There were 5 of us on the boat. There was myself, my son Nicholas and 3 people from Cross Sound Lodges, a father and his two sons. The father's first statement and question to us was about there being 5 people on board this boat and only 4 rods to fish with or being fished. Since I have never been on a charter and all my experience has been on private boats where every person has their own pole I didn't know how to answer his questions or address this problem. The father was very upset by this and at first I didn't understand why, but later came to understand it for myself.
We had to share poles and take turns fishing!
When your customer is paying approx. $700.00 dollars a day for a somewhat private charter fishing for Salmon, Halibut or whatever I think they want to utilize every minute catching fish. Not just sitting around at $100.00 an hour. Some of us didn't come here for a vacation, but more importantly an experience to catch a trophy fish and to take home as much fish as we can. After all that would make this experience different from that here at home. This gentlemen kept questioning me about this situation with questions like has this been my experience on other fishing trips. Which I have been told by others it shouldn't have been. The other situation that we all found odd was that there was no way to tag our fish caught as our own. Why is that important?
Let me explain!
Like I said before some of us traveled to Alaska not for vacation but the experience of catching one of kind fish. Bigger and more intense than anything we had ever caught before. The only analogy I can use to explain it would be going on a trophy hunt for a deer. There are several of you and one person takes a 10 point, another 6 point and at the end of the hunt the hunter that took the 10 point is given the 6 point buck and is supposed to be happy and smile about it. While the guy who took the 6 point is smiling from ear to ear at his sudden luck.
This could have been remedied with some as simple as colored wire ties or snap clips with numbers or colors on them for each member. None of us was concerned about the little rock fish or insignificant fish but the Salmon or Halibut would have been our trophies.
Your brochure speaks about having pictures taken with your fish, when we got back everyone went straight to cleaning and never even asked about pictures.
The second day 6-24-1026 we were on the "Eagle Scout" again which was fine with me. I like familiarity rather than changes. Besides we had developed a rapport with the Capitan Ken and Tom. On this day there was only 4 of us on board and we each had a pole, things went much better. We were with the Moria's from Cross Sound Lodges. It just so happens Ethan Moria was from Santa Cruz California where I grew up and my parents live. So we talked about things we commonly knew. We enjoyed catching silvers that day and had fun.
Later on that day Capt. Ken took us inside to Halibut fish and my son Nicholas caught a large Halibut, after reeling it up which took about 20 minutes or more Capt. Ken attempted to place a large hook in it's gill plate and through it's mouth. He was having trouble with that. Besides he had no measuring stick to measure the Halibut with. So he simply said it's too small and cut the line. I definitely know it was over 43" but no one can simply look at a fish in the water and say it is 77" and not 80" as we were told. No one!
After releasing the Halibut a conversation began and the only response that Capt. Ken had was and I quote "No one here is going hungry tonight", I like Ken and those were unfortunate words that he spoke. None of us came to Alaska to fish because we are hungry. We came for entertainment, excitement, and a trophy experience.
Our trophy experience was just released without even an attempt to measure it!
It was said that night at the lodge that Nicholas had caught a 177lb Halibut that had to be released. Just because my son and I are not complainers doesn't make it right.
The third day 6-25-2016 we were on Capt.Earl's boat Noble Eagle with Amy his deckhand. Again we were with the Moria's. We enjoyed being on a boat with them because they compromised, improvised and worked well without reservation. This day it was quite a bit rougher. The chop and seas were building. There were reoccurring situation that seem to be a theme. This boat's beam was narrower than the Eagle Scout so we only fished 3 poles for 4 people. We had to take turns catching fish. Amy was a sport and excellent deckhand who took it upon herself to separate our Salmon and she also marked the fish with cuts on the gill plates. For every minute, hour that goes by while you are waiting for someone else to catch a fish seems wrong while paying to be there. Just saying! read more
