Alaska always overdelivers on its promises. I’ve traveled there enough to accept this, but often return home surprised that once again it has surprised me.
The 49th state’s natural beauty and wildlife attract cruise passengers by the hundreds of thousands each summer. So too, come the anglers, lured by Alaska’s legendary sport fishing, hoping to bring home memories and boxes stuffed with their flash-frozen catch.
My youngest daughter, Sophia, graduated from high school in early June, and with an empty nest on the horizon I wanted to spend a few unforgettable days with her. We hoped to find them on the water during a three-night stay at the Steamboat Bay Fishing Club in southeast Alaska.
After an overnight in Ketchikan and a short floatplane trip, we sped over the water in our fishing boat with guide Josh Hoogerhyde, headed to the only lodge on Noyes Island. Every fishing trip yields its tales of triumph and failure, but Hoogerhyde proffered even more.
“It’s not all about the fishing,” he told us. “We want to take in the sea life — the whales, the sea otters — and the mountains, the bald eagles. As much as we can see.”
Sure enough, after a short stop at the lodge to gear up and grab breakfast, we stopped to watch three humpback whales feeding. They spend summers in Alaska gorging themselves for their long winter migrations to Hawaii and Mexico.
Suddenly, a humpback breached right in front of our boat. Then leaped completely out of the water, landing on its back. Again and again, it emerged from the water, putting on a show, then playfully slapped the surface repeatedly with a pectoral fin.
We were mesmerized. And hadn’t even caught a fish yet.
In search of king salmon
All of my childhood vacations involved fishing trips. My grandfather loved to fish, as did his only son, my father. And his only daughter, my Aunt Mary.
Like Polaroid pictures, the memories have faded over time. But I recall strings of rainbow trout, smoky campfires, Coleman stoves, being awakened at unholy hours, my sister Polly proudly walking into camp with a huge rainbow dangling from her pole.
Those were simpler times, no doubt. Guided fishing has become a high-tech endeavor, with the comforts of a heated cabin, GPS and fish finders marking big smudges of bait fish and bright red lines of a king salmon lurking underneath.
But at its heart fishing remains a pursuit of skill mixed with chance, of patience and persistence. Dropping a line and reeling it back, over and over. Hoping that the spinning herring bait attracts a predator, and that the predator will become prey.
Skill doesn’t always win out. Hoogerhyde described to us how last summer a teenager, on his first fishing trip, landed a 58-pound king salmon, an absolute monster.
That must have encouraged Sophia, who had never caught a fish. She landed the first on our boat, a black bass. Then dropped a line back in only to see the rod dip madly, then line begin to play out.
Which could only promise one thing – a king salmon. These are the prizes of an Alaskan fishing trip: fearsome fighters, great on the grill. After a fight of a few minutes on her own, with a little coaching from the guide, Sophia saw her king captured in the net.
It was a golden moment, for me anyway. As the trip approached friends would ask me whether the vacation was a graduation gift for Sophia. And I had to answer that it was her gift to me: A chance to share some meaningful moments before college plucked her away.
Later that day I landed a 25-pound king after a punishing fight that saw the salmon leap from the water, spinning angrily to try to shake the hook.
We caught our limit that day of kings, smaller halibut, and black bass, as well as an 18-pound lingcod. Hoogerhyde offered counsel periodically and took the requisite photos of us with our fish at the dock.
All worthy of remembering. But the photo that gets me misty is of Sophia holding up that salmon in the boat, grinning.
The rhythm of lodge life
Life at the lodge settled into a rhythm after that first travel day. We rose early each day – about 5 a.m. – and joined other guests for breakfast. One group of guests included businessmen from Texas and Chicago, and the other was a Montana grandfather and his son and two young grandsons from Arizona.
At meals we shared small talk and fish stories. The Texans ribbed each other mercilessly and won Sophia over quickly with both their charm and a fistful of $20 bills for her having landed the first king salmon – a bounty pool we hadn’t even realized we were part of.
After a day on the water (with a sack lunch) it was back to the lodge, with its magnificent great room and a roaring fire. We had access to a hot tub and sauna, as well as a game room with a pool table and shuffleboard. I went for a walk one afternoon through moss-draped woods divided by a meandering stream.
Our comfortable rooms opened onto a common patio with stunning views of Steamboat Bay, where periodically we saw fish jumping or a humpback patrolling the waters.
The meals, prepared from scratch by a small team onsite, were excellent – from sourdough pancakes and omelets in the morning to oven-roasted salmon or a short rib ragu for dinner. After one of the guests, Rick Hickman, landed a dover sole, the chef’s team prepared a snow-white filet for dinner. Sublime.
After a day in the boat and the strain of fighting fish, the expert attentions of massage therapist Heidi Matz (one of a couple of Portland expats we met this trip) helped Sophia and me go right to sleep.
Then it was back on the water the next morning, where tides and weather often dictated Hoogerhyde’s search. After a clear first day, rain created some challenges the following two days. Still, the fish were there for the taking.
I lost a big king after a 15-minute fight, but landed another not long after telling the guide how my left wrist was sore from the rod’s strain.
“How’s your wrist now?” he asked me, smiling.
Pretty darn good, I answered.
On our last night I began to drift off to sleep, thinking less about the 60 pounds of fish were taking home and more about the big salmon that had severed my line. Just outside my sliding glass doors I heard a bellow – the telltale sound of a humpback expelling seawater from its blowhole.
Sure enough, when I pulled back the blinds there it was: a whale feeding in the gray twilight a few days before the summer solstice. I watched in awe, surprised yet again at what Alaska reveals to us.
— Alex Pulaski is The Oregonian/OregonLive’s former travel editor
