Solo roadtrip to Seward to go fishing for Halibut

So call me crazy... a few people up here and back home seem to think it's odd that I enjoy the occasional roadtrip on my own... however I find them Amazing! I enjoyed a lot of solo weekend roadtrips in Hawaii and I figured I was due for another. I get to rock out to my favorite music, call family and friends... and get in a lot of "good thinking time". Anyways there aren't too many people at the office that enjoy the fishing and hunting scene nearly as much as I do, so I thought what better way to enjoy the weekend and I booked a Halibut charter down in Seward, Alaska.



Now if you look at a map it doesn't seem like it's too far of a drive down to the Kenai peninsula... but looks can be deceiving in Alaska... haha. Up here distance isn't usually measured in miles... it's usually measured in time. And the time required to drive from Fairbanks to Seward... "cruising" a little with minimal stops for gas... was 9 hours! And that's covering a distance of about 500 miles... to put that into perspective it's like driving from St. Cloud, MN to Chicago, IL is only 480 miles... haha. So I left work at 4:20 PM and pulled into Seward after 1 AM. Check-in time for the fishing trip the next morning was 6 AM so I just pulled over along one of the many roadside pullouts pretty close to Seward and crawled into the backseat of my lil corolla for a few hours of shut eye.





The next morning was a lil chilly... about 40 degrees when I woke up so I tossed on a few layers and my camo rain gear... and then drove into town to check in... and jump on the boat! I went through "The Fish House" charters... with captain Jimmy on the boat Perseverance along with about 11 other people. The drive out to the fishing spot was about 50 miles out and a 2 hour boat ride. It was funny watching all of the "out-of-towners" freezing their butts off on the ride out... they kept telling me to come inside and stay warm... and my response was... "I'm an Alaska girl! It's beautiful outside!" haha... very entertaining.




Once we arrived at the spot we got the lines out... capt. jimmy explained how to drop the lines down about to the bottom (~100-150 feet)... we were fishing about a foot or two off of the bottom with plain hooks and herring. Anywho... he dropped it and realize he had a fish on... and handed the rod over to me... haha. And with that I reeled in the first fish... a yelloweyed rockfish. They're soooo bright! Look like a blownup goldfish! As soon as that one was off I dropped the line again and within a couple minutes I had another rockfish on. Great start to the day. A few others caught rockfish but the halibut weren't biting to hard at that location so we moved to another spot.




This spot was Amazing! Everyone caught their limit of halibut (2 each) and we even had a couple guys reel in some pretty big ones around 100 lbs. No huge monsters this time... maybe next time :) While we were fishing fog rolled in so we couldn't see to far off the boat, but a group of humpback whales came in!!! We saw them for a short period of time jumping out of the water and splashing and rolling over slapping their fins... Amazing! No pictures though... I was fishing and holding onto the rod and taking pictures is pretty difficult. They stayed around for about 2 hours and we were all just listening to them calling and slapping around... just awesome!!




I met a ton of awesome people on the boat... one guy was on their "lifetime trip to alaska" with his wife... she stayed in the harbor and sent him out on the boat... really nice guy. There was also a couple from Anchorage that came out with a couple friends.... the wife was soooo sweet. Her and I chatted for quite a while. Let's see...there was a cute young couple... the guy had fishing in his blood... while the gal got sea sick every 20 minutes... poor thing! I felt bad for the guy he kept going in to check on her to make sure she was alright and then ran back to check his line. As a matter of fact at one point or another over half of the boat was sea sick... luckily this time I wasn't one of them. The seas were really rough though so it was understandable.




We headed back in around 4 pm after everyone had caught their limit. I took home a bunch of fish that I'm looking forward to enjoy back in Fairbanks this summer/winter. After making it back I found a spot at one of the local campground right off the harbor on the ocean... $10/night can't beat it! It was a little windy setting up the tent but I love a challenge :D. Once that was up a guy walked by and was chatting about the salmon he caught that morning.. he found out I was camping by myself and invited me over to his site to enjoy salmon over the fire with his crew... So I took him up on it and I'm so glad I did. It turned into a hilarious night! I brought over some potatoes and stuff for smores and met his girlfriend (her name was Becky too!) and an older friend the couple had met when they first moved to Alaska that now lived in Seward.



It was so much fun hearing about all of their adventures and life in Alaska... the older guy actually used to captain charter trips out in Seward. I love meeting new random people up here... everyone has so many stories! I gave them my contact info and they may come visit up here in fairbanks sometime... they also took some pictures so when I get those I"ll put em up.



I ended up crashing that night around midnight with the sun just setting. A perfect end to another Amazing Alaska day!!! The next morning I got up around 8:30 and packed up the tent... walked around the harbor for a little while and then jumped back in the corolla to hit the road again. The drive back was Beautiful... seriously words can't describe how breathtaking this part of Alaska is!!! Mountains... coastal waters... bush planes... I love it all!!! Here's one picture from my favorite stop on the way back... I also stopped at my favorite pullout between fairbanks and ancorage, the south viewpoint of Denali. It was a perfectly clear day and the mountain was so pretty! I got in a lot of good thinking and relaxing time... I actually enjoy the feeling of the open road... so concludes another alaskan adventure!