back in.. ( did I say throw..)
Her next two fish were also shark, each getting bigger, but neither she could keep. Then the magic happened and she pulled in her halibut !
So, we thought we had two halibut that we could get two more, but under 28 inches. Well I got that “tale” wrong, once you get a halibut over 28 inches, you are done for the day. Oh, well. We had fun, the seas smoothed out, and it was much warmer.
Capt Hunter radioed back to the boat beach (there was no ramp) that we heading in, the tractor had our trailer in the surf, and Hunter guided the boat on to the trailer. (see video).
We had a great day, got 25 pounds of halibut for our fish freezer and we were home by 1300 to take a nap!.