Craig, Alaska Report 1
I've been sitting here for the last ten minutes trying to come up with something snappy for a title and it just isn't coming to me. All I could come up with is "Craig, Alaska Report", which will work just fine. Two months of sleep deprivation and long days on the ocean have pretty much eliminated all the fluff. Fish, eat, sleep…in that order!
In this business people always ask "how's the fishing?" My response lately has been "pretty good", which translates to not slow, not white hot, but somewhere in the middle. "Somewhere in the middle" is darned good by many people standards. Our guests have been in some white hot coho bites this past week and there have been days where we've had to scratch around to find them, getting limits on most days and close to it on the other days. There continues to be some enormous king salmon around and if guests want to sacrifice a few silvers to target these fish I'm all for it! Most of the action lately has been occurring on the north end of Noyes Island at places like the "Tree Hole", Cape Ulitka, St. Joseph Island, and down the outside coast of Noyes. The inside fishery is starting to pick up, as well, and with an afternoon charter today we plan on scoping many of the areas close to town.
Halibut fishing has remained solid and we've had halibut to 135 pounds this past week and several more in the 90 pound range. And the "Semi" drift kicks out chicken halibut in short order whenever the need arises. Dad just hand delivered another case of 16 oz. pipe jigs that will be put to good use here shortly now that we're coming down off these huge tides.
Jim Murphy joined the Bakersfield gang this year for the first time and walked away with their group halibut jackpot with this 92 pounder. After buying drinks for the group with the prize money, however, I'm pretty sure he ended up in the red : )
Frank Reed, Mr. Perma-Grin, with his 135 pound halibut.
Joe, Frank, "Tuna", and dad with a limit of fat silvers, chicken halibut, and a nice king salmon. "Tuna" will be sending us some interesting downloads for our Icom radios. You all thought our scramblers were annoying : )
I'm sure TSA had a field day with this box of pipe jigs
The humpback whales are always here in great numbers and the killer whales have also been here just about every day. I grabbed this photo close to town a couple of days ago of a humpback doing the tail slap. This is always a sight to behold as these enormous creatures heave their bodies out of the water.
Capt. Rob Endsley
The big'uns pull hard at first and then it's like cranking up a grand piano from the bottom. It's still pretty exciting when you get your first glimpse of such a big fish as they near the surface. Big fish are always cool!