Chart of Cape Chacon and Gardner Bay

This is a chart of the southeastern tip of Prince of Wales Island, Alaska. Cape Chacon (pronounce shack-un) is the point of land at the bottom left of the illustration. The entrance to Gardner Bay is highlighted in yellow. As you can see Gardner Bay is not very big.

We don't do Cape Chacon trips very often. It is a four hour run from the Lodge so the crews take the boats down the night before and the guests fly down to join us next morning, and fly back in the afternoon. This maximizes fishing time at the Cape. Obviously it is very expensive to charter floatplanes, so there is an additional cost for the trip. It is also very weather-dependent. This is the exposed open ocean, not like our protected Inside Passage waters back at the Lodge. We don't go unless there is an absolute guarantee of good weather, both for flying and fishing. So, when we do go, it is a spectacular trip.

The fishing isn't necessarily any better at the Cape. I have often come back from a Cape Chacon trip to learn that the boats fishing close to home out of the Lodge did far better than I. But the fishing and the environment is different. It's a wild and wooly place, above the surface of the ocean as well as below, as Jon Bender describes, and it has a charismatic attraction, a siren call, all of it's own.

It is 45 nautical miles from the Lodge to Gardner Bay and another 10 nautical miles to the Cape. The Canada/U.S. border runs only a short distance south of the Cape and is still in dispute to this day. You can click on the chart to enlarge it.

Captain Mac

Jonathan Bender's Cape Chacon

Dawn Breaks in Gardner Bay









Foreword:
Jon Bender was a deckhand around 12 years ago at our Southeast Alaska fishing resort, Sportsman’s Cove Lodge. (See www.alaskasbestlodge.com). He was about 20 years old when he wrote this. He sent it to me a year or so ago. I have edited it only slightly to update some facts and changes in fishing regulations that have occurred since Jonathan wrote this. The trip he is describing is the third day of a four-day package. Jon has been fishing with the group for two days prior to this. I hope you enjoy his perspective, which is representative of all of the staff at the Lodge, and in particular the deckhands. I will post it in several parts.

Captain Mac

Jonathan Bender’s Cape Chacon

Part I

It’s early. Though it’s plenty light enough to function, the sun has yet to peek through the opening at the east end of the small cove. The black sea is glassy, calm. Surrounding us on three sides is a series of rocky, knobby peaks, their flattened tops dropping off precipitously into the water of the cove. This area is so often and so violently windswept that the characteristically dense forest that carpets the rest of the island has never gained much of a foothold on the bedrock. Instead, resilient chartreuse lichens contrast against dark green moss and gray-black rock. Looking around, it’s easy to visualize the glaciers that, thousands of years ago, scoured out the depression in which we are anchored, now filled by the sea.

Our four charterboats are rafted up together in Gardner Bay, about 10 miles from Cape Chacon (pronounce shack-un). The other crews are beginning to stir. I eat my breakfast while prepping the gear for the day. There’s a lot to do; things are going to get hectic. The Alaska dawn comes slowly while I work and soon we hear the sound of the floatplanes, venerable de Havilland Beavers, delivering our guests. The skilled coastal bush pilots always offer a scenic and exhilarating ride, but particularly so in this case, as they maneuver expertly to land on such a small stretch of water; but short landings are their specialty, the reason why the Beavers were consigned this day. After circling above the edge of the surrounding peaks, assessing the landing zone for wind, downdrafts and any debris that might be in the cove, they descend in an arcing approach, touch down smoothly, and once firmly on the water, raise the nose steeply to come “off the step” and slow the aircraft in as short a distance as possible. Captain Mac, watches with a critical and appreciating eye. With just a touch of envy he mutters, “Poetry in motion,
just watching these guys.” And don’t worry, they know he is watching too.

One by one, the floatplanes carefully pull alongside the outside boats of our raft. Aluminum and fiberglass don’t mix so fenders and many hands help to keep the two apart. And one by one the planes discharge their cargo of passengers, lunches and raingear and drift away before starting engines and launching off towards the entrance of the cove in a blur of noise and spray.

As the guests come aboard there are happy greetings and elated descriptions of the almost hour-long low altitude flight down the eastern shore of Prince of Wales Island. Excitement and anticipation fills the air. You could cut it with a knife.

We pick the anchor, turn loose of the other boats and head for the opening that will take us out of the cove toward the open water beyond.

“Okay folks, it’s all business from here on out,” I announce. “You should probably get some stretching in, calisthenics; whatever your pre-workout routine.” My comments are met with some blank looks, eyes peeled open, focusing on a much-anticipated near future that’s dissolving into the present. I’d started to prepare them the previous day, but I don’t think they quite understand what they’re about to be a part of. The fun is about to begin.

To be continued...

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Tholepin: Filthy Video of Halibut Waste

Tholepin: Filthy Video of Halibut Waste

This came to my attention recently. It makes you want to throw up. As an active participant in the halibut management debate since 1993, I have served on several committees at the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) and testified countless numbers of times before the Council on the subject of halibut. I have also been a member of the International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC) Conference Board on many occasions since 1993.

I would not publish this if I did not think there was some truth to it. Read/watch it and weep.

Captain Mac