A light, icy breeze blew down Cook Inlet at we headed out of Homer, Alaska in the spring of 2020. The cloud ceiling was high, but the air was still filled with a grey morning light. A slight chop rippled the smooth, deep green ocean water as we throttled down in a thicket of kelp blooms north of Homer.

Fishing those areas can often be slow, but the fish are usually plump and healthy, and sometimes there are lunkers cruising the shallows looking for an easy meal.

It was early morning, maybe 7:30 a.m., when I threw anchor over the side of the Storm Petrel in just 30 feet of water. The stern of the boat pointed south with the gentle pull of an outgoing tide. My guys took their rods and dropped bait to the bottom — it didn’t take long to get down.

I won’t lie, when you fish every day, well, the days start to blur together after a while. It’s not that I forget them, it’s just that the waves start to overlap in my memory bank. We catch a lot of fish, and we take a lot of people fishing, and I’m way better remembering faces than I am with names.

When Rena Spears sent me an email this spring saying she had photos from a charter fishing trip she took with us in 2022, I was pretty excited. My memories of that late-season trip on Sept. 15, 2022 were pretty hazy, but once she sent along the photos everything came crisp into view.

Lori was a super cool client I had on the Diamond Cape in the summer of 2021. I rarely have a chance to do videos like this, but I’m always happy when things come together.