June is one of our favorite months on Raspberry Island, and since it is really the first month of our summer, Tiffany and I thought we’d write a “top ten” list featuring June:
10: Summer is here!! Vegetation is coming in green, pushing right into the snow up high.
9: The Kodiak Island Brown Bear is awake and active. We can often spot them right from our living room grazing across Raspberry Strait.
8: Whales can be seen right in front of the lodge, and June is a great month for a chance to catch up to these big guys in a kayak!
7: The fly out bear viewing can be fantastic! Fuzzy cubs enjoying their first year, clamming at low tide, and congregating in large green fields enjoying the lush spring salty grass shoots.
6: The first Tanner Crab of the season are coming up in the pots from the cold depths and never taste better!
5: The evening temperature, together with the cold stream that flows under the kegerator, keeps the beer at juuuuuusssst the right temperature.
4: Hiking is spectacular! The first of the delicate Alaskan Wildflowers are blossoming and trails along the coast or up the mountains are open. The views can be truly breath taking.
3: Large halibut are coming in from wintering offshore in the depths; our largest halibut caught in 2012 was in the month of June. You may still harvest two of these amazing fish per day.
2: Bald Eagles are EVERYWHERE!! We often have twenty or more Eagles sitting in the Sitka Spruce trees around the lodge waiting for the boats to come in in the evening with the day’s catch, and will often swoop down to pick up their evening meal right off the beach.
1: The two most prized species of Pacific Salmon are most abundant together in June: The Sockeye and King Salmon. Slow turning trolling gear for a big, fat, silver King Salmon that hits like a train and really puts these Accurate reels to work, or dead drifting a fly through a run packed with Sockeye to light up our Sage 8 weight fly rods. Limits are 2 Kings and 5 Sockeye, per person, per day!
