Day 4 was a day Greg was so excited for. We were in Juneau and had planned to go out on a boat for halibut and salmon fishing. We were getting picked up via taxi at 8:30 so we got up early to get some breakfast.

The taxi driver picked us up right outside the boat, that was nice. The driver was fantastic. He gave us information about Juneau, pointed out glaciers, was very knowledgeable about the US – even though he was from Ireland and was generally a really nice person. We had about a 20 minute drive to the boat.

When we got there we met the captain and walked to our boat for the day. There were a bunch of eagles on the bank.

Once on the boat we had a short drive to where we would start halibut fishing.

The weather was a bit chili, it was lightly raining but luckily wasn’t to windy. We all got ready to start halibut fishing. The deck hand Talon asked if I was going to fish. I said I didn’t know, he asked if he caught one would I reel it in. I said sure and he handed me a pole right away. He already had one on.

It felt like I was reeling forever. You fish for these on the bottom about 250-300 feet down, so it’s a lot of reeling. Turns out I was the first one to get a fish and it ended up being the largest halibut we caught the whole time!

Everyone was able to get a halibut. We could only keep 1 per person. We ended up throwing quit a few back, keeping the largest we caught.

At one point Jaelee and Jayse’s line got connected and they both ended up reeling in the same fish.

They each ended up getting their own fish and had to compare who got the bigger one. Jaelee’s is on the left and is slightly bigger.

Love these pictures of LaRee with her fish.

Jayse reeling in a halibut

Jaelee reeling in a halibut

Greg reeling in a halibut

Jaelee and Jayse’s halibut

Steve reeling in a halibut

After a couple of hours of halibut fishing we moved on to the salmon grounds. On the way we went past the whale watching area. We saw a lot of whales and they were pretty close. I wanted to spend more time there. It seemed just as I got my lens changed our captain took off to get to the salmon grounds.

It was a good time for lunch and to be in the cabin to get warm.

Jaelee got a lot of these whale photos.

The salmon fishing was slower. We started to get some right away so I thought it would be exciting but it died off pretty quick and it could be a while in between getting any bites. Greg got the first one.

One of the salmon we caught was full of eggs. Talon the deck hand cleaned them and put them in a soy sauce mixture. They had a salmon dip and some crackers to go with it. It was pretty good I must say.

He also told Greg that it was good luck to eat the beating heart of the first salmon. So Greg did it. He said it tasted salty and pretty good. NO THANK YOU.

The kids took my camera and took all kinds of pictures.

The salmon I reeled in.

Love this little photoshoot Jaelee did. She was cracking herself up over it.

This looked so idyllic. Turns out it’s now a B&B.

As we were heading back we saw orca whales.

We ended up getting quit a bit of salmon but the king salmon was all too small. We couldn’t even bring it on the boat. We mostly got silver salmon, a chum and a pink. We had it processed and shipped home. They called Greg almost a week after we were back and asked how we wanted it sent. It was cheaper to put it on a plane and pick it up then to overnight it through Fedex so that’s what we did. He went to the airport and picked it up.

It was another great day. We had the same taxi driver back to the boat. He gave us a recommendation for where to eat and dropped us off there. It was a short walk after that back to the boat.

We ate dinner at the Hanger on the Wharf. It was pretty cool, hangers really did come in right there. We watched a few. I had the best halibut chowder I’ve ever had there.

That night Greg and I got the hot tub off the back of the boat again. We stayed out there for hours watching a lot of whale spouts.