Yakutat fishing trip last week of June

[lokidog]

Well, I finally got something written up, thanks for the advice on river fishing for sockeye.  I will post in several pieces as this thing seems to boot me out with over size picture errors even though I tried to post 5 at less than the size stated....

Yakutat Alaska, what a cool place!  We arrived in town around noon and were out fishing by two.  There were nine of us out on two boats.  The boat I was on did not get any halibut or lings so we decided to play with the black rockfish on the way in.  We only kept the larger fish, 4-6 pounds, and kept 23.  The other boat got a ling and a small halibut.  I filleted all of the rockfish and cooked a bunch for dinner.

[lokidog]

The next morning we went out for another full day of fishing from the boats.  Two guys stayed in because they got a bit sick the first day.  My first halibut was about 20 pounds and was let it go.  Our boat of three kept a 40 pound, 72 pound, two 77 pound, and my 82 pound 55 incher.  We had a triple of two halibut and a 38 inch ling, my biggest to that time.  I also caught a 42 inch ling but had to let it go.  The other boat landed about a thirty pound halibut, a 90 pounder, and some rockfish.  The other two guys got a limit of sockeye on the river.

[lokidog]

That evening we fished for salmon in the river. We came close to limiting on sockeye and even got two kings.  An eagle grabbed one of my friend’s fish that was not on a stringer, the fish was too heavy for the eagle to fly off right away and I managed to get to shore and chase it off before it could reposition itself to fly.  One of the guys landed one about 21 pounds then lost another.  I was downstream of him and upon the retrieval of my hook I noticed some mono caught in it.  I decided to pull it in so as to break it off closer to the snagged hook and leave less line in the water.  As I started pulling, it pulled back, I had the big king by hand.  I backed toward the bank carefully since I had no drag setting on my arm and the line broke, again.  Crap!  I went back to fishing.  Not too long after, I was drifting my hook and bang, fish on.  A nice king.  I fought it to the beach and there was another hook in it.  Danged if it wasn’t the same fish that had been on twice already!

[gasman]

Nice, that is a mess of fish 

[lokidog]

Slow down Gasman, more to come....  

The next day the wind had picked up and the current was running hard.  Fishing was tough.  I and another guy each landed big eye skates that were 150-200 pounds, thought we had huge halibut, oh well.  I did get one keeper halibut, about 35 pounds and released a chicken hali.  We also caught and kept a few black rockfish.  The other boat went in to fish for Kkings around the islands, they caught a 36 and 25 pounder.   Again went to the river for the evening and did well on the sockeyes.

[lokidog]

The fourth day we fished for halibut again, I got a small halibut and a small lingcod, we caught a few other rockfish and that was it for the half day.  We fished for kings in the afternoon around the islands but all we caught were some copper rockfish and one 6 pound sockeye which hit on a herring.  A few of the guys went to the river for a late evening sockeye trip and limited out.

[benhuntin]

looks like a great time

[lokidog]

The last day, our flight out was early evening so we went out to the river in the morning to try to get another limit of sockeye, and we did.  Returned to the B&B, cleaned fish, packed and divided and boxed the fish we were bringing home.  We each ended up with 40 pounds of halibut, 5 pounds of king, 30 pounds of sockey, and about 10 pounds of rockfish and lingcod.

[lokidog]

What more do you need besides some fish?

And, thanks to Weathergirl for encouraging me to go!  XOX

[dougedoug]

sweet looks like fun..and i make those boxes to....

[turkey buster]

wow loki sound like a great time congratulations
chuck

[bowhunterforever]

Looks like you guys had a blast

[robb92]

Great pics!!! Thanks for posting them!!!

[fishcrazy]

Gotta love Yak!!! Where did you guys stay? What boat did you guys fish off?

I really want to get back up but can't make up my mind of when to go. Them spring steelhead are a blast but It looks like the salmon and butt fishign is also.
Kris

[lokidog]

Fishcrazy,

We stayed with Tidewater Inc., Reggie and Shirley Gray.  They have accomodations for 10 on the groundfloor of their house and freezers available.  The boats we went on were owned by a native guy named Gary and Reggie captained the second one.  Reggie has a boat of his own but he was working on it.  I can get phone numbers for anyone interested.  They were both great guys to fish with and worked really hard to put fish in the boat.

We were solid in the sockeye but the kings were a little slow.  They were a bit later than normal.  The commercial season opened July 1.  We were told the halibut fishing is usually a little better than what we experienced, which was still pretty good.  They get a pretty good coho run as well from what I hear.