Pollock with my son in Homer...interesting....

So Saturday I fished Whiskey Gulch with my son.  I managed to boat 2 halibut that might total 20 pounds.  Nice healthy fish.  He had a couple of strikes that burned drag off for a few seconds but still didn't manage to hook the fish.  Not sure what he is doing wrong.  It all looks ok.  Hmmm....

So I promised him that if we didn't hook any halibut, we would go "Catching" instead of fishing.  I hate doing it because I think it resets the patience clock a little bit, but I can remember when i was his age, loving to fish the tiny sculpins we had in the ditch behind our house. 

So we head to the Homer spit on Sunday where I knew he could catch a bunch of pollock.  The pollock were there and the fishing easy.  Used artificial at first and caught a bunch.  Last 30 minutes I stick him over to bait and it was non-stop. 

So a few observations:

1) A kid doesn't care anywhere near what an adult does in terms of species for the fight.  There is great truth to the saying "The tug is the drug".  For him, its all about getting the strikes. 

2) The pollock turned out to be awesome because on this day, by himself handled well over 25 fis.  I helped with what seemed like almost as many and by the end of the day, he was getting 90% of the fish off the hook, baited and back down fishing. 

3) These pollock around the spit are usually infested with round worms.  And normally you can just tell they are generally in bad shape with the sores and open wounds.  These fish looked amazingly clean and my dad loves pollock and cod so I kept the bunch you see at the end.  When I filleted them, they were amazingly clean.  maybe a couple of worms here and there but easily seen and not very many at all.  Fish looked really clean.  I did pull up a few that had some isopod alien looking thing attached to them.  I love marine biology but even I let out a squeal when I flipped the fish over and saw them.  They were like an inch long and looked like one of these but with hair or spines...I didn't touch them to find out. 


4) A bunch of what looked to be reds were jumping right off the point at Land's end.  10ft from the beach.  If I read the regs right you can snag off the spit from June 24 to Dec 31 if you are just meat hunting.  I have no clue how long they are there.  We did see some nice kings rolling off the spit as well. 

Ok so heres a 90 second video...of pollock.  LOL.

Rudy that was awesome. Loved the score on the Barbie pole.

Looks like fun to me! Everything feels like a monster on lighter gear.

 The next generation "Guru" of Alaska.

 Kids want volume they don't cuare what kind of fish it is. Just lots of action.
 Looks like Ryu was having fun.... and that what it's all about.
 Good job dad......