On August 26, we left Sitka and headed towards Deep Bay in Peril Strait. On the way, we fished in Salisbury Sound where we had a huge squall come through the area. When the swells got uncomfortable in the sound we went around the point and fished our way into Fish Bay. Since we had no success, we decided to cruise through Sergious Narrows and make our way to Deep Bay.
Deep Bay is located across the channel from Baby Bear Cove. Before we anchored, we took a moment to drop the crab pots in the bay. We did develop a new to us technique of dropping pots. We are dropping them from Sea Venture. We drop the pots off the bow, then just back away. Then, to pick them up, we grab the buoy using the boat hook from the bow. We use the anchor winless to pull them back up onto the bow. It works very well and makes quick work of gathering pots. We don’t have to launch the tender, get the pots loaded in the tender and on and on.
The next day, we cruised to Hoonah sound to fish, but did not do very well. We checked out a couple of anchorages we didn’t like in Hoonah sound for the upcoming storm, so we went back to Deep Bay. This time we dropped the pots and anchored near the front of the bay behind an island. We needed to hunker down for another couple of nights for this round of storms. We did get the tender down the next day to check the pots and cruise around the island. The water was remarkably clear.
We next went to Hoonah Sound again to fish. While we were fishing, we did see a large pod of grey whales, maybe 7 or 8, bubble net feeding in the sound. It is the largest group we have ever seen bubble net feeding. They were at it all day, and we did watch them for a bit. We almost got skunked fishing for both salmon and halibut. At the end of the day, we caught two nice salmon off the point of Emmons Island, and went to the anchorage on the lee side for the night.