Grandson Tyler and his girlfriend Katie wanted to do an overnight trip before they left town. I chose Marguerite Bay for this trip, mainly because of the bear viewing platform. Katie had never seen a bear in the wild. I usually avoid Marguerite Bay at this time of the year because they fly tourists in to go up and see the bears. But I think they are done flying them in for this season.
We pulled out of my slip in Bar Harbor at about 11 AM in calm and overcast weather. At least there was no rain.
Tyler wanted to try some trolling first, so we dropped lines in the Pup Island area and trolled up towards Tatoosh Rocks. There were many boats in the area also trolling. We trolled for about 2 hours but all we got was an undersized King, so we pulled the gear and headed for Traitors Cove in Western Behm Canal.
We got to the Marguerite Bay USFS dock at about 4 PM after dropping my shrimp pots on the way in. There were only 2 small boats there so there was plenty of room at the dock. However, there was something new this time. In the peak of the summer bear viewing season there is always conflict between private boaters and the float plane pilots. They seem to have a sense of entitlement to the dock, when in fact they do not have priority access to the dock.
In any case, sometime after my last visit here, someone painted a white zone on the dock that gives the planes room to swing their wings in over a portion of the dock when they come in to load and unload passengers.
The front of the dock has always been a loading zone only, but in the winter when there are very few boats around some people tend to ignore that designation.
We got tied up on the right side of the dock as you face it from the water.
There were two other boats there, smaller boats, that were tied to the extension on the left side, so they were well out of our way. They had 4-wheelers and were there for deer hunting on the road system. We saw very little of them.
I wasn't there when they unloaded their 4-wheelers, but I would have liked to see how they carried them on those small boats.
Tyler & Katie immediately got into dock fishing, which I suspect they enjoyed much more than the boring salmon trolling that I had subjected them to.
Tyler got several of these small Turbot.
And Katie managed to catch her second fish ever.
After I deployed the raft and set both crab pots, I set up for cooking our spaghetti dinner on the dock. When the weather allows it, I prefer to cook out on the dock. I also set up my fire pit and got a little fire going, which always seems to add to the enjoyment of the experience.
This is a beautiful area, even when it's not so sunny.
When they are flying in the tourists to go up and see the bears, they drive them up the road in vans and vehicles. It's about 3/4 of a mile up the logging road to the cut off to the bear & fish viewing platform. Unfortunately, we had to hoof it up there.
They bring in a barge and take all the vehicles off at the end of the bear viewing season.
We walked up the road to the bear viewing platform and Katie got to see bears in the wild for the first time. It is late in the season and there were only a very few live fish in the creek, so the bears we saw were scavenging all the rotting carcasses and scraps that litter the shoreline. Bears need a lot of fish in the creek to be able to catch them.
One bear made a brief effort to catch a live fish from the creek, but there just weren't enough fish there so he gave up.
This mama bear with her cub were scavenging rotten carcasses. They must have a pretty strong digestive system to be able to handle them.
This lone male got frustrated trying to catch a live fish, so he wandered off.
He looked like a pretty big bear to me.
When I left Ketchikan for Gig Harbor WA, I got rid of all my firearms, except the .22 rifle that I have had since I was 15. Tyler had shot it a few times when he was younger, and he wanted to shoot it again on this trip. I had dutifully been hoarding empty Gatorade bottles and Pepsi cans for him to use as targets. He had fun filling them full of holes.
Tyler & Katie went out in the raft to pull the crab pots. Shortly after they left, I saw them coming back, with Tyler rowing. Investigation revealed that the shear pin on the motor had apparently corroded away, rendering the motor useless. There's always something that needs fixing on a boat.
We pulled the shrimp pots on the way out of Traitors Cove, with a disappointing haul of only 14 shrimp. We had gotten 2 legal male crabs in the crab pots, so we at least were able to bring back a little bit of seafood.
On the way home the last leg of the trip is due East, and I did not notice the stunning sunset in the Western sky until I came down from the flybridge to rig the lines & bumpers for coming into the slip.
I think they had a fun time and Katie got to experience something truly Alaskan.
We logged about 60 miles on this trip.
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