A GAM without Whales?

[jimp]

How did "Whaler" get into the name? Whales, of course.

Yesterday afternoon 10 miles south of Juneau, AK. Cries of "Thar she blows!", but no whales to harpoon, only silver (Coho) salmon to catch. That hatch is 28-1/2 wide.

Fig. 1.

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Fig. 2.

Whale3.JPG (62.62 KiB) Viewed 10764 times

Fig. 3.

Whale4.JPG (107.47 KiB) Viewed 10764 times

[frontier]

Beautiful area and pictures. Are those Orca's ?
I remember vacationing in the Washington State San Juan Islands in our Boston Whaler Revenge 22 and the Orca's swimming directly under the boat. Close enough that you could see the white spots on their backs. Beautiful sight.

[jimp]

Sorry, should have mentioned they're humpbacks.

Fig. 4.

Whale2.JPG (58.94 KiB) Viewed 10741 times

Used to see them all the time north and west of town in our 1990 Revenge 22 W.T. Had that revenge for 19 years! Great boat.

[frontier]

My guess is if there were Orca's around, salmon would be kind of scarce. They are a lot better at fishing than we are.

[jimh]

Those Humpback whales must be at the other end of their migration. We saw plenty of them in Pacific Ocean at the Bahia de Banderas near Puerto Villarta in the winter. Also heard them on a hydrophone--amazing.

Orcas--we got a closeup in the Johnstone Straight in British Columbia.

But here in Lake Michigan and the other Great Lakes, nothing like a Humpback whale. Maybe a large Northern Pike once in a while. Also the backdrop is not very mountainous.

There is a lot to like about Alaskan boating, but I don't know how'd I ever trailer my REVENGE up there.

Now we do get some tasty Lake Trout and Whitefish, and some Steelhead Trout and King Salmon around here, but probably not as easily as you can find them in Alaska.

[jimp]

JimH -

Trailer to Prince Rupert or Skagway.... both a long way to go, but you've already done the BC trip.

When I had the 1990 Revenge 22 - W.T. we had a humpback swim underneath while trolling, could see it go by.

We have a resident population of humpbacks that stay here year round.

JimP

[jimp]

JimH -

A few more for you from 2009 and the Revenge.

JimP

[PeterO]

We were often approached by humpback whales while conducting sea lion research in Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands). They seemed to take joy in putting on a show and toying with us. Whaler 12 is from a fleet of whalers built by or for the Canadian Coast Guard and originally used as tenders (we scrounge whatever boats we can for our research).

Peter O.

P.S. I was a marine mammal biologist for DFO (now retired) and we never approached the whales, they always approached us.

[PeterO]

A few more photos...