During my 1st 5 season fishing around Ketchikan, I always heard how much better the fishing was on the outside waters, specifically around Craig and Sitka and 1 resort in particular. This is the biggest resort in the state and runs a fleet of 25 boats but I never applied with them because I always heard they had a very low turn over rate on guides and they got a stack of applications a thick wide every year so why waste my time.
After their 94 season they had an unprecedented 6 guides either leave or get fired.
I will never forget, I'm sitting on my couch watching an NFL playoff game and my phone rings, picked it up and the voice on the other end introduces himself as the head guide at this resort that I could only dream of working for, he tells me he's heard good things about me and would I like to come to work for him, I was in shock and after I picked my jaw off the floor I said sign me up, I'm yours.
We talked for a while and he told me about the history of the resort the clientele as well as the guides, boats, etc, then he ended our conversation saying basically, where I was coming from was like playing for a triple A ball club, now I was coming to play for the Yankees, and he was right.
I had 5 months before I had to be there and had a lot of sleepless night waiting for May 10th to get here when I would fly up and start my guide training. They always bring the new guys in a couple weeks early and show them the fishing grounds, they fish a huge area, basically running 40 miles south of the resort, 25 miles west or offshore from the resort and 35 miles north of the resort and unlike the other resort I worked at where there were very few rocks to hit, this area is a mine field so we spent a lot of time looking at charts and learning the travel routes. They always pointed out the rocks that were named after the guide who had hit them. My biggest fear during training was getting a rock named after me, luckily it never happened.
During training we did a lot of fishing and I was kind of surprised how slow it was, we caught a few kings and some fly swatter halibut but not really what I expected, then May 25th rolled around and the season opened and it was like a light switch turned on and it was game on. At that time the king limit was 2 a day for everyone, guide included and it seemed every boat came in with a boat limit everyday or close to it. The bigger halibut also started moving in and now I'm starting to believe all the hype I've heard about the area, it was pretty spectacular fishing and I was holding my own with the veteran guides. After the 1st week of the season all my fears were gone and I knew I was there to stay.
I'll be back with some great fish stories, the Anacapa storm, and some other good stuff!
