Offshore Fishing

September 15, 2013

by Casey Debenham

Welcome to the third research leg of GOAIERP, aboard the F/V Northwest Explorer. We have successfully sampled the both Kayak Island and Yakutat line, and are now working the offshore grid of the Southeast Alaska. Although we are enjoying some nice weather right now we did have one storm blow through as we working off of Yakutat.  At one point we had 15+ft seas and winds gusting over 50 knots.  After completing 3 of the 4 stations we called it quits and anchored up in front of Yakutat. This offered up a nice opportunity for both the crew and scientist to get ashore and stretch their legs in and do some sightseeing in the remote town of Yakutat. After waiting a day for things to calm down we went back out and finished our last station before heading back down towards Cross Sound.  So far compared to the spring and summer sampling, our catches have been light, especially offshore. We have, however, managed, to collect some of our focal fish including rockfish, pollock and even of a couple of the elusive sablefish. Another interesting thing is that we have been catching a variety of sharks. Off the coast of Kayak Island we caught two blue sharks, while off of Yakutat we caught a few spiny dogfish and most recently in Southeast we caught two salmon sharks. One of these Salmon sharks was just a small pup, only measuring 85.5 cm (2.8ft) and weighing 10.2kg  (22.5lbs). I asked if we could keep him as a pet but alas we let him go in hopes that he grows up big and happy.