A Super Fishing Trip out of Prince Rupert

I headed up to Prince Rupert for some salmon and halibut fishing with long time friend, Ron Lepine, and his son Todd. On the left is Bernie Morvell, an Ozzie from Canberra who is working with Todd. We are looking at the Bulkley River at Moricetown, between Smithers and Terrace.

We are impressed with the beautiful scenery in the Bulkley Valley. This is the spot where the First Nations people at Moricetown fish for salmon off the rocks along the river.

We watched this bear grazing along the highway, near Terrace.

Ron can't wait to get fishing!

All the essentials are here; no one is going to be hungry or thirsty on this trip!

We stopped to load a few crabs as we pull out of Prince Rupert. The dungeness crabs are wonderful... sweet and very meaty!

A gorgeous sunset on our first night out. This is shaping up to be a very pretty trip!

They say that playing a halibut is like trying to land a barn door. The arms start 'barking' after a few are on board and we kept hoping that we weren't going to tie into the 'big one!'

The halibut were plentiful and ARE very tasty!

At about 60 pounds, this halibut will be appreciated for quite some time...even its cheeks!

A bald eagle comes in for a landing.

Terry Weaver, our skipper, filetted the halibut when the fishing was put on hold...our arms were happy for the break!

Dundas Island in the foreground and the snow capped mountains of the Alaska Panhandle in the background.

It wasn't hard getting up at 5:00 knowing that the scenery was going to be this easy on the eyes.

Not bad for a couple of hours in the early morning.

Just one of the many eagles that checked us out as we trolled slowly close to the coast...hoping for a discarded rock fish or scrap of herring.

A bald eagle comes in to pick up a discarded piece of herring.

Yes, I am a happy fisherman. These springs were in the 25 to 30 pound range. They were caught at Goose Bay on Dundas Island, just south of the Alaska Panhandle.

Even if the fishing was quiet for a while, there was always something to do...even if it was just watching the sun burn off the early morning haze.

We pulled up the prawn traps just as we were about to tie up in Rupert and found about 100 15 cm long prawns...just to round out the catch.

Yes, it was a very successful fishing trip. With lots of salmon, halibut, prawns and crab... there will be seafood on the dinner table for quite a while!