What Happens In Alaska: Herring

So, if I had to recommend a time for you to come visit Sitka, I would have to say to come the end of March. That is when the herring are here spawning and they are as easy to catch as a virus!! I realized today that catching herring is not a sport, it is a job! You don't put your hook in the water and wait until you get a nibble and then hope it bites hard enough to be caught. No. With herring, you use a herring jig that has about 6 tiny little hooks on it. Then you attach a weight to the end and then put the whole thing on your fishing pole. Then, you find a spot near the shore. You can either be on the dock or in your boat. It doesn't matter. Then you let your line out until you hit bottom, about 16 feet. By the time your weight hits the bottom, you have 1, 2 3, or 4 herring on! So you bring your line in. Some herring fall off, but it doesn't matter, because as soon as you put your hooks back in the water, you have more. In about an hour, after non-stop catching, we had 10 dozen. And that was with only 4 lines going - Troy didn't have time to fish since he was busy unhooking herring from the kids hooks! It was so much fun. We finally had to say "enough" because we were going to just keep fishing. We use them for halibut skates and in the crab pots, so it will be nice to have so much . Saves on having to buy them. So after the fishing madness, we went around looking for whales. We did see two of them, but we only saw the tails which means they were diving and could be gone for a long time so we kept going and didn't see any others. But we did find a cute little otter to take a picture of.

the look on Meg's face is one of panic as she had 3 herring