Tugboat Vagabonds

by Terry W. Sheely

In the gray half-light and mist that passes for daylight this morning along the docks in Juneau, two guys in orange Grunden bibs are throwing a small mountain of sport-fishing gear, crab pots, coolers, and duffle bags into a cavernous tugboat. Hands reach out of the gloom, grab a load and disappear into the cabin.

I’m drawn to the boat, attracted by the energy and optimism spilling off the dock; fish chatter, quick lampoons of laughable criticism, Christmas-morning-in-August giddiness. [emember_protected custom_msg=’This content is available for subscribers only.’]

“Rented it for five days,” a bearded grinner tells me. “Me and my four buddies. It’s our third year. Great trip, salmon, halibut, bottomfish, dropping crab pots, anchoring wherever we want, eatin’ like kings.”

So, I have to ask, “Where are you headed then? Where’s the hot fishing?”

He just grins and hands his quiver of rods to a buddy on the boat. “Guess we’ll find out,” he answers; “that’s the fun of it . . . we never know.”

Grinner and his four buds are clearly onto something good—a super-sized fish trip off leash from the regional limitations that anchor fishing adventures to land-based lodges, resorts, and day charters.

These five guys, each already showing beard stubble and cracking off-color, are part of a growing cadre of confirmed tugboat tenants off to check out the latest rumor of red-hot fishing, while chasing whimsy through the picturesque puzzle of islands, coves, inlets and sounds in Southeast, spending nights anchored on the serendipity, and toasting sunsets with their feet on the railing and cigar smoke in the air.

I can appreciate the spritz in their free-spirited attitudes.

My fishing buddy Jim Goerg and I are enjoying a little bounce of our own.

We’re booked on another tug, the M.V. Legend (www.alaskalegendcharters.com) with another Tugfitter with plans to run south with Captain David Carnes and Kurt Dzinich. It’s my first tugboat expedition and I’m curious—and impressed. There is nothing second-cabin about the M.V. Legend it was built specifically for this and it shows in the brass and wood and quality that reflects from every inch of its 42 feet. My bed nearly fills the stateroom, there’s a tray of filet mignon in the fridge, rods are loaded and waiting, and some of the most productive salmon, halibut, crab and shrimp water in Alaska will soon be appearing over the blunted bow.

Rumor has it that a big run of silvers is wedged into Stephens Pass near Taku Harbor. On the transom are rod holders, and a pair of wire pots to soak for Dungys, while we troll around Slocum Point, head on down to the mouth of the Speel River at Port Snettisham, check out the blue icebergs slogging down from Tracy Arm and then . . ..

The fleet of cruise-and-fish tugs now moored in Juneau and available for rent as bareboat do-it-yourselfers, or with professional skippers and cooks, has added a free-wheeling new dimension to saltwater fishing from Juneau. Once you’ve chartered one of these tugs and vagabonded like fish bums through the calendar scenery of Southeast you’ll understand why Tugfitters are fast-gaining popularity with sport fishermen.

These big, swarthy boats aren’t fast—cruising at around 15 knots—but what they lack in speed the semi-displacement hulls make up for in stability, handling ease and big-league comfort.

Joergen Schade runs Nordic Tug Charters (wwww.nordictugcharters.com) based in Juneau, which with a branch in Ketchikan and with a fleet of 13 Nordic tugs from 32 to 54 feet, is likely the largest tug charter operator in Southeast. The uptick in tugboat popularity always comes down to the same factors, he says.

As he explains on his web site, “Chartering your own boat allows you to fish anywhere in an area about 90 miles wide by 250 miles long. You can fish the most productive fishing areas at the best times and avoid spending hours of running time going back and forth to a fixed base everyday in a small boat. You don’t have to get up two to three hours earlier to hit the morning bite, you’re already there! Being onboard your own boat you get to go where you want, when you want, and do more fishing, sightseeing and relaxing, than you thought was possible on a six or more day vacation.”

Made perfect sense to Jim and I.

With several guys splitting the cost of rent, fuel, food and bait and set free to cruise wild Alaska with a salmon rod and crab pot—there’s not much of an argument.

When you book a tug you essentially get two choices: bareboat skipper-it-yourself boats (if someone in the party is experienced at running boats,) or tug with a skipper. Which call depends on the specific Tugfitter, the boat, the policy and what you want to do and pay for.

David Carnes, a former mining engineer and his wife Pat run the M.V. Legend on an either-or basis. Either, “a bareboat with skipper or fully chartered with skipper. Bareboat you bring the food, fuel, and the rest. Chartered you bring your luggage and we bring the rest. Either way, you get a skipper.”

It takes me about five seconds of watching David work the boat to realize that there’s no way this proud tug master is going to turn his teak and leather love over to the kindness of strangers. His skills at the helm and galley stove means I’ll be comfortable, attitudinally adjusted and well rested for those deadly salmon and crab pot encounters waiting down Stephens Pass.

There are other Tugfitters available in Juneau who do offer self-skipper options like the one my bearded informant and his buddies were loading.

Joergen’s Nordic Tug Charters offers tugs from 32 to 54 feet long that can be chartered with or without skippers, with berths of from four to six fishermen and optional tackle and gear. Self-skippered packages come with charts, suggested routes, destinations, an itinerary of suggested scenery and fish stops and a recap of proven anchorage areas. The tugs are equipped with the electronics necessary to get you there and back and to locate every fish and bait ball between here and there.

These tugs are not “work boats” cleaned up and pulling second jobs as fishing cruisers. These boats are made to fish and cruise and are outfitted with modern comforts, clean heads, showers, beds and cooking utensils. The quality of fishing tackle, though, can vary widely and it’s a good idea to bring your favorites.

While costs vary among Tugfitters and with assorted option packages, once you get past the charter fee most major bareboat costs will be for fuel, food, fishing licenses, bait and moorage fees if required. Captain Carnes estimates per day costs on the M. V. Legend at boat fuel $150, food $30 (ea); NR 14-day fishing license $100, and for $150 a day he’ll add a cook.

Nosing out of Harris Boat Harbor, the big blue bow of the M.V. Legend, turns past cruise-ship row below South Franklin Street. Captain David spins the varnished spokes on the wheel, checks the tach keeping track of the 330-hp Cummins diesel, wipers the mist off the windshield, pokes the GPS, grins and says we’re headed for Taku. It’s a 17-mile run south of Juneau where there’s a state marine park dock that we’ll use to tie up for the night. Steamer clams are on the beach, crabs in the bay and a black bear that we will scare out of the yellow kelp.

We’re off—tugboat vagabonds at a blistering 9.5 knots, using 5 gallons of fuel per hour. There’s salmon ahead—I can feel it. Clouds hang on the green hills like ribbons of smoke. A gillnetter coming back from a brief commercial sockeye opening at Taku River radios us that the wind has laid and we should have an easy crossing. He heard, he adds, that silver salmon are moving past the point at Slocum Inlet.

Blue iceberg, some in small chunks others the size of yachts, drift past us in the channel, glacial slough coming out of Tracy Arm, David says. I stare into the fog, imagine that I see a boat in the mist on the far side of Stephens Pass and wonder what direction Beard and his buddies took after they left Juneau.

Humpback whales give us the eye and flukes slap. When we get to Taku we’ll set the crab pots, tie up at a public wharf at Taku Marine Park, and crunch across a carpet of clams and shellfish to explore.

Dave noses the Legend up to Scar Face a 3,254-foot cliff where glaciers scraped the mountainside off. “You can see what the inside of a mountain looks like,” our guide says. Glacial striations cross the face inhuge welts of white lines and cross sections of quartz veins. In spring, Dave says, mountain goats push their newborn kids onto the cliff face, defying gravity and preying wolves.

A horsetail waterfall braids and gushes a stream of cream and white down the granite diorite face. At the base of the cliff the saltwater is 430 feet deep.

Twenty miles into the mountains is Canada and closer is imposing Taku Glacier, which is advancing, irrevocably, toward a narrow neck and the mouth of Taku River, where fish mangers worry that it will eventually push across, seal off the river and eliminate one of Southeast’s most productive commercial sockeye fisheries.

Before we get there, though, we see two floatplanes unload seven fly fishermen who slog up Slocum Creek to play with pinks and maybe silvers.

On another day, without the airborne competition, we could anchor up, run the dingy ashore and enjoy the wilderness stream action ourselves. (Note to self: bring waders for small boat landings and wilderness stream fishing).

Instead we drop the big diesel into trolling gear and put out lines at Butler Point. Squalls are bouncing around the inlet behind the point like sodden pinballs and the wind is building.

The salmon action, though, is quicker than immediate.

Jim is still feeding line off his reel, holding the downrigger release in his left hand, when the first Tugfitter silver of the trip unloads on his hoochie.

Before he gets the fish to the net, I hook a twin—both are fat, short 12-pounders. Jim catches another and I cracker one at the boat that dodged left when the flasher was skating right. We’re fishing Dave Faves—orange-headed hootchies sweetened with strips of herring. A strange color combination but with the flashers they work, so who’s to argue.

We keep three silvers for future dinners.

It’s crazy at the state dock, winds swirling and hitting 38 knots. Dave makes three passes before the big boat noses close enough to rope a line. The beach is a shatter of little necks, butter clams, cockles, and tangles of blue mussels. We set two crab pots, baited with salmon heads, and drop them in front of a line of commercial pots buoys that bob like blunted pickets between the white caps.

The wind is still smacking us sideways when Skipper David puts on the filet mignon and shrimp. Jim and I open the celebratory first-day amber and corn chips and the fish stories start.

During the night the squall line blows out and the morning air comes in clear and clean. Snow-streaked mountains bounce the sunlight off Admiralty Island. Breakfast is in the oven—an intriguing concoction of eggs poured into pockets in a homemade hash, bulging like rows of golden globes treading in bulls eyes of meat and potato puddles.

While the bulging globes bake we move south, past more blue bergs, toward Port Snettisham and who knows what.

Juneau’s Tugfitter fleet operates on an April-to-September schedule, which coincides with peak fishing in Southeast. The salmon that come through here are primarily pass-by fisheries, migrating stocks moving through Juneau waters in numerous distinct runs and the timing depends on which run is headed where.

Kings are in the Juneau-Admiralty Island area all tug season, arriving in April and early May, peaking in late May through June and tapering off from July-September. Silvers hit Southeast rip lines and points in mid-July and just get better the deeper the season falls into September. Almost always chums and pinks in midsummer, along with halibut, lings, rockfish, Dungeness crab and shrimp.

If it’s not happening where you’re fishing—move to where it is happening. It’s that easy. I feel like a bear, fishing, feeding and moving all day and when it gets dark wherever I am, I’m already home.

There’s an enormous amount of water available to cruise, fish, crab and kick-back. The itinerary suggested by Joergen Schade starts with a shake-down cruise to Taku, then a three-hour run to Tracy Arm for the waterfalls, granite walls and pair of coastal waterline glaciers at the end of the fjord. Cross to Gambier Bay and anchor up in Snug Cove and fish. Then it’s off to Pybus Bay on the southeast end of Admiralty Island for salmon and halibut in Frederick Sound, pass the Sail Island sea lion rookery to Petersburg.

From Petersburg, Joergen recommends going into Frederick Sound, crossing Chatham Strait to try for kings off Nelson Bay, maybe a halibut, a troll for silvers near Kelp Bay, and then back to Baranof Warm Springs for a soak in the natural hot springs. In September a stop at ADF&G’s Hidden Falls hatchery off the west side of Chatham Strait is required for the unbelievable coho action. Every stream pouring off Admiralty, Chichagof and Baranof islands is a promising prospect for silvers, chum and pinks from midsummer on and tugboat adventurers will have more than enough fish and scenery just looping through the ABCs.

A west turn from Chatham into Peril Straits cuts through Sergius Narrows to Sitka for Chinook in Sitka Sound, and bottomfish in Salisbury Sound. Tie up and treat yourself to a dinner in town and a howl at the P-Bar.

Tenakee Springs is worth the stop just for the hot spring soak—clothing is not an option and there are gender separate soaking hours. And there’s really good fishing nearby.

Northwest into Icy Strait puts fishermen on top of storied halibut action at the remote and curious little towns of Elfin Cove and Pelican. Just outside, past the communities in Cross Sound at the edge of the ocean multiple salmon runs stage for most of the summer, gorging on bait balls before heading inland through Icy Strait. On the return trip save a little room in the fish box for halibut off the flats in front of Glacier Bay, silvers around Gustavus and Pleasant Island, kings in front of the lighthouse at Point Retreat and Dolly Varden, trout and salmon in every river along the way.

Like the guy said back on the tugboat dock at Juneau when I asked where he expected to find the best fishing, “that’s the fun of it . . . we never know.”

Longtime Fish Alaska contributing editor Terry Sheely makes his home in Black Diamond, WA, but regularly can be found fishing the various nooks and crannies of southeast Alaska. [/emember_protected] [emember_protected scope=”not_logged_in_users_only”]

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