Seward

[MeyersBros]

Well after a few years talking it up with my buddies I finally decided to get a summer job in Alaska! I applied to a couple places and after a few weeks I got hired to a resort in Seward! I'm really excited! Everyone I talk to keeps telling me once you go you never want to go back home again! Salmon and halibut here I come!

Was just wondering how Seward was? I talked to the resort and all the great stuff they had to offer but they also told me to bring all my fishing stuff because the "fishing-bug" strikes employees every year on their off days! I know the fishing will be amazing but I was just wondering if any of you know what else Seward has to offer? Such as camping, hiking, hunting, night life? I know it’s about 2 hours from Anchorage but is it worth going for a weekend? Also should i be worried about any wild life if I am camping? This is my first time so any information will help! Thanks!

[traveler]

I'll give you my .02:) Seward is a very cool little town, my fav on the KP. Tons of hiking, with a glacier nearby. Some bears for sure, but you'll need to find your comfort level with bears anywhere you camp up there. Great fishing, of course:) Seward is short on good river fishing however, gotta drive a ways for that. But it's a great place for fishing out of your own (or a buddys!) smaller boat. I'd love to work in Seward:)

[jwmiller33]

what is the main fishing for around seward? is it halibut? can you catch kings and silvers in the summertime in seward? how far is the nearest river with a salmon run?

[traveler]

Seward is a good halibut port for sure, although it's a long (2 hr) run out to the good areas where you can target big fish. It's also very good for ling cod. There is a pretty good king fishery, with some shore fishing/snagging (legal in salt water) in June. But Seward is best known for silvers...July and later is silver season, with small boat/shore casting a possibility later in the season. Best river fishing is an hour + back to the Russian river for reds and silvers.

[Sherpa]

I would say traveler pretty much summed it up for the fishing in Seward. Will you have your own vehicle while you are there? If so you should explore the whole Kenai Peninsula on your days off. It is an amazing place with great scenery no matter where you go. You can shore fish the Kenai and the Russian in a few different places. I have also fished the Anchor river which is closer to Homer. You can camp on the beach near the Anchor river where it dumps in to the ocean. Then you just wait for a tide to come in and the salmon come right with it. Salmon and Halibut are the most targeted fish(with good reason), but there are some huge rainbows and steelhead in some of these rivers as well. Not to mention Dolly Varden trout. There are even a couple lakes with lake trout in them.

As far as nightlife goes, I had a great time in Seward this summer. There are a few bars a cheap cab ride away. The nice thing about Seward is there is always a fresh load of cruise ship tourists to party with. It seemed like the bars were full of people on vacation looking to have a good time. And at bar close tons of people go to the Pit Bar just on the outside of city limits because it stays open until 5am. Anchorage can be fun too. Plenty of nightlife there. If you go to Anchorage for a night out you pretty much have to go to Chilkoot Charlies, it's like five bars all in one building.

You definitely should be cautious of bears while camping outside of Seward. Make a lot of noise while walking in the woods so you don't startle a bear. If you are in a campground we usually lock our coolers in a vehicle or put pots and pans on top of them while sleeping so it will make a lot of noise to scare them away and wake you up(neither result guaranteed). When we camp away from campgrounds on our own we pull our coolers up into a tree with rope. A tree that is not close to your tents to be specific. If there are no trees in the area we just keep them a good distance from our tents and do the pots and pans thing. A lot of people carry bear mace, I prefer a large caliber pistol or both. I have had a lot of encounters with bears and no bad results. People do get killed every year by bears in Alaska though. Do some research and be smart.

Here are a couple pictures from last summer.

[jwmiller33]

sherpa that is a AWESOME pick of that grizzley!!! how close to it were you? did he see you at all?

you been out on the st louis river in duluth at all lately? i hear its on fire

[Sherpa]

Thanks JW. It was probably 20 yards at the closest. We were in my dads' boat and came around this point that he was sleeping on. I said to my buddies "hey look a dead moose!" because he was just laying there asleep at first. A couple seconds later he popped his head up to check us out and my buddies just about @#$% their pants. It was a very cool experience. We watched him for a while while slowly motoring away and he just ignored us basically. He did get up and go into the river to pull out a couple fish carcasses and eat off of them. It was so funny to watch my friends squirm when he got into the water. I don't mean to sound like I didn't take the situation seriously or like I was completely unafraid, but it was there fist bear experience and one of many for me. To add to the story there was a moose in the water walking right towards the bear about 100 yards away upstream. We were just watching like oh my god what if he walks right into him. He turned into the woods about 60 or 70 yards from the bear but what an experience is all I can say. My friends were definitely impressed with Alaska at this point and so was I. Man I can't wait to get back up there.

I have been out on the harbor a few times this year and a couple times off of the boyscout and only caught one eelpout. I am definitely a rookie at ice fishing so I'm sure that is the problem. I need a vex and gps badly. I have heard the harbor is hot right now. I wish I could get out soon but work is taking up all of my time. I might get out this week though.

Have you been out on the ice in the metro at all?

[jwmiller33]

thats a pretty cool bear experience! thats kind of the perfect time to see a bear that close, cuz you can just motor away if you get scared.. when i was up in wasilla this past summer for a week fishing for kings on the little susitna river and although we didnt see any bears, we did see several moose on the river edge when we would come around corners and stuff.. we would only see them in the very early morning when we first got out on the river. it seemed like the moose stayed away from the rivers edge during the day with all the activity. very cool experience nonetheless

ya i hear the st louis is really hot.. im hoping to get up there one weekend here in a couple weeks before walleye season is over. i'm not very good at ice fishing either, as open water is what im best at. i have been fishing around the metro maybe once or twice a week the past couple weeks and it is pretty slow. all the lakes get tons of pressure, so i have been trying to find smaller, less known lakes that have good populations of fish (from the DNR stocking and test nets results on their lake finder HSOforum). really did well on fish lake in duluth a couple times in late december on some panfish.. lately i have been more focused on doing odds and ends in my boat and getting it ready for first fishable open water on the mississippi and looking to get into some of that year round catch and release walleye on pool 2. you ever down in the metro? i'd love to get out fishing with you this summer sometime. from following all your posts on here the last year, sounds like we fish a lot of the same places in duluth

are you making it back to alaska again this summer? i am taking another guided king trip in the wasilla area again.. i think we are going to try to get on the kenai river this year. we were planning on doing the kenai last summer when we went but it got closed down by the alaska department of fish and game the week before we went, so we went to the little susitna river which was a blast anyways.

i really want to try fishing for some silvers as well as kings this time, but lets be honest, kings are where its at!

sounds like the nightlife in seward would be pretty fun with all the tourists coming and going.

[Sherpa]

Yeah the only reason I was as comfortable as I was with the situation was being in the boat. I had my escape routes planned, that's for sure. I have been on shore with a bear fishing the same river 60 or 70 yards away and lets just say I was not nearly as comfortable. I would do it again in a second though. I have spent a lot of time on the Susitna and Little Susitna. My Profile picture on here is a silver from the Little Su from two summers ago. I am embarrassed to say that in my 15 or so years of going to Alaska I have never caught a king. I need to have a discussion with my pops about that one. Catching a king is very high on my list at this point. I absolutely love fishing for silvers though. They can be very aggressive and at times I have caught fish every other cast or so. We did nail the red salmon on the Kenai last summer though. I think the three of us had our limit in about an hour and a half. I'm not sure if I'm getting up there this summer or not but most likely I will. I am dying to get back up in my dads' little two seat airplane again. Last summer was the first time I got up with him and all I can say is wow is Alaska amazing from 2000 feet in the air. I hope you get the chance to fish the Kenai this summer, it is a great place to be.

We should meet up some time this summer for sure. It would be cool to trade some info/tips and what not. It never hurts to have another person to fish with either. I live in between the Boyscout and Smithville landings so I hit the river a lot. This year was my first year that I got serious about fishing so I'm still learning for sure. I definitely have some work to do on my boat before the open water too. I remember your post about your boat and all the work you did on it. It looked pretty good to me, I would love to check it out. I grew up in the metro so I come back to visit pretty often. Maybe you could show me some things down there. I'll put my e-mail at the bottom. Hit me up and we'll talk.

[email protected]

[MeyersBros]

Thanks for all the great tips Sherpa! your just adding more and more excitement to my trip! I will be driving up there so I will have a car which will be nice for traveling around and what not. A few of my buddies are trying to get jobs as well and if they do we will all camp out together which will be an amazing experience! They will bring guns for protection when we are camping out but I really like your "pots and pans" idea with the coolers I will for sure be doing that!

Great pictures! I love the grizzly shot and the story with all of your friends! I know my friends would all be $#@^ing their pants to! (isn’t that right Mills?) Thanks for the great tips and the info again! I'll be sure to put it to use! Miller if you fish the Kenai I may be able to drive and fish with you for a day or 2! that would be unreal!

[Sherpa]

Yeah no problem Meyers, I hope it helps. That's good that you will have a car. It will let you see a lot more on your time off. That would be cool if your friends get jobs up there too, that would just make it that much more fun.

Let me know if you have any other questions. I'm happy to help.