North to Alaska: Homer - Halibut Charter

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Homer - Halibut Charter

Day 55 and we are back in Homer anxiously awaiting our halibut charter the next day. Our friend who lives in Fairbanks set up the charter along with a two night stay in a bed and breakfast. This was the first time Linda and I had stayed somewhere other than the camper on our trip. However, we left the camper in good hands with Charlie and Gypsy. After a good night’s sleep the six of us were up early for a good breakfast and then off to the boat. The six of us plus the captain and mate left on the boat, a 32’ aluminum boat with a heated cabin, left the Homer Spit sometime around 6:30AM and traveled about three hours before we were in the “catching hole”. Our first target was lingcod which took us longer to limit out than any of the other types of fish we caught. We were allowed to keep 12 lingcod. We caught the first 11 in no time and then had to search for number 12. Once number 12 was on board we moved to the halibut hole and limited out in no time, two each for a total of twelve. Next it was to another location where we would fish for black rock fish. These black rocks look a lot like black sea bass we catch in North Carolina except they were a lot larger. We were allowed 4 each for a total 24 of the blacks. In addition, we also caught our limit of yellow eye rock fish which was one per person. In all we limited out on the four types of fish we went after. After all the fish were cleaned, we had 319 pounds of fillets.

From left to right, our captain: David Venekamp and our mate: Andrew Snella. I would highly recommend this crew if you are planning a charter out of Homer. Capt. Dave knows how to put you on the fish and Andrew works hard to make sure everything is just right. Both were fun to fish with and made the trip very enjoyable.

Our bed and Breakfast was the "Alaska Experience" Capt. Brenda does an excellent job with everything. Breakfast was great. The views alone were worth staying here.