During the past week, our groups have put in more time at a variety of spots to find their fish – it hasn’t been one go-to like in past weeks. The salmon are still feeding aggressively before and after tide change, but slack tide has been work. So, captains have taken our clients to multiple locations until they find that productive spot. This includes different salmon holes or changing programs to search for halibut, rockfish or lingcod. Our boats are returning to the dock with more consistent king limits, however. Most of our boats catch their fish in the early morning and proceeded to capitalize in the afternoon.

Most boats have had great success south of town. The majority come back with limits on kings, halibut, and quite a few slot lingcod. We’re even beginning to see silvers trickle in as their season approaches. The weather each day has been a mix of everything Sitka – mornings of sun and calm water with the afternoons of wind and rain. This has yet to stop clients from enjoying their time at sea.

It was a party on Chuck’s boat this week. They Hopkins crew spent most of their day at the Cape until they caught their limit of halibut. Afterwards, they headed further south and to protected water to take cover from the high winds. Once they arrived, they were greeted by a very hungry school of kings. They limited on kings within a half hour, and released others. During this time, a whale breached right next to the boat as Deckhand Sarah was netting a fish. “I thought the boat was going to tip over, it had that much power!” said Sarah.

Other groups reported similar stretches of hot king bites and amazing whale shows during their Sitka trip. Earlier this week Captain James came across a group of humpback whales bubble feeding. He described it as an unforgettable experience, one that you can only find in Alaska. It was an unbelievable week!