Fishing Updates

June 12-17, 2005

It was just a matter of time before the flood gates of fish opened and the weather mellowed. It happened this week. We knew from the commercial king salmon catch data that there were lots of fish waiting to come our direction. We just didn't know when they would begin to move. The king run was about a week later than in the previous two years. By comparison, the chum run is also a little late, the silvers are ahead of last year, and the pinks are far ahead of the past couple of seasons.

Our halibut fishing really took off, partly because of better fishing weather, but mostly because of more fish and larger fish. We took three halibut in the 100 to 114 pound range, and one 214-pounder, all on the same day. The actual catch per guest was down from the previous week but that was because the guests were enjoying catching salmon and spent less time fishing for halibut.

King catches exploded from the previous week. Our staff, who fished for kings after our guests had left for home on June 11, said they had lots of hits and hook-ups with kings so we were optimistic that Monday would be a big day. It was a great day with 12 kings landed. The week continued strong with our guests landing 54 kings. King fishing should remain strong for the next two weeks at least.

In 2004 we took our first silver on June 16. This year we took it on June 14. However, this year by the end of the week we had taken 20, and most of those were taken on the last day of fishing. This size of catch was larger than we expected. It will take another week before we know if we are on the front of a big run or if we just got into an early school of silvers.

Chums are slower coming than normal. We had only taken two fish through June 16 th which is below our historic averages. On the 17 th our guests took 11 and began to see more chums jumping and swirling on the surface which indicates that the numbers are increasing. We anticipate a much larger chum catch this coming week.

Our guests caught the first pink on Monday, a single catch. On Friday the total catch of pinks for that day was 100 fish. The guests fishing for halibut on Friday reported seeing lots of pinks jumping in areas around Point Adolphus. This is another good indicator that the pink run is coming in strong.

My biggest surprise came when I learned that at a recent foods trade show a specialty seafood vendor was featuring marine scuplin (double uglyâ€Ts/ irish lords) as a new, high priced, delicacy. Go figure.

Doc

Previous Reports:

• May 29 - June 3
• June 5 - 11