Whales at Rittenburg Banks
By Jeremiah O'Brien
A few years ago Billy Lester and I were fishing Salmon around the north island up towards Fanny Shoals. We were catching some very nice Salmon at the time and they seemed to be moving further out to sea. By the time the day was over we found ourselves all the way out to the Rittenburg Banks west of the Cordells. When we got out there we noticed huge numbers of whales in every direction as far as we could see.
The weather was exceptionally nice, and as there is no anchorage reasonably close by we shut down and drifted that evening. In the morning when we got up I stepped out onto the back deck to take in our surroundings while the coffee was brewing. I instantly recognized the distinct smell of whale breath. Because of the strength of the odor I knew there must be a whale very very close to our position, so I waited for the sound of his next breath. When I heard it I realized that he was possibly much closer than we had anticipated. The whale sounded as if he was right on the bow of the boat so I walked forward in the dark as the sun had not yet come up and realized there was a whale laying on the starboard bow of our boat.
Upon further investigation found that he was not alone there were actually three whales, one lying against the starboard bow, and two laying against him. When Billy came up from the focastle I told him of the whales on the bow. So Billy went outside and forward to investigate and came back in and said there was no whales on the bow so I was probably crazy.
We joked and drank our coffee and when the sun started to come up, went out on the deck as it was a beautiful morning and noted the same three whales were now on the port corner in the same position, one laying against the boat, and two laying against it.
We observed the whales for a while and decided it was time to go to work, so we figured well, we’d fire the boat up and the whales would move off. After everything was running and we were ready to go, the whales were not. They wouldn’t leave the boat, and we were afraid to put the boat in gear because of their proximity to the wheel.
We yelled a little and pleaded but they didn’t seem to understand English and we couldn’t speak whale. We made as much noise as we could, but they were unimpressed, so we went back inside and had another cup of coffee. After about ten minutes, we went out to note their position and they were gone. We ended up with a very good trip of large Salmon as I recall they were 16 or 17-pound average fish, and we had this story to pass on too.