Horizon West | Sitka, Alaska Guides & Outfitters
Alaska Fishing Report
Fishing Report 1 6/8/2011
First off, let me apologize for being a little late on my fish blog ( its only been 3 weeks), but I’ll do my best to try and catch up.
Peggy and I arrived in Sitka on May 1st. For the first 3 weeks it was just us and one deckhand, Kyle (poor Kyle). There was one heck of a lot of work getting everything ready for the pending season. With little help, Peggy and I we’re swamped, which caused us to get behind on things like “fish blogs.”
Anyway, we started off our season on May 15th Steelhead fishing on a little stream 2 hours north of town . The weather this May was much like last year, warm, dry and calm. That left the streams very low and clear, challenging conditions to say the least. We did however find plenty of fresh bright fish, in odd places, and were able to land about 15 of them. The biggest was about 14 lbs.
Then, on to ocean fishing for a few days. May’s, 2 kings a day limit, 5 possession, found plenty of willing participants. We caught limits of Kings and Halibut.
Then back to more Steelhead, different stream a 20 minute float plane trip south of town, in the shadow of a 50’ waterfall, on the banks of moss carpeted old growth forest floor, we caught plenty of cromers, with one pushing the scale at 16lbs. What a pristine fishery, my favorite.
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The next week of May, the Ed Tausk and Gus Gregory groups were plying the ocean for plenty of fat Kings, and a variety of bottom dwellers, and finding limits 80% of the time. For the most part the kings weren’t overly large, with 16-18 lbs about average, but good numbers. On one of Eds trips, Fishing on the Ocean Storm, We caught 5 Kings, 6 Silvers, 10 Chums, and about 20 Pink Salmon. I don’t think I can ever remember catching such a variety of Salmon in May. Don’t know what that means for later on in the year, but it could be a big Salmon year.
The first week of June came with a little weather, bad, The King limit reduced to one a day, 5 a season, and also Kings somewhat harder to find. The Mark McKie, and Don Ryne groups had to work hard for there kings, but were able to find most of them. With the new month came some bigger fish. The Mckie group took several Kings in The 30’s, the average size was at 22-24lbs. By the end of the week, fishing had picked up, although still somewhat sporadic, good bait and fish one day, hard to find the next.
I know I haven’t said a whole lot about Halibut yet because I’m sitting hear trying to figure out how to get excited about our big halibut of the week. We have had several 36 ½ inchers. Its kind of funny, in the past, if you caught halibuts that size, your reaction would be” hey that’s a great chicken”, now you’d think you had won the lottery. We have caught some nice butts, the Mark McKie, and Doug Kretz groups both released several fish in the 50-80 pounds range. I know its hard to deal with this new 37” rule, but it really hasn’t resulted in to big a drop of fish going home. With all the other varieties of bottom dwellers in our bag of tricks, its helped make up the difference. I’m just glad I’m not south of hear in Canada. With there Halibut quota and how it’s limited. They’ll be shut down completely around the 20th of June.
I think this will be just a one year thing, and we’ll work thru it. We’re also working on some lighter, sportier gear, better matched to the smaller size, to make it more fun catching in shallower water. Stay tuned.
That’s it for now, and I promise I’ll update my blog weekly from now on. Hope to see you all soon.
Admiral Bruce Gipple, Captain of the M/V Fish Blog
FISHING REPORT 2 JUNE 18th 2011
Well, what to report this week.
Fishing - good, not fantastic, almost bordering on great, but the average size is still on the smaller side. The average King this week, like May, was 16-18 pounds. We did, however, have an occasional King in the mid 20’s.
This is usually what happens when a big run occurs, which is what was predicted for this year.
Smaller fish will be the norm, as competition for food is heavy. So far we have seen just average sizes. Just as Springer’s are running late on the Columbia river, we’re thinking, the same could hold true up here.
However, contradictory to that, we have never seen so many Pinks and Chums this early. We’re catching lots of Pinks along with 3 plus Chums. Also averaging a half dozen Silvers per boat per day, which is not that unusual for this time of year. Not quite sure what that means, but we could be heading for a big run of multiple types of other Salmon.
The other part of this past week that has been just short of fantastic is the weather. Unbelievable day after day. Flat calm, 2-4 foot seas, wind less than 10 mph, and quite a bit of sun. The forecast, as far out as Tuesday, is for more of the same.
I was out yesterday with my Brother and Sister-in law and there boys. It was so calm at the Cape that we could hear the whales singing thru the hull of my boat. Not very good, slightly off key but Still kind of cool.
That’s it for now. Hope everybody has some good Sitka Fish for the BBQ, its that time of year.
See you next week.
Dr. Bruce, Hydro-therapist
FISHSHING REPORT JUNE 25th 2011 ,
Well, its not a problem this week finding something to write about.
The main theme this week, surprisingly enough, is Silvers and lots of them.
On June 20th the Pure fishing Group, headed by Paul Ruda, fishing aboard the “Ocean Shadow” with Captain Mark Diaz, boated the first limits of Silvers this year. They also had limits of Kings, Halibut, YellowEye, Sea Bass, and a few other things I can’t remember. It was quite an impressive catch, and not just a fluke. All the boats have limited on Silvers and Kings everyday since then. The Silvers are not just the normal 4-6lb rags you’d expect this time of year. At least half of the Cohos are nice 8-10 pound plus fish. It hasn’t been uncommon in the past to see limits of Silvers this early, but it’s been years since we’ve seen them this big this early. I’m not quite sure what this means for the rest of the Coho season, but the first part is starting off with a bang.
Kings have been good also, with limits no problem, and releasing 6-12 fish everyday. The big fish of the week so far was brought in by John Barrios, fishing aboard the “Ocean Rogue” with Captain Cameron Clifton. It tipped the scale at just over 30 lbs. Captain Cam said it was a really tough fish and took over 20 minutes to subdue. With lots of fish showing, I’m sure we’ll be seeing bigger fish as the week progresses.
The weather continues to stay calm, with a little more rain involved. I can’t remember a June in the past where we’ve had this many days of flat ocean The forecast is for more of the same.
That’s it for now. I hope the next time I see you up here, your fishing blog report will look the same.
Till then, from your friendly, good looking, young, but slightly delusional lodge owner.
Good fishing,
Bruce Gipple
Fishing Report June 30, 2011
If you read my blog for last week, I suppose you’ll remember about the limits of Silvers that we had been catching, and the nice average size and bla bla bla.Well no sooner had my index finger(left only) left the keyboard than the boats came in with an average of 6. Quite a let down after doing so well, but still about normal for this time of year. Since then, we have had some good numbers and limits all depending on our ability to fish Cape Edgecomb, and being able to work thru the massive amount of Pinks that seem to reside there. I think we’re averaging about 3-5 pinks for every Silver.
King numbers, on the other hand, are still abundant and the average size seems to be getting a little better at 22-24 lbs. We still haven’t seen a lot of 30 and 40 pounders this year, however, yesterday the Jerry Kursava group, fishing with Captain Brent Wicker aboard the”Ocean Echo” caught a nice limit of Kings all in the upper 20’s.
The other notable catch last week was by Paul Keller, fishing aboard “Ocean Legacy” with Captain Adam Moran. He caught and released a huge Lingcod. When first measured it came in at 56”. That’s 1” above the minimum trophy size limit, and the biggest we’ve seen in many years.
The second time they put the tape on the Ling it went to 54 1/2 “but was tensed up. When relaxed it would have surely been legal.
When told he could keep it, Paul chose to release it based on the fact that it would probably have been less than quality table fair. Way to go Paul, you will always have the pictures and the memory.
Our run of beautiful weather has finally come to an end with the end of the month. We had 1 ½” of rain in the last 24 hrs. We can’t complain to much though, June’s been absolutely wonderful.
That’s about it for now. We’ll be fishing friends and family for the 4th of July holiday, so I’ll will wait till the second week of July to blog forth again.
Hope to see you soon, Bruce
Fishing Report July 16, 2011
This weeks fish blog is actually 2 weeks in 1 and includes our 4th of July break.
The word that best describes this period of fishing is “bi-polar“.
We normally take off the first 4 or 5 days of July because the commercial Trollers start on the 1st and will usually ding the Kings pretty well for a week.
We always fish with our family and friends during this time. Fishing then, gets better again after the commercials finish their opener. Not this year, however, Fishing was just flat HOT, even better than our best days in June.
With our first groups after the break, July 7-10, fishing cooled a little but still damn good with lots of Kings averaging in the upper 20’s, and also 6-12 Silvers a day per boat.
The next group, July 11-13, the weather turned bad, nice and sunny, but windy with big seas, and that scattered all the fish like it normally does. It dropped our catches all the way down to 1-2 Kings, and 1-2 silvers a day per boat.
For this last group, the weather flattened out and the boats were able to get on the fish again. We found Kings in big schools, and with effort some limits of Silvers. The size of the Kings has stayed at a good size with a 24-26lb average. Also not bad silvers for this time of year averaging a solid 8lbs. The salmon forecast is looking good.
As for Halibut, which we haven’t talked a whole lot about, things have been darned good. If you remember a few blogs back, I talked about experimenting with light tackle for bottom fish, since we aren’t fishing deep water(300’). Well, it’s proved to be a whole lot more fun than we thought it was going to be. On top of that, we’ve also been finding big numbers of butts to boot.
Fishing with the light tackle, 6-8 oz jigs and Berkley Gulps, has been so well received by clients and fish alike, that our biggest problem next year , if we get our big fish back, is getting everybody off this light tackle fishery. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.
The weather has also continued to cooperate, with nice calm days on the Ocean, except for that one period.
Well, that’s about all for now. Tune in next week for the continuing saga of “ As the Ocean turns”
Bruce
PS: I still have a few dates left in September for fall Salmon in SW Washington. If anyone is interested. Give me a call. 360-887-3676.
Fishing Report July 23rd, 2011 This last weeks fishing was a “continuation” upwards of the prior weeks. King fishing is off the charts with easy limits and releasing 5-12 Kings a day. Chinook sizes have dropped back a little, to a 22-24lb average. Meanwhile Silver catches have continued up with 12 fish on the low end per boat, and limits starting to happen more frequently. Coho’s are continuing to pack on the pounds, several 14 and 16 pounder’s were taken this past week. Bottom fishing has also continued to be good. With the commercial sectors quota cut by 45%, most of them are done fishing leaving lots of Halibut, and easy catches of target sized have moved into relatively shallow water. The numbers of Sea Bass have also moved in to the shallows for lots of light tackle fun. I don’t know what else to say. The weather has been sunny, the winds calm, the fishing has been great. Our clients and friends are happy. I hope this report finds all of you healthy, and spending some quality time with loved ones doing something fun like, FISHING! Enjoy, Bruce
Fishing Report July 30, 2011 This was the week of crappy weather, great fishing. On July 26th, the weather forecast was looking bad, and the ocean ugly. Captain Cameron Clifton aboard his boat, “ Ocean Rogue” was cruising north through the inside passage headed for a day of tough fishing, probably in the Sharkhole. He went by highwater Island and was almost to the forest service cabin when he noticed a large school of herring boiling on his portside. Usually this means there’s a big school of rockfish pushing them; but you never know. So he said ‘what the hell’ and stopped. Good call. Great call, it turned out to be a huge herd of Kings and Silvers, and in about a 2 hour span all four boats caught limits of Kings and Silvers, and released 10-15 more kings per boat. The rest of the charter fleet flew right on buy, but Cameron’s 15 years of experience spelled success for ours. That’s what you get when you sign on . That and an award winning smile. Well, that died after a couple of days, and then it was back to the ocean, which was still a little lumpy, but had another massive school of salmon off Cape Georgiana. I even got in on some of it. I left the dock at 6:30 with our lodge staff, who haven’t had much of a chance to get out yet, and was back at 11:30 with 22 Silvers and 3 Kings. WE would of stayed out longer, but we took a vote and the green people on the back deck, with knives in hand, managed to convince me that maybe it was time to go in. So fearing for my life, we came home. On the bottom fish scene, rockfish is still doing well, but with the bumpy ocean, halibut hasn’t faired as well as Salmon. Catches have been a little more hit or miss. Well, that’s it for now. My typing finger, and I only have one, is tired and needs a nap. See you next week. Bruce
FISHING REPORT AUGUST 7, 2011 How good is the fishing you ask? HOT, Darn HOT, SMOKIN HOT, RED HOT, WHITE HOT. When it comes to King and Silver Salmon fishing , it doesn’t get much better. As a matter of fact, in the 19 years I’ve been in Sitka, I’d rank this year in the top 3. It’s pretty much limits and sometimes easy limits (in 2 hours) of Kings and Silvers. I think there was one day when fishing got tough and we had to work all day to get our limits of Kings, Silvers, Halibut, and Sea Bass. Didn’t get back to the dock till 3:45. Darn. What else can I say? That says it all. Weather is so-so, Fishing is hot. End of story. Till next week. Wish you were here. Bruce
FISHING REPORT AUGUST 12, 2011
The curse of the blog. It seems, whenever I write about the “hot” fishing we’re having, no sooner does it go on paper that the fishing takes a dive. Thus, is the start to this weeks bolg. The very next day, the boats struggled a little bit to find Silvers. Kings, however, were no problem. Still plenty of King critters to keep and release. Silver averages were only about 12-20 per boat. Still not bad though, and by a few days later, back to easy limits. I don’t know how much longer the Kings will stay around, but, so far there’s no end in sight. What a great salmon season. On a side note - we have seen a lot of sub legal salmon out there this year which is usually a good indicator of another strong run next year. At least for Kings. Halibut has continued at about the same, nothing spectacular, just OK, but there have been some good catches of Blingcod and Goldeneyes. Lingcod re-opened two weeks early this year which was a nice surprise for everyone. Great catches of Black bombers as well, can you say fish taco’s. Weather has also continued to hold, a little rain, a little sun, and lots of days of calm oceans. Well, that’s about it for now. Hope this blog finds you all, or y’all in good health, and maybe, just maybe you need a little Hydrotherapy to improve your outlook on life. Till next week, smell like fish, life is good. Bruce
FISHING REPORT AUGUST, 19, 2011
You know, this year we’ve had the best weather that I can remember in many years, however, the wheels fell off that wagon this week.
We were doing fine till “Gale” had to stick her nose into our forecast. I think the boats only got out on the ocean 2 days this week, having to stay in the relatively calm waters of the Sharkhole the rest of the time.
In spite of it, they had some pretty darn good catches, averaging 3-4 Kings a day and 12-20 Silvers a day, and still managed to pull a few good limits out of there.
Kings haven’t been very big lately, but we wouldn’t expect them to be this time of year. Most of the Kings are feeders now, and, are not headed to any rivers.
The Silvers are still a mix of 10 pounders, which are headed in to spawn, and 7-8 pounders that are still staging for the big event.
The weather outlook for the last week of our season is not looking very good for now but the fishing, like the last 2 years, is still holding strong right up to the end.
Halibut and bottom fishing has slowed a bit this past week, not due to lack of fish, but rather the crappy weather which has made it tough to get at them.
Well, last week of the season coming up, Hang on for the ride. Its going to be a bumpy one.
Hope all are well, Bruce
Fishing Report August 30, 2011
LAST BLOG FOR Sitka 2011 For the most part, the last week started the same as the 3rd week ended, marginal weather, bad ocean conditions, and because of the aforementioned, just OK fishing. The boats were averaging 12-20 Silvers per day, and even at the end getting limits or near limits of Kings. Surprisingly the size of the silvers never got much better than the average, which was probably due to the large amount of fish having to compete for food. The same held true for kings also, with lots of smaller fish. One of the most positive things we saw this last week was the large amount of small kings in the Sharkhole. The boys were going thru 20 doz herring a day per boat, just trying to get down thru the sub-legal Chinooks. We’ve never had that many, and it’s a big indicator for 2012’s King forecast. Another thing we did this last week due to the weather was a little more river fishing. Some of the groups opted for, instead of trying to fight the elements, to do something different and try the river experience. Most everybody agreed it was a great trip and had lots of fun, they enjoyed the day on the river bank and in the Forrest. Now, it’s the end of August, we have run out of people to fish, the weather is clearing, and the Silvers and even the kings, are starting to show in good numbers again, just like the last two years. Darn, I’m not ready.
THE YEAR IN REVIEW
We came into the year very apprehensive, with all the turmoil over the 37” Halibut ruling and limited entry licensing for Halibut fishing. What we ended up with, however, was great weather (except for one small period in early July and the last 10 days of August) and some of the best salmon fishing we’ve seen in years.
Kings, which were predicted to be strong, came in good numbers in June, but the big push was late and probably peeked in the first 2 weeks of July.
I have to say, for the most part, we had Chinook right up to the end of the season.
Silvers, for which there is never much of a prediction, were also very good. We got our first limits June 20-25, went thru a little slow period for a couple of weeks, then they were pretty consistent from there on out with limits 85% of the time.
Now, I know some of you are sitting there thinking “our fishing was not great when we were there,” the fish do come in waves, so there were a couple of tough trips. Overall, however, the fishing was great and the catching was pretty consistent.
The Halibut issues, the 37” rule, for the most part was a non-issue. There was a little grumbling, but we found plenty of fish in relatively shallow water(300’), and I think people enjoyed angling for them with lighter tackle. Between that and all the Salmon, plus lots of other bottom dwellers, people kind of forgot about big Halibut.
As for Horizon West, there wasn’t much change in our wind this year. A couple of new engines, updating some of the equipment, but overall we felt our program worked pretty well this year. That being said, we’re always looking for suggestions, and please; if you feel we dropped the ball in any area, let us know. It’s the only way we can keep improving.
The only other addition to this year was the promotion of Mark Diaz from Deck to Captain. Mark did a fantastic job, and we had nothing but great reviews from everybody that fished with him. We look forward to his return next year.
We had an awesome crew this year and we’re hoping for all to return in 2012.
What’s in store for 2012 you ask?
Early season predictions for Kings looks like another strong return like this year, so I would expect May and June to be excellent.
No predictions on Silvers yet so wait and see on that one.
Steelhead in May and early June should be great based on returns 3 years ago.
As for Halibut, there is going to be a whole lot happening between now and then. All of the governing bodies that regulate us stirred up a real rats nest this year and I expect a lot of fallout in 2012.
Our harvest was suppose to be 788,000 pounds this year, and at this point it looks like will probably come in at about 460,000 pounds, well below our guideline harvest. I do expect we will get some relief from this years terrible rules, but have no idea how much, or what form it will take. Rest assured, SEGO,( Southwest Alaska Guides Assoc), which many of you have donated to, will be hard at work defending your rites.
And for Horizon west, there could be very few changes in 2012, or some really big changes, stay tuned. We will Email as things happen. The one thing that I do expect for next year is, based on this years big Salmon run, request for spots next year are strong, and if you are planning to return next year, and I haven’t already confirmed your date please give me a call to confirm your reservation.
