Obituaries

Carl Edward Humphrey was born in Reedsport, Oregon, on August 6, 1967, to George Alden and Lucille Marie Humphrey. Growing up in the Coburg and Eugene areas of Oregon Carl loved hunting, fishing, and trapping with his father. When he was ten, he and his dad were rescued by a Russian fishing boat after their boat went down. The Russians transferred them to the U.S. Coast Guard who brought them home to their families. As a teen, he crewed for his father on his charter boat, The Tuna Chaser, out of Winchester Bay, Oregon. Carl was a natural – he never met a stranger, loved to bend an ear and was always up for a bit of mischief.

By the time he was a young adult he had salt water in his veins. While working to establish his lifelong career as a commercial fisherman, Carl met and married Sharon, a single mother of two, Dusty and Alesha. They had a son and daughter together, Bryan and Ashley Humphrey. After their marriage ended, Carl moved from fishing out of Coos Bay, Oregon, to Newport, Oregon, where he resided for many years. He purchased his own boat, the F/V Midnite, to support his crabbing and fishing obsession.

In 2007, Carl met Stephanie Payne and her two daughters, Hunter and Chrystine. Together they had his second daughter, Fyscher Humphrey, in 2008. During the salmon fishing closures along the Oregon coast, Carl kept himself busy in the woods cutting firewood, harvesting wild mushrooms, hunting, ATVing and camping with his family. If he wasn't on the water, he was in the woods – these were the two places he was the happiest and most content.

In 2010 they moved to Missouri for a few years before moving to Alaska in 2012. They landed in Homer with a dream – to live, fish, hunt and trap in Alaska.. This brought him into the world of driftnetting in Cook Inlet and many more adventures around the Kenai Peninsula. However, still not settled, the family boarded the ferry in 2013 and docked in Petersburg, a place to finally call home.

Carl built a house, purchased the F/V Garnett Lee, hired his daughter Fyscher as his deckhand, and began to explore the wonders of Southeast Alaska. Along the way he could be counted on to keep the chatter alive at every port, dock, and side tie. In Petersburg Carl found where he needed to be. He felt he was in his element, that he was made for this life. Twelve happy years later, on August 25, 2025, Carl's life came to a peaceful end – in his sleep on his fishing boat, doing what he loved to do, where he loved doing it, and surrounded by his fellow fishermen and fisherwomen.

He was preceded in death by his father many years ago. His mother passed away just over a month after Carl. While Carl will be missed dearly, his friends and family will remember his kind-eyes, his warm smile and hear the echo of his laugh, imagining they are all together again around a fire at deer camp in eastern Oregon, sharing good coffee and catching up on so many stories.