AU kicked off the 2026 season with our annual Hook It and Cook It event – four days of fishing and four nights of instructive cooking of the daily catch and fine dining. Lucas Szmania and wife Rocio did the honors with cooking each night. Plenty of salmon, rockfish, lingcod, and halibut were landed over the course of the four days. The weather delivered the usual mix – a few nice days, a few challenging days.
Next came back-to-back Big Halibut Battles where our guests vied to land the biggest halibut over a three-day period. The winner of the event was eleven-year-old Kaelyn Puzel who landed a 108 pound halibut. We’re still amidst the second Big Halibut Battle with a champion to be crowned later today. The winners of each round earn a free return trip to AU in 2027.
As for fishing, it has been a typical May. Our guests have enjoyed ample opportunity for kings, with sweet but short biting periods – a right place, right time situation. The action appears to be building as we move toward June. Halibut fishing has been good nearshore in our salmon haunts as well as farther out in depths to 500 feet. A few GAF halibut have landed, including a 196 pounder that was hooked while fishing for rockfish on a spinning rod, too late in the day to qualify for the Big Halibut Battle. Lingcod have been very cooperative. Rockfish, as always, provide fast and fun action. Due to unsettled seas, we have very few blackcod excursions. Those that made it out caught about a half dozen per boat.
The weather has been a bit unsettled and unusually chilly for this time of the year. We’ve had ice on our windshields on a few mornings and the ocean hasn’t quite settled into summer form. Despite the not so glassy calm seas, our boats have had no trouble getting out and we have found good fishing on protected inside waters.