{"id":10875,"date":"2022-06-27T09:00:18","date_gmt":"2022-06-27T16:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/?p=10875"},"modified":"2022-06-27T08:30:16","modified_gmt":"2022-06-27T15:30:16","slug":"a-tale-of-two-seas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/?p=10875","title":{"rendered":"A Tale of Two Sittings – A Fish Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Bob Sparrow<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>

Sitka, Alaska<\/p><\/div>\n

I have readily admitted that I do not understand fishing, not because I\u2019ve failed at it every time I\u2019ve tried it, which I have, but it just doesn\u2019t make sense to me. \u00a0I\u2019m told that fishing is a sport, and if it is, it is one of the very few sports that does not require one to be in shape, unless you consider \u2018round\u2019 a shape.\u00a0 While most athletes consume energy drinks or water during an athletic contest, the main beverage of fishing is beer.\u00a0 At best, fishing is an activity, not a sport, and I am reluctant to even call it an activity, given that there is not much of that going on either.<\/figure>\n

It was my love of travel and a trip with my son that had me excited about visiting a place I\u2019d never been before, Sitka, Alaska<\/strong>, even though I\u2019d have to fish there!\u00a0 Flying into Sitka is breathtaking; as the snow-capped mountain, thickly forested woodlands, and thousands of little islands in the Alaska archipelago<\/strong> unfold below you prior to landing.<\/p>\n

So far, so good, maybe fishing here won\u2019t be so bad after all.<\/p>\n

\n

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Totem Square Hotel & Marina<\/p><\/div><\/figure>\n

Captain Mike<\/strong> meets us at the airport and says \u2018Hey\u2019 (We\u2019ll learn later that that\u2019s a long conversation for him), throws our gear in the back of his van, and we pile in and head to the Totem Square Hotel & Marina<\/strong> \u2013 right on the water.\u00a0 A quick walk through the quaint little town of Sitka to get something to eat and then it\u2019s early to bed for a 4:30 a.m. wake-up call.<\/p>\n

As I crawled into bed it was still light outside, but, as I was to learned, it was always going to be light outside . . . it\u2019s Alaska, in the summer!!\u00a0 As I lye in bed, I\u00a0 wondered why I was here.\u00a0 I hate fishing, I\u2019m no good at fishing, fishing is boring \u2013 it\u2019s baiting a hook, dropping it in the water and then reeling it back in, mostly with nothing on it.\u00a0 It\u2019s really mostly sitting; sitting in the van to get to the boat, sitting in the boat for about an hour to get to where the captain thinks the fish are, sitting with your line in the water and sitting around complaining about why the fish aren\u2019t biting.\u00a0 So, you sit around and have a few beers.<\/p>\n

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Me, Capt. Mike and the cod I had to throw back because it was too big<\/p><\/div>\n

Day 1<\/strong>: I understand that a big part of fishing is about the experience \u2013 our first day experience had most everyone sea sick, due to the rough seas on a cold and windy morning.\u00a0 What am I doing here?!!\u00a0 Some of us, including me, threw their breakfast into the ocean \u2013 and not in a good way. \u00a0It was extremely rough seas which was apparently occupied by only a few fish.\u00a0 At one point, after endless rough seas and hours of catching nothing, I looked at my watch assuming that we\u2019d be thankfully headed in shortly \u2013 it was 10:30!!! \u00a0I had made up my mind right then that I was going to take tomorrow off \u2013 I could not see me doing this three days in a row.\u00a0 I wanted a day where I my breakfast would stay in my stomach.\u00a0 To add insult to injury, the only fish I caught was a ling cod that was TOO BIG<\/strong>, yes, too big, and I had to throw it back!\u00a0 So, I learned that there were things about fishing that I hated that I didn\u2019t even know I hated.\u00a0 Throwing back a fish that was too big was one of them!\u00a0 At the end of the day, we were all a little green in the gills and had only a couple of fish in the cooler to show for our days\u2019 torture.\u00a0 A delicious dinner at Mangiare\u2019s<\/strong>, a great Italian restaurant in town, somewhat soothed an otherwise dreadful day.\u00a0 I was reminded how much I hate fishing!<\/figure>\n

Day 2<\/strong>: Today we had calm seas, warm weather, little wind and thus a much smoother ocean, plus we all took Dramamine<\/strong> to start the day. \u00a0Fishing is really a great sport and I\u2019ve discovered that I\u2019m not that bad at it after all.\u00a0 \u00a0By early afternoon we had caught our limit of salmon<\/strong> and ling cod<\/strong> and had also bagged several halibut<\/strong>.\u00a0 You know, when you feel at one with the ocean and you\u2019re outsmarting the fish, you learn that there is a mental side to fishing.\u00a0 And anyone who tells you that fishing is not physical, hasn\u2019t spent 15-20 minutes with a fish fighting for its life on the line, trying to make sure you\u2019re pulling and reeling at the right times to make sure you don\u2019t lose him.\u00a0 Fishing is mental, physical and<\/em> you can have a beer. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I love fishing!<\/p>\n

Day 3<\/strong>:\u00a0 Day three was thankfully closer to Day 2 than Day 1, just not as fruitful.<\/p>\n

Jeff with big salmon catch\u00a0 and fishermen, Matt, Mark, Larry, Jeff & Chase<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

All in all this trip provided some great memories of spending time with son, Jeff and friends Mark, Chase, Larry and Matt, catching some great fish (we each brought home 27 lbs. of fileted salmon, halibut and ling cod) along with having a few beers and experiencing enough fish stories to last a lifetime.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Bob Sparrow I have readily admitted that I do not understand fishing, not because I\u2019ve failed at it every time I\u2019ve tried it, which I have, but it just doesn\u2019t make sense to me. \u00a0I\u2019m told that fishing is … read more<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10884,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[813],"tags":[3837,2449,3848,3849,3847,3836,3850],"class_list":["post-10875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel","tag-alaska","tag-fishing","tag-halibut","tag-ling-cod","tag-salmon","tag-sitka","tag-totem-hotel-marina"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Ling-cod-2-rotated.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p31aN0-2Pp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10875"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10896,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10875\/revisions\/10896"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}