Gnarley Dan goes halibut fishing

The winds in Kachemak Bay were beginning to pick up. The barely discernable morning wind chop was giving way to white-topped waves which commonly develop as the afternoon sea-breeze arrives. Gnarly Dan and his halibut fishing companion, Sweet William, a man of delicate sensitivities, glanced at each other, looking for any indication the other thought it was time to leave.

Just then, Sweet William’s line went taunt and the rod was almost jerked from his grasp. His first thought was that his halibut jig had snagged the rocky bottom. Suddenly, the line started moving away from the 18-foot aluminum skiff. Sweet William gave a solid pull and felt the circle hook set.

The fight was on!

Gnarly Dan reeled in his line and began offering encouragement and advice to Sweet William while he searched for the gaff and harpoon, just in case the fish required a little “persuasion” to come aboard! Sweet William struggled to raise the rod tip and reeled in line as the rod dipped. He continued to “pump” the rod and reel and commented that it felt like trying to lift a sheet of plywood up from the bottom. Gnarly moved into position to watch both the fight and the water for the slowly rising fish.

After a half-hour of gaining and losing line, Sweet William began to make headway — the fish was tiring and he was making major gains on line retrieval. Suddenly, Gnarly spotted the fish below. It was larger than both men had originally thought and Gnarly realized he needed to shoot the halibut before attempting to bring it aboard. He scrambled to get his small-caliber pistol out of his tackle box.

Just as the halibut broke the surface, Gnarly Dan fired one shot into its head and reached over to gaff it with his other hand. Before he could lay the pistol down, the fish began thrashing. In the excitement of struggling with the large halibut, Gnarly accidently pulled the trigger again and the bullet punched a hole through the floor of the skiff. A two-foot fountain of water appeared just in front of the center console.

Sweet William, in spite of his delicate sensitivities, made a remark to Gnarly about shooting a hole through the floor of the boat. Gnarly gave him a steely-eyed stare and, with a major heave, hauled the halibut aboard. He then calmly took a screwdriver from the tool box and one of the small towels he kept for drying his hands and pushed the whole business into the hole. The flow of water into the skiff immediately ceased.

After stowing the gear and the halibut, Gnarly fired up the outboard and brought the skiff up onto step. He pulled the drain plug to let the accumulated water empty back into the bay. Because he was concentrating on the water flow out of the boat, he failed to notice a shallow gravel bar and managed to ground the boat in short order. Luckily, the outboard flipped up when it hit the gravel, causing no apparent damage to the prop. Gnarly replaced the drain plug and both he and Sweet William began efforts to refloat the skiff.

The boat wasn’t too hard to move back into deeper water. The incoming tide helped a lot and the two intrepid fishermen were soon on their way, none the worse for this unexpected encounter with not-quite-dry ground. Gnarly cranked the throttle up to his “go like crazy” speed and they headed for the Homer harbor.

Gnarly kept the skiff angling into the building waves to minimize the rough ride and the two anglers chatted as they approached the harbor entrance. After moving past the breakwater and into the mouth of the harbor, Gnarly throttled back to comply with the “No Wake” signs. As he did so, the engine sputtered and died – the gas can was empty!

Gnarly connected the fuel line to a second tank and primed the outboard. The engine fired on his second pull of the starter cord. He shifted the outboard into gear to continue into the harbor, but nothing happened – they were dead in the water! Gnarly tried both forward and reverse with the same results – no movement! He turned the engine off and tilted the outboard up for a look.

Gnarly’s jaw dropped when he saw the propeller-less lower unit. How could this be? The prop was fine when he checked it after grounding earlier. He scratched his head and grabbed an oar to row into the harbor. Gnarly was lost in thought, pondering this mystery.

After eventually reaching the launch ramp and loading his boat onto its trailer, Gnarly had an epiphany. When the boat grounded and before the motor kicked up, the prop must have hit something hard enough to shear the pin locking the nut which held the propeller on its shaft. When Gnarly fired up the motor and ran full-speed toward town, the torque and thrust of the engine spun the nut off but held the prop in place. When the engine died at the harbor entrance, there was nothing to hold the prop on and it fell to the bottom of the bay.

Gnarly Dan had survived yet another adventure, through either blind luck or Divine Providence (you decide), in The Great Land!

Howard Delo is a retired fisheries biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. You can leave him a message by e-mailing sports@frontiersman.com.