Fishing from a sailboat isn’t quite as simple as on boats purpose-built for fishing. Yet, it can be really rewarding and we found it’s amazingly fun in Alaska, where fish are plentiful. In 2 of our 6 seasons cruising WA and BC we fished occasionally but never caught anything. It took coming to Alaska to finally learn how to fish.

From April thru August 2021, we caught 47 fish over the course of about 50 days with active fishing effort. Some days we’d spend a couple hours out in the dinghy, catching nothing. Other days we’d go out and catch something within 15 minutes.

• • 13 Halibut (all 18-25” except for one 51” monster!)
  • 21 Salmon (13 silvers, 7 pink, and 1 sockeye)
  • 6 Pacific cod
  • 7 Rock fish
  • 28 Dungeness crab (we stopped crabbing around July when we switched to focusing on fish)

Fishing requires knowledge, patience and skill. It can be very frustrating at times (like when sitting in the cold rain not catching anything, or when we lost gear to the bottom). Yet it can be rewarding – other than being vegetarian, I think catching your own protein is one of the most sustainable ways to live in a remote area.

Catching our own food gave us a much deeper appreciation for the sacrifice made, motivating us to respect every fish caught – safely releasing ones we didn’t keep and carefully filleting the ones we did keep to maximize use. Meat (and groceries in general) is quite expensive in Alaska, especially in the small remote villages we visit when cruising by boat. Many of the small towns get their groceries by barge just once a week, and most of their meat is frozen – we found frozen beef with “packed on” dates from over a year ago!

Buying groceries in the store means lots of fuel was burned to ship it there (container ship, barge and truck) and refrigerate it. When catching fish we could be sure that it was as fresh as it could possibly be and processed in the most optimal way. Fish is also extremely healthy, packed with healthy omega-3 fatty acids.

The first salmon I ever filleted (a sockeye). An imperfect filleting job, but I got better after this.

We had a lot of fish tacos and also numerous other delicious preparations.

Fishing Advice

A few caveats – we’re not experts and there are certainly people that know a lot more! (like all the sport charter fishing guides and commercial fisher-people). Fishing isn’t a science and sometimes stuff that should work doesn’t (or vice versa). Fishing is very seasonal and I’m not going to cover that or other things you can easily learn from existing online resources.

Also worth noting – in the fishing world many people are protective about their fishing spots and can be secretive or even hostile towards newbies. This is quite a contrast to the sailing / boating world where there’s a culture of helpfulness, especially towards newcomers. Certainly not everyone takes this position (we met very helpful people too!) but some people who fish believe that additional people fishing will “steal” their fish or deplete the prime spots.

I don’t buy this argument because beginners who are truly interested in learning fishing will learn to do it whether you help them or oppose them. So it seems much better to me to be helpful and sharing of information. In the modern era of Internet and social media, there are no truly “secret” spots anymore anyway.

And for those who think an additional sport fisherman is going to deplete the availability of fish for themselves, they should consider that industrial-scale commercial fishing operations are harvesting far more fish than a sport fisherman, well before it gets to their preferred spots, with a lot of bycatch (unintentionally caught fish which are often wasted).

The Dungeness crabs can be very big in Alaska – often 8-9″. (Note: I have a proper crab ruler but it doesn’t go this high – that’s why I pulled out the tape measure).

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Sailing, actually sailing (not motoring around everywhere in a sailboat), is unquestionably difficult in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Winds aren’t consistent, narrow straits and channels mean a lot of tacking or gybing, strong currents cause the water to kick up into rough, sharp waves, and land effects plus weather systems cause the wind to vary greatly from one area to the next.

But in the past 3 years (primarily in BC) we figured out how to sail in these waters, doing about 70% of our miles under sail. We do this because it’s what we enjoy – sailing a sailboat just feels right, uses less fuel, it’s quieter, and makes us feel more connected with nature and wildlife. I talked more about the reasons and tactics in my 2018 article “Cruising the Pacific Northwest by Wind Power.“

But now that we’re in Alaska we’ve had to relearn how to sail here. Alaska has a reputation for being a place where most sailboats generally do no sailing at all – many people say they never even took the cover off their mainsail! That’s very sad since you might as well have a motorboat then – with more comfortable accommodations and less vestigial weight and cost (from the unused rigging and sails).

The good news is it’s definitely possible to sail a lot in southeast Alaska! It takes effort, just like the Inside Passage does, but a few things make it a bit more challenging:

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Recently some other Pacific Northwest cruisers have reached out to me asking which cruising guides we used for our passage north last year. It can be tricky choosing cruising guides because the older ones tend to get out of date quickly, and some have spotty coverage or a different cruising style than ours.

Over the last 4 years of cruising we’ve found some good ones that work for us. Finding good educational books on sailing and boat maintenance is also tricky (there are so many!) so I’ve included a few recommendations on those too.

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While cruising for extended periods in remote areas, refilling our water tanks is often the limiting factor in how long we can go between marinas. We’re a “water light” boat, with only a 29 gallon tank plus about 12 gallons in jugs on deck. This easily lasts us 1 1/2 to 2 weeks on our water-light budget (using about 3-4 gallons per day).

Our 41 gallons is far less than most long-distance cruising boats carry though – on the order of 75 to 150 gallons. Our boat was originally equipped with 75 gallon capacity, and I thought I’d have to add back one of the removed water tanks, but we’ve found it not to be necessary. More water adds a lot of weight, takes away storage space, and decreases sailing performance – a priority for us.

But sometimes we want to go a bit longer between marinas, such as when cruising from the North Coast of BC to the south of Haida Gwaii, areas with no convenient marinas. Some boats buy expensive watermakers which are infamous for being a maintenance headache. Here in the Pacific Northwest though we have a free, frequent source of pure water – rain!

For a while I’ve thought it’d be great to be able to catch some of it, but it’s not as simple as it seems. The main problem is catching a lot of it, and getting clean water that is free of salt (our decks are usually covered in salt) and other contaminants.

During three days this May holed up in Clark Cove while a gale blew through, bringing near-constant rain, I tried out a few improvised ideas, using only what we already had on the boat.

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Buying gifts for a sailor for the holidays is easier than you might think, because they’re always in need of gadgets to make life onboard a little easier or more comfortable. Recently I’ve discovered several low-priced products that have made our life as liveaboards easier. Now it’s hard to imagine we went so long without these things!

Yet, as aspiring minimalists we don’t want to acquire too much stuff – storage is always an issue on a boat. So we try to ensure anything we get has a useful purpose.

Here are a few ideas of items we’ve found useful:

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