He catches shrimp in pots 300 to 400 feet down in the inlet. Crabs are taken in 40 feet of water on the deltas in front of the streams.
The rich biomass of the inlet is what draws the whales. They are numerous and commonly seen and are why Pat and Dianne decided to call their camp Whale's Tail.
"They make a noise under water and we can often here them from the cabins at night," Pat says.
Some frequent the area so often, Pat has named them and recognizes them from the sounds they make. Bruiser, Groaner and Trumpeter are three of them.
"We offer shrimping, crabbing, saltwater fishing, hunting, wildlife viewing, good food (cooked by Dianne), solitude and relaxation," Pat says.
"If guest like, they can soak in the hot mineral springs in town, the same spring that gold miners used to use in the winters," he says.
Pat left Whale's Tail for a quick visit to his parent's home in the hills just northeast of Westfield, Iowa. While here, of course, he intends to sample some of Iowa's great pheasant hunting with his three brothers. Then it's back to the Tenakee inlet to prepare for next season.
For more information on Whale's Tail, visit www.alaskaswhalestail.com or call (907) 736-2489.
Larry Myhre is editor of the Journal. Reach him at (712) 293-4201 or email at: larrymyhre@siouxcityjournal.com
Pat Zemanek and his wife, Dianne, show a catch of king salmon and other fish taken during an outing on the bay. Pat and his wife operate a fishing charter camp at Tenakee Springs, a small community 80 miles by boat from Juneau.
Alaskas Whales Tail
Experience Southeast Alaska Firsthand
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As stated by Larry Myhre, Journal editor for the Sioux City Journal Sunday Dec 10, 2006
It may have been the 900 Club Alaska travelogues Pat Zemanek watched in Sioux City with his parents Bill and Jean as a child. It may have been a fishing trip with his father to Washington state where he landed a 35-pound king salmon or it just may have been a love of wild places and adventure that lured Pat to Alaska in 1988.
"I quit my job here and landed a job in Anchorage," he says.
He's been there ever since.
Today he owns and operates, with his wife Dianne, Alaska's Whale's Tail, a fishing lodge on the southeast coast of Alaska, 60 miles southwest of Juneau.
His camp is located near the mouth of a 35-mile long inlet at the edge of Tenakee Springs, originally a fishing village and currently home to less than 100 people. The inlet, enriched by the Japanese Current, hosts an incredible array of sea life from large shrimp to Dungeness, snow crab and king crab. From May through December the inlet is home to humpback whales and porpoise with occasional visits from far ranging killer whales. Seals play in the clear waters the year around and sea lions make a visit from July to March.
Sitka black tailed deer range the shorelines, bald eagles soar on the wind currents and brown bears prowl the many streams seeking the rich runs of salmon.
In short, it's a wilderness paradise. It's a community with no roads going in or out. Access is by float plane or boat. A tower sits on a mountainside behind providing radio telephone service and an internet connection.
Okay, so maybe it isn't truly wilderness. There are friends and neighbors. Really, all the comforts of home, if remote.
A pair of humpback whales surface near Pat Zemanek’s fishing boat in Tenakee Inlet in southeastern Alaska.
Tenakee Inlet: Where whales frolic and big salmon swim
Date: 12/10/2006
"You have to be out of there before the tide drops," he smiles, "or you'll be there 'till the next day."
And home is what Pat Zemanek has called Tenakee Springs since 1996. He met Dianne there. A native of Indiana, she serves as the community's only teacher, responsible for grades K through 12. They married in 1998.
If guests want to fly fish or spin fish in the streams, Pat will take them into one of the many feeding the inlet.
"You have to be out of there before the tide drops," he smiles, "or you'll be there 'till the next day."
It was here they met Arnie Borger, a retired logger who with friend Don Cooper, produced travelogues on the Northwest Territories and Alaska. It was those same travelogues Pat had watched as a child in Sioux City. Arnie had homesteaded the property that Pat and Dianne would buy from Arnie's daughter after his death in 2002.
They went to work remodeling the place into a modern lodge which will sleep four to six people. Pat added a cabin three-quarters of a mile up the beach towards town. Made of logs by Finnish lumbermen over 100 years ago, the cabin features dovetailed locking corners and will sleep four people.
Throughout the bay swims the objects of customer's desires, mainly salmon and ocean bottom fish such as cod, halibut, red snapper, yellow eye and many other species of rock fish.
"We get big runs of salmon from June through September," Pat says. "We catch all five types of Alaska wild salmon, coho sockeye, king, pink and chum. The really good fishing is off the points. Once they get to fresh water in the streams, they become a lot more finicky. They do not feed as much."
He runs a 26-foot aluminum boat with a heated cabin powered by twin 140-horsepower Suzuki motors. Electric downriggers present the lures to salmon when they are in deep water.
"We troll herring or artificials for salmon in the inlet," Pat says. "In the rivers we cast spinners for silvers (coho).
"The kings average 20 to 25 pounds," he continues. "Forty-five pounds would be a big one. We caught one weighing 64 pounds in 2000."
Alaska’s Whale’s Tail Patrick & Dianne Zemanek PO Box 595 Tenakee Springs AK 99841907.736.2489