Fishing Updates

June 25, 2007

This week was as near to perfect fishing weather as we get in Southeast Alaska.  The winds were calm.  The tides minimal, and the sun shined brightly on 4 of the 5 fishing days.  We had a lot of red-faced people--from sunburns.  When we add the fish catch to the pleasant weather and fishing conditions you can understand why so many people from this past week are booking again for future years.

The King catch was steady with lots of 26", plus or minus, sized kings.  Guests kept 9 legal kings.  With the increase in abundance of other salmon species we consider the kings as just incidentally caught, not fish of target.  The largest king was 32 pounds.

Usually when we get lots of sunshine the salmon fishing drops off, but that was not the case this week.  The salmon fishing got better with each passing day.  Lots of fish jumping and swirling on top of the water which is a good indication of the number of fish going by.  The silver catch started slow with just two silvers caught on Monday.  However, as the week progressed the catch jumped to 23 on Thursday and 17 on Friday.  The total catch was up from 14 fish the previous week to 63 this past week.  If this trend continues we are going to have a great silver fishing summer.

We've been talking about how good the chum fishing has been the past couple of weeks.  This week things really expanded.  Guests took 264 nice chums--that's up from 84 last week with a similar number of fishermen.  Many of the chums are in the 12-14 pound range and will make wonderful eating later.  We expect the chum fishing to continue strong from several more weeks.  They were close to the surface this past week which made fishing much easier.  Down-riggers were not needed.

It's Pink Salmon time now.  The catch jumped from 23 fish a week ago to 277 this past week.  When you look at the number of silvers, chums, and pinks caught this past week, then factor in the number that get hooked and then get off, you can see why guests were in a dilemma about whether to fish for salmon or halibut.  The pink catch should take another large jump this coming week.

We still have lots of halibut in the 30 - 34 inch range.  We have several taken in the 80 to 130 pound range and several good fish stories about the ones who were involuntarily released.  The catch jumped from 373 the previous week to 543 this past week.  The increase was influenced by the small tides in addition to the abundance of halibut.  With bigger tides and more salmon we would expect the halibut catch to level off and maybe drop a little this coming week as effort will shift toward salmon fishing.

The poundage of fish each guest is taking home is down overall when compared to previous years.  Part of this is the way we are measuring and part is just that guests are taking more fish about 32" so they can get a limit and go salmon fishing.  The guests are not staying on halibut as long hoping to catch the bigger fish.  It's the old "truth" that catching is more fun than fishing.

We had a great group of guests and a pleasant and successful week.

— Doc

Previous Reports:

• June 5, 2007
• June 11, 2007
• June 18, 2007
• 2006 Fishing Season
• 2005 Fishing Season