Our first destination yesterday was a spot Matt had eyed for halibut fishing the day before, but it was too windy to drift fish at the time. Yesterday we found a couple of commercial trollers working the area. Matt didn't want to interfere with them, so we continued across Cordova Bay to a protected cove on the other side that looked to have halibut potential.
I decided weeks ago that I don't like messing with the frozen herring bait normally used for halibut fishing. It is slimy and smelly and readily comes off of the hooks. I have chosen to work with lures instead, so while Matt screws around with his herring I jig with lures.
As soon as my lure got near the bottom I had a fish on. It turned out to be a rockfish, about a pound, so I let him go. I ended up catching at least fifteen of them, including two yellow eyed rockfish which are pretty good eating. We kept the largest one for dinner last night and threw the rest back.
Matt had no luck fishing for halibut. There were too many rock fish around that stripped his bait off of the hook as soon as it got to the bottom.
The trollers had moved on, so we headed back to Matt's original fishing destination to give it a try. Again, I caught rockfish and Matt donated herring to fishing gods. We gave up and headed in to a protected bay under nearby Shipwreck Point where we anchored for lunch and did some beach combing.
The mouth of Cordova Bay on the southern side of Prince of Wales Island is partially blocked by a minefield of small islets called the Barrier Islands. We passed this group on the way into Cordova Bay, and just glancing at the chart it didn't look like it would be possible to navigate through them. It looked like there were just too many shoals and rocks and reefs to deal with safely.
Yesterday morning while we were anchored in Max Bay perusing the cruising guides trying to figure out where to go next, Matt noticed that there were a couple of suggested stops in the Barrier Islands. We decided to give the area a try, so yesterday after we departed our lunchtime anchorage, we aimed Thankful south towards the group of 100+ islands.
The recommended northern entrance into the Barrier Islands is through "The Narrows" between Prince of Wales and the first unnamed offshore island. We found the pass to be less intimidating than it looked on the chart. Once through we found ourselves in a totally protected wonderland completely surrounded by small islands. We zigged and zagged following the recommended track to check out the two suggested anchorages. We found them to be less than totally protected from the strong northwesterlies that were blowing, so we studied the chart and found what looked like a good spot a mile away. It turned out to be protected, and half and hour later we were safely anchored in a small cove.
I was very happy for Vicki when she found that beautiful glass ball the other day, but I was also a bit envious. It has been a long dry spell for me glass ball hunting, and I wanted one to place in my collection that had an Alaska story. So after getting Thankful secured Matt helped me launch the dinghy and I rowed ashore to beachcomb. I searched among the driftwood for about an hour and there in the grass at the high water mark near the end of the cove found a nice little three inch diameter glass ball!
Another good day aboard the mighty Thankful.
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