Fishing Updates

June 11, 2007

A quick reminder to those who will be coming this summer.  You need to bring your own bath towels.  There has been some confusion on this issue and not much interest in sharing towels by those who brought them with those who didn't.

Early in the week the salmon fishing was some of the best we have had in recent years during early June.  Later in the week we had lots of sunshine and salmon fishing dropped off.  For perspective, we had 13 guests at the lodge, plus staff.  We harvested 8 kings, 4 silvers, 96 chums, and 5 pinks this week.  The king catch was good, and when you count in the "fish-on oops fish-off" experiences there was plenty of king action to keep all of us with salmon lines in the water.  We have a full house this week so we expect the catch to increase.

This was the best early chum fishing we have had in a long time.  They were nice 10 - 14 pound fish, which combined with their mild flavor, make for wonderful salmon eating.  Fish and Game forecasts for this year are predicting a strong chum and pink runs.

Kings seems to be about on schedule and are larger than last year.  Most kings have been caught in the Windy Creek area while the chum catch has been split between Windy Creek and Log Dump.  Most Kings and Chums have been caught between 40 and 60 feet down.

In 2005 and 2006 the first pinks and silvers were caught on June 16.  In 2007 we caught our first silver and pinks salmon on June 14.  This year the first silver was caught on June 13 and the first pinks on June 12.  I think they are just on schedule and we didn't catch enough to have a feeling for the strength of the runs.

Halibut fishing seems on course for another good year.  We harvested 126 halibut.  Most were in the 15-25 pound range, but we did take one at 118 pounds, two in the 80-90 pound range, and several in the 30-40 pound range.  We have lots of smaller halibut again this year so it keeps the action steady when fishing for halibut.

The average take-home was about 80-pounds-per-guests.  This number was skewed upwards a little because of some staff we brought in to help train our new staff.

— Doc

Previous Reports:

• June 5, 2007
• 2006 Fishing Season
• 2005 Fishing Season