It's that time again! ;D
Headed back up to my home away from home this weekend - destination Prince of Wales Island, Craig, Alaska.
I will be targeting the late summer/early fall return of Coho in freshwater and salt. Most of the week I go for getting a limit of 6 silvers each day and then spend the balance of the day jigging rockfish and cod off the dock and roadside cliffs in the salt water.
This year I hope to catch all my salmon from the ocean from shore. It depends if they've all moved to the rivers yet or not.
Will try to get online during the week with a report. If not, then after I return.
Aloha!
Steve-o the Salmon Slayer
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Knockem' dead Steve-O! ;D
Wishing you nothing but the best of what Alaska has to offer. Dominick
Quote from: Dominick on September 12, 2014, 06:12:21 PM
Wishing you nothing but the best of what Alaska has to offer. Dominick
Same here Steve.
Always looking forward to your annual report...be safe. ;)
Thanks Guys! This is the fishing I really look forward to each year. My partners cancelled again, but I had already pre-booked months ago knowing this would happen like last year.
Hoping to turn a bunch of these....
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Into a bunch of these...
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But of course all the thrill of fishing, catching and just being there to go with it. ;D
That last pic makes me hungry, I'm gonna go thaw out my last rockfish. ;D
cold water fish makes the mouth water
good stuff
Hey Steevo: you are so lucky to fish in alaska, Ive heard they have some good fishing up there!!!!!! Those coho are great fighters too from what I remember. Send more photos when your done and rested up. gst.
That's one place I will go to before I die..!!
Day 1 - Almost full report. No pics.....WHAT.!?!? They're coming tomorrw.
Sunny and warm- should be cooler and rainy. Sunny equals tough fishing.
The fishing - uhhh.....I'm in Alaska.....fishing.... Sorry.... Got to it bright..ummm... Make that dark and early.
Tried the ocean first D-e-d , dead. Not rollers, jumpers, nothing. Gave it 30 minutes. Nada.
Went to a nearby bay...2 jacks, 4 small sculpin, 1 missed coho. Headed to the river. No parking. Low water. One buzzillion Humpies. You can guess how this is going....but wait! There is a pot of silver at the end of this rainbow. Plenty of silvers in the river, lots of anglers. Lots more empty stringers. I get one after releasing several foul hooked beauties and half a buzillion foul hooked humpies. Not even a single hook could evade them. The guy next to me gets his limit in 3 hours. I ask how he did it. He shows me Mikes Herring oil. I mention the regs of unbaited unscented artificial only.
My left shoulder and arm are turning to Jello from the endless sideways dredging of 6 pound Humpies. I call it good and decide to catch the low tide at noon in the bay.
BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! Four big Chromers under an hour. yeeeeeHaaaaaaa! All on a Mepps pink bodied Rainbow trout bladed spinner. Bonked , bled and iced those pretties and call it good until later.
Got them cleaned bagged and frozen. Then hit the dock for some jigging.
Oh my Cod! One big Pacific Cod after another. At 20 something I lost count. Somewhere in there I put on one of Saltydog's jigs that Dominick and I did a trade on. Nailed them. All this with a little salmon belly tip on the hooks. Later no bait and still killed them. All the while trying to get my taste test great sculpin or some rockfish. Nothing doing the Cod dominated everything down there.
At some point a big spinning Cod unwinds my split ring and dumps the lead jig off right at the surface. arrrghhh! Did not risk the other one.
So for my revenge I hook up a 2 oz lead jig with nothing on it. Just a bare hook. Take that, Cod. This biggiest one I've ever caught hammers it while jigging. Couldn't believe it. So I caught 10 more on the bare lead head. Last one and I go for a hail Mary hookset. SNAP! Oh snap. My wally world jigging pole snaps clean in two. Eeek! The Pelagic Extreme reel I jig with has a big carbon disk. It's pretty much an Avet clone. Pulled out the snapped off section and rolled tape on the remainder and am good till the next snafu.
I have pics which emailed from my phone but have no cell service until I get out of the mtn shadow.
Stay tuned until tomorrow!
Good report Steve. I can't wait for the photos. Dominick
Pics coming now. I have to drive to get cell service to send the pics to my email to get them on my iPad.
First 4 Silvers. Caught on Mepps in salt bay.
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P-Cod. One of waaay too many. Nice size and pull like an AJ only smaller.
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Used the Saltydog jig....
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Until this one spun it off the split ring. Still don't know how. But I watched it bloop into the deep right when the Cod spun to the surface.
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Mo to come!
Got another limit of silvers today. Big fish was a tubby 10 #er. More Cod while hunting rockfish. And a Sole.
The rain is coming so the fishing should get easier. The warm 67 is murder in waders and the no see-ums are collecting DNA like it's Trick or Treat. Met up with the CA buds from last year. Going to be another gourmet dinner later in the week. They went out on the salt and killed the rockfish and lings. 20# was the biggest lingcod. I will stick one of their fish pics up later. Amazing colors for fish that live in the dark.
Gotta go prep the gear for tomorrow then crash.
I just previewed the post...sorry the pics are HUGE....
Nice fish, well done.
Rgds
Mark
Thanks for Sharing Steve-O. I ordered some of those jigs from Salty. I haven't seen him around in months.
SH - I noticed he was absent as well. I was hoping to thank him for producing these top shelf jigs. Still grumbling about losing the one.
Not much room to speak since I seem to go on walkabout from here annually. Then find my way back.
Well three more days have passed and the beat goes on. Up early, fishing hard.
Tuesday brings another limit of Coho.
Wednesday only a trio. Tuff crowd, tuff crowd.
Thursday another 6.
Got meself some serious fish bite infection in my right index finger tip. Yeow! Looks like an olive and throbs. Manning up, fishing through two days now.
Hit the dock for jigging and cranked up another dozen Cod, the odd sculpin and an Irish Lord.
My Palo Alta, CA buds went out on the salt on a boat and killed rockfish, lings and sea bass ( the black AK version). I received 12.5 # of halibut from their trip which offsets nicely the trio coho day.
Rain finally got here and the fish are pouring in, too. Wish I could stay 2 more weeks when the humpies was out and it becomes Silver heaven.
Have seen a few black bears, one a huge sow with triplets. Heard a bear fight in the nearby woods. Sounded like BIG mad cats snarling and growling.
I get so focused on the fishing i forget to pull out the camera sometimes. Tomorrow I need some shots of these Monster Humpies from Hades.
Some pics.
limit for Tuesday
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Cannot get any fresher than this!
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Off to good start best fish of Weds.
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Tiger rockfish..about a pound.
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Thursday six silvers.
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Gotta go make some fish boxes so Friday evening isn't a big rush to prep for departure. Man! The week flies by compared to work. And I put in twice the hours doing this. Go figure. Time's fun when you're having flies.
Steve, nice job on the fishing and reporting. The toxins in fish bites are not to be ignored. Soak your hand in an Epsom salts bath each day. Try to draw out the infection. Dominick
Good Job Steve-O! ;) I'm headed to Florida tonight. I hope to have pics to share too. ;D
Nice Haul Steve. Alaska is on the bucket list to fish. I had a couple of chances years ago and work prevented it both times. One day...
Looks like you're doing great again this year Steve... very nice. Keep an eye on that finger, fish bites can do a job on you, my brother let it go, and within a week or so, the tip of his thumb became spongy. They had to operate and take a piece off, luckily it was just the tip, but it could have gotten worse.
I'm not trying to scare you buddy, just want you to be safe.
Great report Steve.... as always ;)
Great report Steve - thanks for bringing us along!
Stoked for ya.
Keep 'em coming (and take care of that finger).
All the best mate, Justin
OK... Two words... I'm Jealous.
But not of that infection, take care of that :o
Thanks, guys. thursday evening the two fish boxes came out at 99.4 # so the decision needed to be made to either fish Friday and start another box weighing out around 35#, catch and release, or not fish and play tourist.
With my annual main regret being not enough pictures of the trip taken, I decided to suit up in full fishing gear, leave the rods home and take three cameras. Had a blast. My Olympus Tough goes anywhere and into the river on a telescoping pole to film humpies doing their thing as well as oodles of other stuff. Found an eagle dead in the woods and photoed the skull.
Ran into my Idaho buds and took pics of their catches plus they put a rod in my hands to have some fun. It was a Laminglass rod with a ABu G Revo ctx on it. What a nice combo that cast with a flick. Smooth reel, too.
Caught a few and invited the buds to the dock to jig cod in the afternoon. They were not disappointed. We jigged up enough to feed us all well and I added two Great Sculpins big enough to fillet and eat.
I ate a small cod fillet sauteed in soy and lime followed with the scuplin fillets the same way. The sculpin was firm with a bounce in the chew not unlike a tender clam. All the previous sculpins had been too small to bother filleting. My buds were grinning like kids in a toy shop and they jiggged up cod after cod. Less smiles after a while when the cod thinned and the sculpins were thick as thieves. I had the practice so every big bend to my rod indicating a large cod saw it passed to the next angler to crank it up. They loved it and were thrilled to get that much free white meat.
I'm beat and am packing up for the haul back home. I will finalize my adventure with a few more pics. My finger seems to go from throbbing to better then back to throb...right now is boom, boom, boom and hot so more meds. Swelling is still about the same. Worst fish bite infection I 've ever had. Line cuts are a normal hazard releasing humpies and foul hooked fish but this is a whole nother level of fun.
Later. Steve
Good job on reporting dude; seems like you stayed busy too, catching and boxing, all that makes you snore too, people say! great colorful pictures too! you,ll go back to work to rest up huh?????and go back again if you can,,,,,,for sure. gst.
Gary, yep, had to sit at a computer for a week just to wake up. Finger is almost healed. WARNING: Ugly fingertip from fish tooth. This was a week or so back. Much better now.
There will be a pair of Lindy fish handling gloves with me next year!
15 consecutive years and 16 trips to AK...so yeah, I am planning to be back up there in 2015. I almost have 6 months residency....one week at a time. ;D
Wow! That's one ugly finger. :o Dominick
Wow, that is really one heck of an infection. And another scar story to brag to folks about! ::)
I shared the pic with the lodge owner/friend of 15 years after he got back from his Sheep and Caribou hunts. Even he thought it was scary looking. Then he related a 4" hole saw fillet job he did on his finger. yeow!
Ya..it was a mess......but you should SEE the other guy.
First he got his lips pierced, then drug and yanked out of his ecosystem, bashed on the noggin, gills slit, bled out and ended up like 5 more of his compadres that day. In the deep freeze. ;D
In 15 years of line cuts, fish bites, stiff knuckles, etc... I get to pay my dues once in a while.
I'll take it! ;D
this looks like great halibut bait!!!!!
That looks like real dungie crab bait to me!
Ron