Summer booking continue to be strong with just a few weeks left. We always get a few more late booking once we get home to Juneau. The trip back South in September is also now open due to a cancellation.

We are please to add a new distribution partner in Newport Beach. If you ever want to know what folks are catching there or get the right gear for fishing Mexico south, visit http://www.jdsbiggame.com

This year the Alaska DFG is predicting a great run of pink salmon. This is a good precursor of a great season for Kings and Silvers. The fish and game regulations have changed for the worse concerning Halibut. If your are fishing with a guide that has a pole permit you are restricted to one halibut a day , not to exceed 37 inches. The commercial fishery has limits on poundage, but no slot limit on the number of large female halibut they can remove from the biomass.

Salmon fishing rules are unchanged with the minimum size for Kings taken after 7/15 by non-residents, restricted to greater than 48″. Not to worry . By mid July plenty of other salmon are showing up daily! Plus we have lots of wildlife,crabbing and other fishing to look forward to.

We’ll its time to load the new refrigerator,BBQ, and , other items for this years run. See you up North!

The trips and bookings have been coming in at a brisk pace. What a difference a year makes! Capt. Lawrenz and Eason will be bringing the boat up from Bellingham in mid May. Stopping in Kechikan to change crews, we will then head out to Craig and go to Sitka via the open ocean. We have a fishing trip booked for this leg. It should be very good for Kings!

The season will start in Sitka and we have several trips where a naturalist will be aboard  to explain wildlife . Several family reunion trips and a couple of fishing trips are also booked.

We have a week open in July and a week in August that are still available. The trip and transit South are also still available at a reduced rate.

If you are thinking about Alaska this Summer, give  us call.

Captain Don

It was a real quiet year in the Southeast this summer. Crowds were down and the wildlife viewing and fishing were better than ever. This years highlight was a 43 lb King salmon caught by Bernie of Lafayette Ca. We also enjoyed some new adventures such as airboat tours of the Hubbard glacier and helicopter stops on the Juneau ice field.

Elfin Cove was a great stop this year despite a fire that burned to the ground a house and scorched part of Coho’s Bar. No Ambers this year.

The Coho bite and Kings were in good supply and halibut fishing was a little off.

Pelican had its water supply and electricity back on this year. Sure glad we were on the boat when we visited Rose’s last summer.

The Susan Dawn ran great this summer and many new guests were added to our log book. Most guests this year came from the United States. Our last trips were from Juneau to Sitka and back again to Juneau. We had real blue bird weather in Sitka with not one cloud and temps in the 70″s for a couple of days. A real rare event in Sitka.

Our return to Juneau took us back through Peril Straights. Upon entering the  passage into the main Chatham  we pulled our shrimp pots from this new secret location. Gathered about 2 1/2 gallons on spotted prawns for dinner. A fine treat.

Now that we are back in Washington, we will prepare the boat for the winter and get working on the “honey do” list. We look to return the boat to beautiful Alaska in early May 2011. We have space available for the trip up. First leg will be Washington State to Ketchikan Ak. Second leg will be a out bound leg from Ketchikan to Craig for some early King fishing. We will also stop at Port Alexander as we work our way up to Juneau. All told the Spring trip will be over 1000 miles.

Check the website for new lower rates for 2011. Happy and safe voyages.

Captain Don

We made our way to Bartlett Cove via Point Adolphus to do some whale watching.  We were happy to see several Humpback whales in the area.  Point Adolphus is the most reliable spot for seeing whales that we’ve ever experienced.  We have never been disappointed with whale watching there. 

After attending the Park Service orientation at Bartlett Cove, we made our way into Glacier Bay.  We stopped to do some fishing and caught a couple of nice Halibut.  It seems that fishing will not be a problem during this trip.  At the end of a great day, we anchored for the evening in Fingers Bay.

On June 17 we had a leisurely breakfast and headed out of the harbor to do some more fishing.  We had another great day of fishing and were delighted with the sizeable King Salmon and Halibut we caught.  The weather was fair and the seas calm. 

As we proceeded to Reed Inlet to anchor for the night we spotted a large brown bear on the beach.  We all had our binoculars trained on the bear, and much to our delight, it walked right into the inlet ahead of us and swam across the opening.  It reached the opposite shore and waded out of the water, only to be dive-bombed by the birds that resided there.

The following morning we woke to fog and the sound of water rushing from the nearby waterfalls.  We waited for the fog to lift as we breakfasted.  It finally cleared when we reached Lamplugh Glacier.  Next we went to the face of Margerie Glacier where we saw lots of glacier calving activity.  Just imagine the sight of a tremendous amount of glacier ice dumping into the water!  It creates quite a wave when the ice hits the water.  We spent the night in Blue Mouse Cove and dinned on  crab cakes for dinner.

We awoke to another beautiful, calm, sunny day in Glacier Bay.  We spent some more time fishing, and then went to observe the Sea Lion rookery, where we also found several Tufted Puffins.  The young sea lions acted as sentinels and swam out to the boat to check us out.  The huge bull sea lions were surrounded by many females and babies.  It was a sight to behold.

That day the water was flat calm with plenty of beautiful sunshine.  We sailed to the village of Hoonah, where we planned to spend the night.  The final day of our trip was overcast with a slight chop.  We spent much of the day running back to Juneau, where we ended our trip. 

We had a wonderful trip, made new friends, and caught Halibut and Salmon that were a wonderful addition to the menu.  We saw mountain goats, brown bear, sea lions, puffins, humpback whales and more.  A good time was had by all.

The Captain and Crew of the M/V Susan Dawn.

As Buddy waited for the Charter boat to clear customs, he took the time to replace a bank of batteries for the boat. He continued to get supplies and waited for Captain Don, who was flying in from Washington.  With supplies and staff in tow, we were finally ready to make our 5-day trip to Juneau. 

We made a first stop at Ratz Harbor, a harbor on the Prince of Wales Island, the 4^th largest island in the U.S. We tested out the new Skiff and fished for some bait for our crab pots.  The skies were clear, with not a cloud in the sky.  Well rested, we continued on our way to Juneau.

The good weather followed as we traveled through Wrangell Narrows, a 20 mile narrow and shallow channel on the way to Petersburg. We caught sight of Humpback Whales and some Dall Porpoises swimming under water.

We spent the night at the Petersburg Harbor, which has some of the best docks we’ve seen in Southeast Alaska. The city of Petersburg had put a lot of money into modernizing their Harbor, and we’ve enjoyed their investment.  Weather continues to be in the mid-70’s.  As we sailed up the eastern side of the Inner Passage, Kathleen caught a 32 pound King Salmon.  We enjoyed a nice dinner of Salmon that night.   

The next day we experienced very strong winds.  The Susan Dawn was pushed at over 8 knots with the engines off, which shut off our fishing and trolling.  The weather changed drastically the day we left Taku Harbor.  There was an overcast of clouds that kept getting lower and lower and turned into rain.  We crossed Stephens Passage, and on the way caught a Flounder.

Our trip ended at Harris Harbor, in Juneau.  Diesel is still at $2.90 per gallon.  We started to prepare for our next trip from Juneau.  The company guests, who will be on this trip, are lucky. We were able to make reservations to go to Glacier Bay.  They should have a good 4 days of sightseeing.  Glaciers are amazing to experience. The trip is scheduled for June 15^th and has already left, and will return on the 20^th.  Captain Buddy is leading that trip, as Captain Don has other business that needs attending to.  We look forward to blogging about that trip by June 22nd.

Captains Buddy & Don