On a small boat, big fish, scenery and wildlife of Alaska’s Inside Passage come alive

PETERSBURG, Alaska – A few days back, Terry Arnesen throttled up the two outboards that swung from the transom of his boat as he angled his home-away-from-home out of this town’s harbor of mostly commercial fishing boats, many of which had seen better days.

Terry’s watercraft wasn’t a “Deadliest Catch”-size trawler, but a 26-foot aluminum pilothouse-style boat he had trailered from the Twin Cities to Seattle before turning north, intent on traveling some 3,000 water miles before returning home.

A semi-retired horse veterinarian and longtime friend who lives in Stillwater, Terry not too many years ago bought his boat, which he dubbed Do North, and set about exploring the salty waters of Alaska’s Inside Passage.

“Now it’s something I want to do as often as I can,” he said. “There’s halibut, salmon, whales, glaciers and beauty everywhere.”

About 10 days ago, my wife, Jan; our older son, Trevor; and I flew to Ketchikan, Alaska, to meet up with Terry. This would be more like camping than crossing the same waters in the Queen Elizabeth or another behemoth cruiser. And southeast Alaska often is enveloped in low, steel gray skies and bordered by roiling seas whose peaks and troughs can still the hearts of small boat owners. But the prospect for adventure was appealing, and sightseeing, too, as was the chance to catch fish as the four of us wound our way north to Juneau, about 300 miles from Ketchikan.

This past week, on Tuesday evening, we tied up Terry’s boat in Petersburg, a small seaside fishing village that can only be reached by air or water. A fishing hub for thousands of years, Petersburg was first settled by Tlingit Native people, before, beginning in the late 1800s, Norwegian entrepreneurs built a cannery and lumber mill here, believing the blue ice of the nearby LeConte Glacier could chill the processed fish.

Today, fishing and seafood processing supports a $40 million Petersburg economy and is the town’s biggest business.

Hungry after a long day on the water, and soon after arriving in Petersburg, we set up a small, gas-fueled hibachi on the dock alongside Terry’s boat. As light rain drizzled from the sky, dense clouds and fog alternately masked and unmasked the surrounding mountains. The temperature was about 50.

“We’ll have to get some gas in the morning before we head out fishing,” Terry said, “They’re predicting 2- to 4-foot seas, which shouldn’t be too bad.”

We would dine while sitting on coolers and lawn chairs, donning for the evening’s meal rain jackets, waterproof bibs and rubber boots – duds that are de rigueur in southeast Alaska.

Dinner would be salad, rice and fresh halibut, a couple of which we had caught earlier Tuesday in about 130 feet of water while en route from the night’s previous stay in Wrangell, Alaska.

Jan had brought a smorgasbord of seasonings with which to accent the halibut, and the delicate white fish, sprinkled with her proprietary blend of herbs and spices, sizzled on the grill. As our previous dinners had been, this would be an all-you-could-eat halibut bonanza, backgrounded on this evening by the low hum of commercial fishing boats arriving and departing the Petersburg harbor.

Sneaking a piece of halibut from the grill, Trevor said, “Outstanding.”

Halibut are flatfish, and weird ones at that. At birth, they have one eye on each side of their head, but by six months of age, one eye has migrated to the other side, and for the rest of their lives, both eyes remain on that side. Completing an exoticism trifecta, halibut are mottled brown on top to protect them from predators above, and white on the bottom to guard them from foes below.

On Wednesday, we left Petersburg in our wake for a day of fishing.

“We’ll run two hours to where we’ll fish,” Terry said.

Heaving and falling in the ocean’s choppy rollers, Terry’s boat followed a course we had set to what we hoped would be a halibut hot spot. In the morning’s translucent milieu, other boats within a mile or two of us revealed themselves initially not to our eyesight but on the boat’s radar screen. Flapping like metronomes, Do North’s windshield wipers cleared the way as best they could.

At times like this, you want really to know what you’re doing, and we figured we did. Terry’s twin outboards were veterans of a couple of these trips, and he kept them tuned up. Likewise his boat had proven seaworthy, and inside its cabin we were warm and dry, albeit occasionally airborne.

“Let’s try it here,” Terry said finally.

We were in about 125 feet of water, and Trevor was first to lower a torpedo-shaped jig to the bottom. By contrast, Jan, Terry and I fished skirted double-hook setups baited with herring we had caught just outside the Petersburg harbor before departing for open water.

In minutes, Trevor’s heavy rod was bent in a neat parabola. This could be a halibut, or possibly a lingcod, which we had also caught previously. The latter, however, had to be at least 30 inches long to be kept by a nonresident, a size of fish we hadn’t yet seen.

“I’ve got one, too,” Terry said, and, like Trevor, he began spooling the 130 feet of braided line that separated him from his quarry.

For Alaska nonresidents, the halibut daily limit is two, with four in possession. With luck we would catch dinner, and perhaps have a few left over to take home.

Trevor’s fish turned out to be a too-small lingcod. But Terry’s was a halibut, and soon Jan and I were cranking on similar fish.

In the nervous seas, Terry’s boat pitched and yawed, and the four of us slid around a bit in the boat’s open aft, reaching for handholds while mostly securing our footing and reveling in the day’s good fortune.

When we had eight halibut in the boat’s hold, we angled back to Petersburg.

En route, to the boat’s starboard, a dozen or so humpback whales breached as they bubble-net fed in mystical synchronization.

Terry killed the engines, and for a good while we watched in quiet amazement.

Few places on earth offer days like these, and we were thankful for this one.