Coho Have Arrived on Neck Outlet

The fish has arrived and the first harvest has been done. 4200 fish were harvested in the first harvest on June 23 and 24, this is earlier than usual. Many more are in the net pens and ready to be harvested soon.

This means good news for the fishermen. Pat has limited out each time that he goes down to get a fish. With the rain that has finally come, the creeks are bringing in fish and the moss is going out! Yes, you can catch your limit of moss also.

The update on the sea cucumbers ~~~ they are yummy! How can something so gross be good to eat! Now we actually ate these with out a dare! They are very similar to clams. Well, now instead of throwing them back to sea, we bring them back to the cabin and eat them. Yes, I know ~~~ they are really gross looking!

No bears yet, guess that they think that the fish haven’t arrived yet, according to their clock. Soon though, I will have some great shots of bears.

Lots of deer still around the area with their fawns. They seem to hang around the house a lot now. Bet that they have their fawns close by in the bushes. I have to cut some more of the brush down to make it more open.

I will try and get some movies on the next blog. Talk to you soon!

Things that Have Happened!

First of all we FINALLY got the boat going after two trips to town to get some parts. Wow, you have to travel lots of almost miles for one item around here. The trip to town was also a great adventure, to see fawns, bears and got hit by a truck passing us on the way to town. Hit our mirror and kept on going, hum ~~~ what kind of person does that?



Pat has caught the first fish of the season! This is a nice coho salmon that weighs (18 pounds) ha ha.

This is a small bear that probably lost his mommy to a hunter that didn’t know the difference between a sow and a boar bear. He isn’t afraid of anything at this point.

This little guy was running down the road with his mommy, suddenly he falls and lays still so that we won’t see him (ha ha). We hope that he gets out of the way when the next car comes down the road.

We have gotten several sea cucumbers for our first meal. I will post the finally results on this meal at the next post. We have never ate these before and now we are wondering if we really want too ~ but we will!

Steve is here and has caught several nice salmon also.

Hey you across the creek ~~ seen any nice sockeye yet?

Stopped at sarkar to see if the sockeye was in. Check out the eagles in this shot! There was 11 eagles in this area, couldn’t get all of them at once.

We have some fish in the smoker and will see how my first batch turns out.

This are some berries that are around the area. They are salmon berries, sour to me but everybody around the area makes jelly out of them.

Good Day At Coho Chalet

The sun came out again today! Off to go halibut fishing at the S curves. Took the skiff out there to fish. We are trying out the skiff’s and making sure that they are up and running for the summer months. We caught lots of Irish Lords~ Which we don’t eat unless we have too. Here is one that Pat caught with a Sea cucumber. Now these cucumbers are supposed to be really good eating! We will be a true Alaskan and try it this year! They are supposed to taste like clams! They sure don’t look like a clam though. Also a pic of an Irish Lords caught in his behind! Whoops!

Pat caught a “don’t know what it is” crab on his pole also. Sure is different looking. We did get 5 Dungeness crabs for dinner. Yummy! Along with oysters on the grill we had a great anniversary dinner!

Nothing like a yummy marshmallow to top off a great dinner! Now these are about three times bigger than a regular marshmallow ~ WOW!

Rain is supposed to be coming in this weekend~ great news for the fish as they are going to wonder where the water is in the creeks!

Till later ~ send us some rain up here!

PS: Did you know that deer love skunk cabbage?

Friends Over For Dinner!

We had some good friends give us several dozen fresh oysters. Wow!! What a treat~ we invite Pam and Bruce over for a great oyster feed! Boy did we eat oysters. Was a great time ~ and believe it or not we still have some left over!


Now what is on his mind? I think that he is wishing that he was out fishing in the bay or maybe thinking where he is going to put his crab pots? What do you think?

This is a picture of the old log dump ~ we can’t think what they would use this for. Maybe loading or unloading, would be a long drop between the bank and the built our logs. Nothing is missing that we can see though.

Weather is still good, shorts and t-shirts. Rain comes and goes though. Lots of eagles coming back. Will have to sit and wait for a nice eagle picture to post.

Feel free to post anything ~ Well almost ~ to the site.

Rain Has Arrived!

The rain has arrived on POW. After several very warm days the rain has finally came. The sun and the warm weather was nice but rain is needed for the creeks, as they are really low for this time of year. The fish will not go up them if the water is not right. Plus now we will not have to buy water again!

We have gotten all the upstairs floors done, the cabin is ready, just a few minor things that need fixed. YEA!

Today we are waiting for the first of our mail. Hope that the rain and the low overcast does not stop it. We forgot the manual to the boat motor and Pat needs it to do a minor repair.


Here are some shots around the bay area of Whale Pass!

A GIft for Me !!!

I received a nice present a couple of days ago. Captain William brought by some ear bones (similar to Ivory) from a 199 pound halibut. These are very delicate and will make a very nice piece of jewelry. Thank you William!

Sunsets & Animals

We have finally got things unpacked and put away. The weather here has been really warm so far, in the high 80’s. Not a typical day in Southeast Alaska. The creeks are really low for this time of year, we need some rain for the fish. The warm weather has brought out the bugs also! White socks and no-see-ums ~which I call “see me nots”. They are so little they are virtually impossible to see, but leave a huge bite when they are finished. (Bug spray does keep them away.) The deer is same one that hangs around the place all the time. I hope that she brings her little fawn by when she has it. The grouse was in the road, the first one that I have gotten a picture of. Very pretty bird, also good eating when in season. Captain William brought by some crab , what a nice guy! Most people bring by cookies or bread~~ William brings by herring! We can use them though.

We have got some nice sunset pictures also. Things are really quiet here now. Not many people out moving around the area yet. The locals around here are very nice and stop to see how we are doing.

Our Trip To POW

Our Trip to POW.

We left at 5:00 from Parkdale Oregon, Traveled north on I-5 to Bellingham, Washington. Arrived at Bellingham at 12:15 with lots of time to kill before the ferry leaves to Ketchikan, Alaska. The ferry this year is the Malaspina (built in 1963) ~ which is 408 feet long and 74 feet wide, and travels 16.5 knots. It is designed to carry 701 passengers, carry’s 1,760 linear feet of vehicles. There are 54 four berth cabins and 28 two berth cabins. We were lucky to get a 4 berth cabin at the last minute! It takes 38 hours to get from Bellingham to Ketchikan Alaska.

After getting settled into our room we have a bite to eat in the lounge. You can bring your own food or purchase something from there restaurant. It is a nice relaxing trip to ride the ferry. All Friday evening the easy sailing. The weather on Saturday was nice, sun and a few clouds ~ better than Oregon weather. We met several new couples that are traveling and we met some of the travelers that we met last year on the trip to POW. We will travel in Canadian waters till about midnight on the 23, and then we will be in Alaskan waters.

We arrived in Ketchikan at 8:00 am May 23rd to a foggy day. Two large cruise ships were in port. Wow, what big guys they are! We depart the Malaspina , park the Geo Tracker in the parking lot and travel to Wal-Mart to get our annual fishing license~~ $390.00 for both of us this year! This means that we should get going fishing!

We left on the Stikine for our travel to Prince of Whales Island ~POW~. This ferry is 200 feet long, carry’s 30 vehicles and 190 passengers. This ferry cruises at 15 knots. This is a 3 hour trip. Arrive at POW at 7:00pm. Off we go to Coho Chalet. The first 54 miles are payment and the last 28 miles are gravel and BUMPS, and HOLES. This part of the road trip to Coho Chalet takes 1 hour and 45 minutes. Were we glad to see the end in site!

We arrived here just about dark. Went to turn on the lights ~~not working! Check the breakers~~ nothing! Guess that AP&T didn’t turn them on. We find the lantern and look around to see how things fared the winter ~ looks good!

Monday morning brings sun and that is good, as we have lots of things to unload from the truck. Finally we get electricity and the Whale Pass Fire (water) truck comes with a load of water for us. We had William put the water pipe in the water tank, but guess that there hasn’t been much rain the past few weeks. WE got most everything unloaded, then off to visit the friends in the area and see what the news is!

We have a few wildlife visitors in the area. A ruffed grouse and the resident doe that hangs out around the area. She will have a fawn soon, we hope.