Last Whale Pass Fishing Report of 2016

My season at the Lodge at Whale Pass ended today, so this is the last Whale Pass Fishing Report of 2016.

Quite a bit of thought has been given to what the highlights were of the season just ended. What did I find most memorable?

-Whales. Too many whales can’t happen. Two encounters were especially memorable. In the first, on a brilliantly lit, sun-shiney afternoon, we encountered a pod of about 15 orcas as I piloted the Blashke back to the Lodge after a day’s fishing. Everyone on the boat wanted to see the orcas!

You cannot imagine how amazing it is to see a whale do this.

The whales did not object to our presence. One spyhopped to better examine us, from only about 100 feet away. One of my guests had a nice 35mm dSLR and was going crazy shooting. I wanted to be, too, but someone had to run the boat!
Two of the whales swam right under the boat’s bow, almost within touching distance, six tons each of beautifully streamlined muscle and sinew, magnificent creatures. Several of the whales breached- imagine the splash a six or seven ton mullet would make!

We followed them for 40 minutes of so, until hunger pangs forced my guests to head back to the lodge. It had been 40 minutes of the purest cetacean magic.

The second encounter was with the Craigies (guests from Australia), and staff member Daniel Slocum. We had gone out into the Kasheveroff Passage hoping to find some whales. God smiled on us when I spotted one from a couple miles away, fortunately in the direction in which we were heading.

We shortly lost it. As it turned out it had gone around a point. When we reached that point, the whale was on the far side. So were four or five others, all humpbacks.

I shut the boat off and let it drift. The air was perfectly still and you could hear the whales blowing all over the bay we were in. You’d see a spout in the distance, then five or six seconds later you’d hear the blow. It was auditorially amazing. The ones closer to us were really loud!

We sat there, watching and listening, whles blowing from near and far, for almost an hour. None of us had eaten dinner, but it was after 8 PM when we finally succumbed to hunger. The whales all moving off helped with that decision as well. It was a mystical, magical evening.

The LeConte Glacier- Like the whales, you just can’t get enough glacier, at least I can’t. On this particular day three guests were in the Blashke, Kevin, his wife Caroline, and 11 year old son Harrison. We had two kayaks with us. We were also on a schedule, since they had a float plane to meet.

It was cold and foggy but to my surprise they insisted on kayaking. In an area with a number of large icebergs I put the kayaks in the water, a single for the missus, and a double for dad and son.

They loved the kayaks, more than any guests I’ve ever taken there.

At first they piddled around among smaller pieces of ice, but then they headed for the big boys. I reminded them they had a plane to meet. Caroline said, “He’s going to have to wait. This is way too cool to stop now!”

They paddled over to a really big iceberg, so much so it had an ice cave and overhanging eaves. I reminded them that the ‘bergs are not stable. Apparently Harrison wanted to paddle into the ice cave, an idea dad vetoed. Good judgement.

The iceberg was really big.

As soon as they paddled away from it the entire caved collapsed with a resounding crash, tons and tons of falling ice exploding down into the water. Look out, surf’s up! Had they gone in there they likely would have been killed, a kind of memorable event I would prefer to avoid.

Caroline sits in front of the ice cave. It collapsed moments later.

Fishing- I hope some of the few fishermen I guided this summer caught some memorable fish, but personally I did not. My best fishing story happens right at the end of the summer, with the Lodge’s last guests of the season.

Brandon, going into the sixth grade in a week or so, lives in Connecticut. He was looking for something to do and I told him, “You can always catch fish from our dock.” I didn’t know he had never caught a fish before.

I showed him how and soon he was catching starry flounder with regularity, getting more and more excited with each one. “Fishing is fun! Fishing is cool! This is a blast!” were some of the things he said.

Starry flounder are hardly a prized catch for most of us, but to an 11 year old who had never had an up close and personal with a fish of any kind it could hardly have been more of a prize. So congratulations Brandon! Your 20 flounders were the catch of the season as far as I’m concerned.

Bears- The most memorable bear encounters I’m ever likely to have (short of being attacked) happened up on the Goodnews River, but I did see a black bear with a salmon in its mouth jog across a wet log over the Cable Hole on 108 Creek this summer, which was very cool. I couldn’t cross that log, much less jog across.

4th of July- We spent part of our 4th of July at Coffman Cove, which was described in an earlier fishing report. To quote- “The Fourth of July Parade was going on- trucks of all sizes (some towing boats), ATV’s, a lawnmower, and a strange-looking tracked vehicle, driving the route, honking horns. All were decked out with banners and bunting, stars and strips in red, white, and blue being the dominant theme. Drivers and passengers had painted faces, outrageous hats, and many threw candy at onlookers. Fun stuff!

“A kindly resident told us to make our way to the float plane dock, where the greased pole was, and where we could get a reindeer sausage. Food! We were on our way.

“We learned from the locals that the greased pole was a contest. Participants took turns, each attempting to slide to the end of a wooden telephone pole that was coated with Crisco, to capture the flag. The person who did so won a cash prize. The cash was collected from the onlookers, who donated toward the prize. A cheap investment in some live and fun entertainment!

“Needless to say, most of the folks who tried, crashed. Some of those crashes were quite spectacular. Some looked pretty painful. All the time this was going on the cash prize kept growing, reaching and exceeding $1000.

“Finally, during the fourth round, a local young man named Eric made it to the end of the pole and snatched the flag. His prize was a handsome 1091 US dollars, not a bad take for getting greasy and falling into the water a few times.”

Craziest Event- son Alex and I were perpetrators of the craziest event of the summer, which happened at the Anan Bear Reserve. We were both sent there with passengers, Alex in the Thorne, me in the Blashke. The passengers were to fly back to the Lodge by float plane.

The Blashke had been having problems starting, so it carried some jumper cables. Kevin also said, “If you are not back by the time the float plane gets here, it will be carrying a brand new series 31 marine battery to you.”

After we dropped off the passengers the Blashke would not start. We tried jumping it with the Thorne. No dice. The Thorne towed the Blaske to a nearby floating dock, where boats tie up waiting for their guests to come back from bear viwing. The dock we tied to had a boat tied to it already. We tied up on the other side and proceeded to wait for the plane, not due for almost three hours.

The plane finally arrived. Alex got the battery and brought to me. I installed it, and the Blashke would still not start. I asked him to try and jump it again, which he agreed to do.

The jumper cables were short. In order to make them reach we had to tie the Thorne up at a right angle to my stern. So the Thorne is tied to the Blashke with two lines, and the Blaske is tied to the dock with two more lines. The batteries in the Thorne and Blashke are connected by jumper cables. There is still another vessel tied on the other side of the dock. Lastly, the Blashke is a jet boat and has no neutral gear.

I put the Blashke’s gear in forward. Alex started the Thorne. I turned the key, hoping to start the Blashke as well. After turning over several times, she started.

Alex and the Thorne.

We were not prepared for what happened next.

The dock, while anchored somehow, is floating. The sudden surge of power from the Blashke started it rotating.
Alex disconnects the jumper cables from his batteries, as do I in the Blashke. The dock continues to spin.

Alex disconnects one of the lines holding the Thorne to the Blashke. I disconnect the other. The dock continues spinning.

I disconnect the first of the two lines connecting the Blashke to the dock. The dock continues spinning. It’s got about three full rotations in at this point. I can only imaging what the operator of that other boat must be thinking.

With some difficulty I disconnect the second line from the dock and am able to get away from it. Friction probably stopped the spin of the dock pretty quickly, but I didn’t bother to check.

After idling away from the area I put the Blashke in a more controlled spin and prepared the boat for the trip back to the lodge. Running at 30 knots this trip takes about two hours.

Unfortunately, in the melee at the dock a dock line had been left in the water. I shortly discovered that the impeller on the Blashke had sucked it in as deeply as possible and then cut it off. If I turned off the boat I’m dead in the water. If I leave the rope in there I can top out at eight knots, making my two hour trip an eight hour trip.

That arithmetic was pretty simple.

It was a gorgeous afternoon for a slow boat ride. I got caught in the wake of two cruise ships travelling north through Clarence Strait. The waves rocked the Blashke through an arc of at least 40 degrees, pretty exciting.
I saw several whales.

Sunset was hidden behind clouds, but nightfall remains beautiful and mysterious no matter how many times you get to experience it. Most of us in our day-to-day existence never get to watch it at all. Even up here, it was the first time all summer I experienced an entire nightfall. SO although I did not get back to the lodge until almost 10 PM, I feel fortunate the entire stupid escapade happened, simply because for one night I was able to be one with the oncoming darkness.

Bad Back! One day I wrenched my back lowering the cowling over the Blashke’s engine. If I were home I would go see Dr. Demetree, a chiropractor in Oviedo. He does not make house calls to Alaska. So I had the massage therapist at the lodge, an amazing woman from Atlanta named Kim Davis, give me a massage in hope she would make it somewhat better.

The massage did improve it, but it was still not right. Kim told me doing yoga would help it. She further said that if I started doing yoga I would not need to see Dr. Demetree any more. Finally, she showed me how to do some basic yoga moves.

Two days later, after two more yoga sessions, my back popped back into place. That had never happened to me before. Without the chiropractor the back would always be messed up for weeks when it popped out.

So thanks to Kim Davis I am now doing yoga several times a week and have a stronger, healthier back (and most other body parts too) because of it. So throwing my back out up here was actually a really good thing. Who’da thunk it?

Yogalaska!

It’s quite dark by 10 PM now. Taking advantage of a clear night recently, I went out to stargaze. The Milky Way was spectacular- not many lights at night in these parts. In 30 minutes over a dozen satellites were spotted overhead. Ursa Major pointed at both Polaris and Arcturus, as is its habit. Cygnus was straight overhead. Spectacular and awe-inspiring don’t begin to convey how the night sky, observed from a dark place, can caress the human soul.

I try my best, but…

I prepare to go, though I try hard to remain. The part of me that wants to see my wife, my son, my sister, to drink wine, to make love, to chase tarpon- is already facing south, towards Florida. I try to etch in this report the sense of that part of Alaska that is so precious, aware that all such effort is in vain. The beauty of this place must be abandoned again, like the wild salmon in the bright waters of her streams. There’s more of Alaska in a single barnacle than I could ever capture with my paltry vocabulary and photographs, no matter how hard I may try.

…you can’t capture Alaska in a photo.

And that is the last Whale Pass Fishing Report of 2016. I am on my way home. At the risk of not living in the moment, I am looking forward to getting there. Let’s hear it for anticipation!

Life is great and I love my work!

Life is short- Go Fishing!

John Kumiski
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