2019 Alaska Reports

[fishkid]

went down to homer this passed weekend to start off the fishing year and do some boat maintenance. Fished for halibut saturday for 3 hours and pulled this one out of the water. I reeled up my line and said its time to move and right before my buddy grabbed is rod out of the rod holder the tip bent to the water. went 55" and ~85 pounds.  Went out the next day and loaded up on some real nice rock fish and another 30 pound halibut. next trip down will be 4th july to try to snag some salmon and get some more rock fish (they make the best tacos)

 

 

[leech~~]

Well you are in Alaska. Don't you have to collect enough fish before winter or your going to Die? 

 

Or am I watching to much Alaska the last frontier on TV?

[Wanderer]

12 hours ago, leech~~ said:

Well you are in Alaska. Don't you have to collect enough fish before winter or your going to Die? 

 

Or am I watching to much Alaska the last frontier on TV?

 

Myth buster: they’re on the road system; they’ll be OK. 

[bobbymalone]

What TF is wrong with those PBRs?  They some sort of Chinese knock off?

Edited June 11, 2019 by bobbymalone

[Grainbelt]

Nice fish! My wife and I are going to Alaska mid july for two weeks of fishing. Starting out of Seward and hopefully finding some Halibut like you got there and then off to Sterling to see if the Reds are running on the Kenai.

 

One trip out of Seward a couple years ago the Silver salmon were like torpedoes 20 ft under the boat while halibut fishing. I kept the first two halibut I caught so I could start catching silvers and pinks sight fishing. What a great time! The captain then took us to a 40ft rock pile and we filled out on rockfish in about 15 minutes. The fish out there is delicious! We are really looking forward to next month. 

[Wanderer]

3 hours ago, bobbymalone said:

What TF is wrong with those PBRs?  They some sort of Chinese knock off?

 

Geez, now you’re picking out stuff like a leech!   

[fishkid]

I have no idea whats wrong with them. Maybe some alaska knock off... gotta have some type of beer to drink on the boat other then high octane IPA's.  Reds should be running mid july we hit bings on the way down to try and get a few of the russian river fish that pass through and i caught one and lost a few more. Seward is a great place for ocean silvers! catch some and cut the heads off and use them for halibut bait if your lookin for biggins.  Them kiltchers think they are very remote as well yet we see them in the local coffee shops down there all the time, figure that one out.

Edited June 11, 2019 by fishkid

[Grainbelt]

I've got some nice photos of Grizzlys on the Russian. 

 

We were using the pinks caught out on the ocean as bait for lingcod. A close to 2ft minnow for fishing, you know that you aren't fishing crappies! Maybe we would have had better luck with heads. 

[leech~~]

3 hours ago, Grainbelt said:

I've got some nice photos of Grizzlys on the Russian. 

 

We were using the pinks caught out on the ocean as bait for lingcod. A close to 2ft minnow for fishing, you know that you aren't fishing crappies! Maybe we would have had better luck with heads. 

 

Those are some nice pictures of Grizzlys.  I really like the brown one!  

[Grainbelt]

I've got something brown for ya 

[fishkid]

ADFG raised the red salmon limit to 9 fish a day for the russian river since we have over 60,000 reds past the weir already when we are normally only around 10,000 fish at this time.  Decided 7 was a good number after 2 hours of fishing and called it quits.  Also got a free piercing!  One of the reds i caught had 3 other hooks in it from people snagging them.  I grabbed the fish and it flopped around and sent one of the hooks through my finger.  Cut the hook pulled it through and caught 4 more fish.

[Wanderer]

Right in the crease!  That’s sucks!!  Nice to hear the reds are doing great.  Nice catch.

[fishkid]

Got the family out of homer and we went out snagging for reds.  Look for the schools toss your weighted treble hook and let her rip.

Next trip out will be with the parents when they come up late july.  Going to hopefully find them some rock fish, halibut and silvers.

 

[Grainbelt]

 

12 hours ago, fishkid said:

Going to hopefully find them some rock fish, halibut and silvers.

 

Nice pics! My wife and I fly out on Sunday, someone at work just got back from out there and said they did well catching silvers out in the ocean. 

[fishkid]

Out of homer?  Where are you going to to be at while your up here?

[Grainbelt]

We are starting in the chugach state park hiking and kayaking for 2 days,  sort of in your area of Eagle River? Then to Seward staying at the military resort. We will fish out the last half of next week there. We are taking a couple charters to Montigue island area and a six pack half day run for silvers around Resurection bay. Then we are off to Sterling for our second week where we rent the basement of a house to stay at and fish out their backyard on the Kenai. I am looking forward to a stop in Soldotna and stock up on gear at the hardware store. They have it all. 

Good luck to you and your family!

[fishkid]

Sounds like a great trip! from what i have heard the silvers are comming in thick just outside the bay right now! if you havent seen and have a hour or so to kill go check out the mouth of the kenai where everyone dip nets.  its crazy down there. Take main street in kenai towards the river and you can see everything since you way up on the bluff.

[Wanderer]

Try dipping a line in the Kasilof if the Kenai doesn’t treat you right.

[Grainbelt]

13 hours ago, fishkid said:

Sounds like a great trip! from what i have heard the silvers are comming in thick just outside the bay right now! if you havent seen and have a hour or so to kill go check out the mouth of the kenai where everyone dip nets.  its crazy down there. Take main street in kenai towards the river and you can see everything since you way up on the bluff.

 

Well that is some great news! 

Thanks for the tip, we are going to check that out.

 

[fishkid]

FIshing season has pretty munch came to a close for  us. Headed in to hunting season full steam. Buddy and i had a 11 mile hike back to get into this promise land and found some nice caribou after a 5 day hunt.  Ducks are up next. Opener was last weekend but we were to burnt out after processing meat for 20 hours. Make all our own burger, smoked game sticks brats and breakfast sausage.

 

 

[Wanderer]

Livin’ the dream @fishkid  Love those pics!  Alaska’s been on my mind big time again.  I had to send my buddy a little reminder about your moose opener last weekend.  Ah, maybe next year.

Edited September 4, 2019 by Wanderer

[Grainbelt]

We had a fun trip out in Alaska. We ran into a negative tide out of Seward and the current was so strong we had trouble getting 4lbs of weight to the bottom for Halibut. We ended up fishing 100 ft to 35ft up close to Montague island. We got about half the halibut that we were hoping for. I did hook into something really big in 35ft and it was everything I had to hang on to the rod. 5 minutes later the hook ripped out with some fish mouth meat on it. I am going to plan future trips checking the tide schedule and make sure it isn't negative.

The Sockeye run timing worked out good for us and we caught a bunch out of the Soldotna and Sterling area on the Kenai. The house we stayed at on the Kenai in Sterling worked out great for us.

[fishkid]

Ya those negative tides can be tough.  We normally fish kelp so were in 60' or less and havent had an issue even with big tide swings.  Most of the time we are hanging bait off of a bleach jug with a 1 pound weight. pretty fun to watch that bleach jug start bouncing when a halibut hits it.  I know of a couple charters out of homer that specialize in the shallow water halibut and they are always pulling up really nice fish.  If you want to go out of homer next time check out Brooks Alaskan Adventures.  He runs an awesome operation.  Big halibut and winter kings are his specialties. were you able to fish right off the bank at the house? My wife and i were thinking about renting a place on the kenai next year that has direct river access.  The ol grab the gear and see where we end up doesnt work as well with a little one.

[Grainbelt]

We stayed at Eagle's Eye Vacation Rentals. the owner's name is Ron and he is a great guy. He has three aluminum docks with grid floors so you can see through them and watch salmon swimming along shore underneath of you. It was fun having a fire on shore and fishing till midnight without lights. We caught some fish there but the real productive spots were on the inside turns of the river where the water doesn't flow quite as fast. 

My wife and I want to fish Homer, thanks for the recommendation we will try them. Catching either of the two species would be a blast. A lady staying where we were went out king fishing on the Kenai for her first time and caught an 84lb king for her first fish followed by a 45 lb. She was pretty jacked up that night!

While fishing out by Montague two humpbacks surfaced near the boat blowing out from a deep dive. I was on the bow of the boat and they came up back and left of me, I didn't anticipate such large creatures popping up out of the water that close.

Nice job on the Caribou!

Edited September 5, 2019 by Grainbelt

[fishkid]

had a few buddies from mn come up and a group of 5 of us went out sea duck hunting for a couple days.   Everyone got their mounting birds plus plenty to eat.  Barrows, harlys, black and surf scoters were diggin the spread.