By Carlos “Team No Bananas” Gaudier

     “Cause I’m a cowboy, on a steel horse I ride.  I’m wanted, wanted, dead or alive…”  2,129 miles south east of Dutch Harbor on the 32 foot Khalee Sue, in a season of good weather, calm seas,  and great fish counts, Captain Kevin Frank is rocking out with his awesome  crew of greenhorns Judy Kanouse, Manny Gaudier, Carlos Gaudier, and Drew Varos.  “That’s the way uh huh uh huh I like it” is playing in the back ground as the crew works in unison with the beat to retrieve double and triple hookups on Coho Salmon.  During a previous trip we even had “I like big butts and I cannot lie” on the radio while we were fishing for halibut, and that was no fluke.  Fishing up at Whaler’s Cove always puts a big smile on our faces as evident in our pictures.  Every time we go up, there is a particular Bon Jovi song and Discovery Channel show that always comes to mind.  However, unlike the tv show, this is probably one of the friendliest fishing experiences you will ever have.

     The No Bananas crew has been fishing the Annual Let’s Talk Hookup/Davis Boat Adventure at Whaler’s Cove Lodge for the past 5 years and this year marked the 6th year of this sponsored trip.  It was nice to have the co-host of LTH Rick Maxa and his girlfriend Dallas Shackleton with us on this trip.  Whaler’s Cove Lodge is located around 102 miles south of Juneau in Angoon Alaska on Killisnoo Island.  The fertile fishing grounds of the Chatham Strait are only 10-15 from the lodge and are home to a variety of species.  These rich waters produce all five species of Pacific Salmon, Halibut, Gray (pacific) Cod, Black Cod (Sablefish), Ling Cod, Red Snapper and 20 other varieties of rockfish.  Besides the fantastic fishing, it is just a beautiful and majestic place to take in and to make wonderful memories.

     Whaler’s cove trip highlights are always good and plenty.  This year most of the boats limited out on larger Coho (silver) salmon as well as halibut.  We ended up trolling the Shimano Flat Fall jigs outside of our downriggers and we actually caught a bunch of good sized Cohos while trolling, dropping back, and slow retrieving the Flat Falls.  Drew enticed the fish even more by adding a little piece of herring on the jig’s hook.  Dallas out fished Rick by landing a nice 11 pound Coho.

    With the slot limits on the halibut for the guided boats we were limited to keeping fish that were below 44 inches or above 80.  All of our catches were below the 44 inch mark and my brother Manny caught a fat one at around 43.75 inches.  There were several that were released in the 50 in range and Justin from Arizona caught and released one around 60 inches which was the largest released halibut.  This won him a 2 for 1 trip back to the lodge.  The self-guided groups did extremely well on the halibut as they could take home 2 each per day and they did not have any size limits.  A group from Colorado brought back a 92 pounder on day 3!

     I was also fortunate enough to catch my first Yellow-eye Rockfish.  What a beautiful creature with its bright reddish orange hues and stunning yellow ringed eyes.  Rick told us this is his favorite Alaskan fish eat and so we are looking forward to trying it out on Manny’s new BBQ island.  Most boats also did well on the Rockfish and Cod.  One boat brought back 3 Yellow-eyes one day.  Rock Cod Rick’s boat of course led the way in this category.

     Rick told us that on Day 1 Captain John said they might be in for some rough weather with 1-3 foot chop and winds up to 10 knots.  Definitely not “Deadliest Catch” conditions by any means.  It actually only got a little bumpy at the end of day 3 when the wind chop picked up a little but it was not  uncomfortable to fish at all.  That’s what we love about fishing the Inner Passage, we are protected from the open ocean which makes the fishing grounds much calmer and friendlier.  

     By our third day of fishing we really had not seen too many whales yet, but we were definitely in store for a treat.  As we were trolling for salmon, we noticed a bunch of seagulls starting to gather above.  Then large streams of bubbles came up from the waters to trap the herring near the surface.  All of a sudden a small pod of 3-4 humpbacks whales erupted from the depths with their mouths wide open to engulf the bait fish.  What a majestic site to behold especially when this was happening approximately 30 ft. from the bow of our boat!  Needless to say the most of the fishing stopped while this spectacular whale show was going on all morning.  Some guests even said they ignored their trolling rigs going off to watch in awe as the humpbacks showed off.  Definitely a National Geographic/Discovery channel moment.   But that’s the magic of this place; it’s not just the great fishing, but also the incredible flora and fauna that grace this beautiful locale.  Dallas did not get to fish the first 2 days but she spent them hiking around the Island.  She purchased a Nature Survival Guide for the local islands which had some great information about the edible vegetation on the Island.  She was able to forage a nice variety of berries for her and Rick.  We joked with her that she was getting ready for one of those survival shows and that we might see her and Rick on Naked and Afraid soon.  Dallas also incredibly enough, encountered a 6 point Sitka Black Tail Deer and his fawn.  She took some great close up pictures as the deer were not scared off by her presence.  We just had venison the night before and we hoped it was not Bambi’s mother, oh deer!

     We always meet some friendliest people on these trips. Dallas and Rick fished with Jim and Katie, a retired couple from Montana, and they immediately hit it off.    Jim and Katie are the sweetest couple and Dallas & Rick eventually adopted them as their secondary grandparents.   The cool thing is that Jim and Katie always wanted to go up to Alaska and they just made their reservations 2 weeks ago.  They ended up celebrating their 61st Wedding Anniversary up at the Lodge and the staff brought out a nice cake for them during dinner.

     The staff at Whalers Cove Lodge is top notch.  The Powers family is so warm and welcoming and this reflects on their great team.  Thanks to the Powers and their wonderful staff for their gracious hospitality.  Thanks as well to Pete Gray, Rick Maxa, and Harold Davis for hosting another awesome adventure.  Cheers to fun times, good fishing and great friends.

Want to join the fun next year? Check out www.letstalkhookup.com – on the trips page look up 7th Annual Whalers Cove Lodge trip and book fast!

Also check out www.whalerscovelodge.com