King fishing remains mostly solid but short of a slam-dunk. The weather has not been a key factor except when it got a bit blowy on June 10 and June 12. On both those days the results within the AU fleet were a bit mixed with some bringing in all their kings, but not all. The schools move around quite a bit and the kings aren’t biting with their usual gusto. It’s a patience game of waiting your turn for a school to come by. There are times when a big school goes under the boat, a situation that usually produces bites on every rod, but we only get one bite or none. The best explanation for the fussy behavior is the enormous amounts of baitfish in the area. A full fish is a fussy fish.
Halibut are abundant in the deep water and nice ones have also moved into near-shore water, mixing into the catch while we’re salmon fishing. The deep-water halibut action, along with pacific cod and blackcod, has been excellent, weather permitting. The rockfish continue to provide fast fun whenever we go for them. In general, we’ve enjoyed pleasant weather with only a couple of days that were kind of rough, but not too much so to deny us access to the ocean.
A special shout out to Ernie Petersen who set the record at AU. He’s been a special friend to AU for decades and Captain Tom knew Ernie back in the Neah Bay days. Ernie, at 97 years young, landed himself a nice king, breaking the record set by 96-year-old T.T. Nakamura in 1996. Ernie will be back for another round of fishing in August and we look forward to seeing him.
