Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

The Village Idiot This Bald Eagle is enjoying his perch atop the Village Idiot's trolling poles      While the above named post might lead the reader into thinking that this post is about myself, I can soundly reject that notion and would encourage you to look closely at the stern of the boat in the top picture. As you can see, plainly or not so much so, the boat in question is none other than The Village Idiot, home ported in what used to be a lovely little fishing village on the outer coast of Chichagof Island, at the very entrance to Cross Sound. Unfortunately, like so many fine places in Alaska, the area has been taken over by the tourist industry and it's changed the whole character of the the village.I believe that there are nine lodges crammed into the harbor now, puking out an ungodly number of charter fishermen several times a day from spring to the fall every year.  I would much rather see the moniker Village Idiot on one of those boats, alo...

The Fairweather Mountain Range, outside coast                                                            Blue green glacial water in Idaho Inlet     The point I anchored behind in Idaho Inlet    I ran to the outside coast last week. Fishing on the inside has been almost non-existent. Well, at least the fish have been. What good is going fishing if you can't catch any fish? Granted it can be fun or relaxing or whatever you adverb you want to use to describe it, but when you're a commercial fisherman, you need to catch fish. That's the bottom line. Otherwise the adjective used to describe you is poor or perhaps destitute or penniless. Any of those would work. Anyway, I bit the bullet and ran out to the outside coast last week. I had to wait for a weather window. The week before I went o...

  As I had mentioned earlier in the season, I have to actually do something (fishing) that in theory will make me a few bucks. As a result, I haven't had too much time or energy to donate to this blog. So sorry, but as I age I find myself with less and less stamina. At the end of the day, and especially if I've been out on the water all day, I'm really drained, so I don't have much to give to writing. However, it's been a few days since I last fished, so I thought I would take a few minutes and try to put something out for the faithful few who have been reading this. The summer king opening started on July 1, which meant that the outside coast was  open for fishing. The difference is like night and day between fishing out on the ocean and fishing on the inside in the bays and inlets of the Inside Passage. On June 30th, I started on my way out to the coast. I was fighting the tide all the way out, figuring I would make it to South Pass rig...