Fishing Updates

May 29 to June 3, 2005

The new season is off and running. Based on the first week's production we are feeling good about the number of halibut in the area. Large numbers of smaller halibut were present in most of the area where we fished. It's a little early to tell what the population of larger halibut will be like this summer. We took several halibut in the 60 to 100 pound class, and one 110-pounder last week. For those who just love the action of lots of strikes, with plenty of catch and release, the fishing was wonderful.

Weather was a big factor in our king salmon fishing success this past week. A large high pressure area just south of us put a fair amount of wind into Icy Strait. Tuesday through Thursday the winds in the afternoon and evening reached upwards of 25 knots with 5-foot seas. This made fishing out in the middle, at Point Adolphus, and along Home Shore difficult, if not impossible. High pressures make for beautiful sunny weather, but the salmon wait for the storms to trigger their migrations, so king fishing was slow. The average size of kings is running in the low 20's but we anticipate that will increase rapidly in the next few days as the migration picks up steam. Our two guests who fished kings all week landed six fish.

The bag limit for kings has been raised from 1-fish-per-day and 3-per-season to 1-fish-per-day and 5-fish-per-season in our area. This increase is in anticipation of larger runs that Fish & Game expects this year.

We caught one chum and saw several jumping. This is a little early for chums and usually indicates a big run. By the end of next week we expect to see them show regularly in the catch.

In summary: the weather was marginal for three days which significantly impacted the harvest, the halibut are early with numerous small fish, and the king fishing slow partly because of weather conditions.

Doc