Fishing Updates

June 27 - July 1, 2005

If you really want to know how good the fishing is, week-to-week, probably the best comparison is the average weight of fish each guest took home. That data is contained in the "catch data" section of the web site. While we often say we want to go fishing in Alaska what we really mean is we want to go catching fish in Alaska. That being the case we all tend to spend the majority of our time fishing for the species that are most easy to catch. Thus, when the halibut are hitting and salmon a little slow we spend more time fishing for halibut. When the reverse occurs we spend more time fishing for salmon. When both are good we get neurotic because we want to do both at once. It's a good thing the surroundings are peaceful and tranquil, otherwise we'd all go home basket cases.

Enough philosophy. King salmon fishing has been slow for all but the June 13th week. Fish and Game forecasted a large run, and even raised the bag to 1-per-day and 5-per-season in anticipation of lots of fish. Unfortunately, in our area the kings didn't read the forecast.

While king fishing was slow the other salmon species improved dramatically. The average take home weight of filleted fish jumped from 76 pounds-per-guest the previous week to 90 pounds this week. Tides and weather impact that some, but abundance of fish was the biggest factor. The silver catch nearly tripled, jumping from 33 fish to 88 fish caught in just one week. The silver harvest continues to indicate a strong run with lots of fish early.

The Chum catch doubled and the numbers continue to increase but the total number of jumping chums sighted is still less than in the previous few years.

This looks like a big pink year. One of our fisherman gave up trying to set the down-rigger because before he could get the ball lowered the pinks were hitting the bait. The pink schools are everywhere and some of the fish are over six pounds. Between the large numbers of silvers and pinks the salmon fishing is awesome.

The halibut catch improved with to coming of the migratory stocks. When the herring arrived about 10 days ago we expected the migrating halibut to come right behind them. They did. Although the number of halibut caught per person dropped slightly the average size of the fish increased so people limited more quickly and didn't release as many fish. We caught lots of fish in the 20-pound to 50-pound range.

My synopsis of the season thus far is this. Herring arrived about two weeks later than normal. That delay slowed the halibut migration. The king run was smaller than anticipated and the chum run is not very large either. The pink run is very strong and slightly early. Silver are very strong and we didn't expect this number of fish for about three more weeks.

Doc

Previous Reports:

• May 29 - June 3
• June 5 - 11
• June 12 - 17
• June 20-24