Wife and I took a trip up to Anchorage to have a beer or two with my sister who lives up there. 11 days of lots of laughs, no sun sets, no sun rises, great food, awesome weather. Really could not have asked for a better time.
Meat and potatoes:
We fished ship creek right in downtown Anchorage for Kings. If you are looking for the romantic Alaskan wilderness hike into pristine country, this ain’t it. You want a shot at a big king without driving hours, this is it. It kind of has a party mentality to it. You get hooked up and other people you don’t know are coming to help you land it. The owner of the bait shack Dustin does everything he can to get people bites, from the gear to having his staff walk the river banks and helping people get geared up, land a fish etc, they do it all. Super awesome guy and a lot of fun.
Rigs are pretty simple, 3 oz weight, biggest spin n glow you can find a quarter sized chunk of roe, pitch it and let it sit. Here’s my wife with her PB King. The tides up here are crazy cool to see the water rise/fall and the rush of fish it brings it in.
This was also the weekend of the slam’n salmon derby they do every year on top of a kids event as well. Last year the derby raised enough money to do over 140,000 meals for those in need.
From anchorage we traveled down to Anchor Point and Ship Creek. We did a lot of exploring and sight seeing here. We did fish kings and pretty low success. I hooked up on a few with the fly rod, my wife ended up getting one just under 30 casting a vibrax in deep creek.
Homer was fun to walk and explore, saw the cape caution boat from deadliest catch docked there.
From Anchor Point we made our way down to Seward. We made a quick stop to look and see if there were any Sockeye in a spot that looked to be about a half hour walk out. Glad we made the stop. We had our 18 in about 2.5 hours. It was an absolute blast.
We booked two halibut trips with The SeaQuest out of Alaska Northern Outfitters. The first day was a bit rough, with 12 foot swells. 24 people on the boat I think 19 of them spent some time talking to Ralph on the back of the boat. Everyone who did fish got their fish. My wife and I did the share a rod program and I’m glad we did. Cranking up a 3 pound weight in current in 200 feet of water was a work out before you even caught a fish.
We took a few days off and shopped, explored glaciers, mountains, and fished salmon some more. Friday my wife and I booked another trip Friday with SeaQuest after the service and the experience Captain Sean, and his deckhands Wizna and Nate.
Much calmer seas that day, it did however slow the bite down for big fish and had more “chickens.” I started the day off with a salmon carcass as bait and lowered it to the bottom, and instantly got slammed by a good one and before I knew it I was going for a run around the boat chasing it. Having ya over in the box less than an hour into the trip including the fight I was concerned it was going to be a long day for me. They typically don’t fish rockfish (which is my favorite for the table vs halibut) until July. So knowing the chance of me catching a chicken was pretty low so I switched to herring in hopes of finding some by catch.
By the end of the day my wife and I had our 4 halibut including big fish of the trip and both limits of rockfish!
Was an absolutely incredible trip! Can’t wait to go back!
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