Finally a full day in the first city of Alaska – Ketchikan. when we arrived at the port, we were the sixth cruise ship in town. That’s a lot of people in a small town. Unfortunately, it was raining but the temperature wasn’t too cold, 60°. We learned that Ketchikan is a rain forest and experiences 300 days of rain a year.

Today we were all going on different excursions. Mom and I went salmon fishing on the Knudson Cove. Bowman and John went on a duck boot, and saw lighthouses, eagles, and totems. John and the rest went to the lumberjack show.

For our salmon fishing adventure we boarded a bus just, off of the pier for a 30 minute drive to the Knudson Cove. There were a lot of people going on this trip. The good part was each boat only fit 4 to 6 people so it’s not like we were going to be fishing with 100 people. We met up with our captain, Nick, who was driving a friend’s boat, called Miss Lucille (friends grandmother’s name). We were hoping to see wildlife and not just fish, which was going to include eagles, seals, whales, dolphins and otters. It didn’t take us long once we left the dock to put lines in the water.

The two couples on the boat with us we’re both from Texas. The men were more clearly more seasoned fisherman, but that didn’t seem to matter since two of the three fish we caught, were caught by women. What I’ve never done before, is trolling, which is a very easy way to fish. I felt it was cheating. Nick hooked up four lines, he didn’t use live bait, but instead used flashers that were sparkly and lore on the end. There was a weight on the troll bar that I think brought all of the lines down to a depth of about 100 feet. The coves depth was much larger than we anticipated. Which is why you sometimes see whales. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see any. We did see about four eagles, lots of salmon, jumping out of the water, and when we returned to the marina, we saw three sea lions.

Unfortunately, wildlife is the only thing we saw for the first hour or so of our fishing adventure. We weren’t having any luck, any bites, and it was so much disappointing. We moved over to the left side of the Cove where we seem to see a lot of fish, jumping up out of the water. That’s when some of the action began.

When the first line hit, one of the women stepped up to try and reel the fish in, but unfortunately, it dropped off. When the second line hit the next woman stepped in to reel in the fish, and it dropped off too. So now the third line hit, so I stepped up to take my turn. Nick told me to reel the line in slowly, which I did. And wooo hooo he netted my fish, and I caught a pink salmon. I have no idea how long it was or how many pounds it was, but it didn’t really matter. I caught the first fish of the day, and I was taking this fish home with me. I’ve skipped a few critical parts of my story. When we brought the fish into the boat, it flipped and flopped everywhere, and blood was all over the back of the boat. It also was on me and my shoes. Yuck. Then Nick unhooked the salmon, which we now are going to call Pinky, and gave it to me to hold. I am in no way wanted to hold his flopping live fish in my hand. So I did a lot of screaming saying oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my God over and over again which probably scared the fish.

We finished until the very last minute that we could and unfortunately only caught three fish total. Mom didn’t catch any fish, but enjoyed watching everyone else fish. She enjoyed the boat ride, but learned her sea legs were a little wobbly. At the marina, they fillet, cut up, vacuum, seal, and freeze your fish and will mail it to your home address. So that’s what happened to Pinky. She’s on her way to Pennsylvania but not leaving until next week. Hopefully she’s tasty. I have absolutely no idea how much it’s costing me to mail this little fish. But let’s just say this fishing adventure was rather expensive.

Bowman and John thoroughly enjoy their two excursions. Learning lots of fun facts about the area including the fact that Ketchikan has the smallest Walmart in the world. They saw multiple eagles while visiting the lighthouses and totems. John and the family thoroughly enjoyed the lumberjack show which was quite entertaining.