Part of the Francis party with a nice haul
Fishing and weather have remained remarkably unchanged from when we opened in May until the mid-season intermission over July 4. If you’ve been reading the weekly reports you’ve noticed the persistent themes of slower than normal kings, solid fishing for everything else, and cool gray weather. Without further fanfare – the grades.
Kings – C-: The abundance of kings has been lower than we’ve seen in many years despite the optimistic run forecast and good regulations. The theme throughout May and June has been short biting periods and rapidly shifting locations where we find them. In short – very little repeat of the action from day to day. This led to very varied scores from boat to boat. On any given day the guests on one boat could get a limit while those on another boat got one, two, or, in the worst case, skunked. Our captains all took turns riding the highs and the lows. The element of luck mattered and you never knew which boat the fickle rabbit’s foot would visit from day to day.
Brody Schoenborn with a nice King Salmon
Silvers – Incomplete: We occasionally get a strong showing for silvers in late June, but it’s nothing to count on. We saw a few days of decent catches in the last week of June followed by a disappearing act. The amount of life out on the ocean – krill, plankton blooms, and whales should bring the coho onshore in numbers. We’ll be searching for them.
Hudson Lattin and father Trevor Lattin with a nice regulation halibut
Halibut – A: Halibut fishing on most days was fast, easy, and didn’t require a long run. That’s for the “charter” size halibut which this year is 34 inches maximum. GAF halibut hit the dock in good numbers for guests who pursued or lucked into them.
Lingcod – A+: Our lingcod season opened in mid-May and closed midnight June 30. Guests enjoyed an abundance of legal size lings between 30 and 35 inches, aka “slot cod”. Whether you directly targeted them or lucked into them white salmon or rockfishing, these delicious toothy critters were very obliging.
Jeff Dooley and a beautiful “slot cod”
Shannon Tonn with a nice black rockfish
Rockfish – B-: The numbers of black rockfish (seabass) remain high but we did run into some uncharacteristic fussiness at times. The 5 minute slam dunk could turn into a 30 minute to an hour search for biters some days. The second half of the season opened with a long awaited reopening of yelloweye rockfish which are very abundant.
Blackcod – incomplete: Early season blackcod fishing wasn’t great but the catches improved as we got into June. We had a lot fewer requests for carving 4 hours out of the day to catch these deep, deep water fish as guests chose to allocate time for the pursuit of the elusive kings. Also, despite having what we call “doable” weather on the ocean, it was frequently more windy and less doable given the depths on the blackcod grounds.
Don Gulden
Weather – B: Our boats were able to get out on the ocean nearly every day which is great but the ocean was seldom FAC (flat ass calm). We endured periods of pesky NW winds which are best described as never dangerous and never comfortable. The sun came out infrequently yet it didn’t rain hard most days. Temperatures ranged from chilly to cold. Nothing unexpected.
Looking Ahead
In response to low harvest rates for kings, on July 9 the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG) liberalized the king limits for visiting sport fishers to 2 per day/3 annually. Increasing bag and possession limits in response to slow fishing seems counter intuitive. Yet, there is an explanation which we’ll get into in a future newsletter. For now, we hope the kings are offshore or hiding somewhere on the big Pacific and decide to make their way to our inshore fishing locations. If they do, our guests will enjoy keeping a few more this year – a rare windfall not to be expected in following seasons. May and June will remain the best time of year for king salmon numbers and limits.
Coho (silvers) are beginning to show and should get continually bigger and more abundant throughout July and August. Chum salmon, a great fighting fish and excellent to eat when bright on the ocean, are also moving onshore.
Halibut and rockfish should remain fast and easy. Blackcod catching depends heavily on calm weather and the willingness of guests to carve out 4 hours of their fishing day to pursue them. We generally get them but it’s never guaranteed.
September Song
Picture from the Holder party – September 2025
Labor Day marks the end of summer travel for lots of folks and that’s reflected in our bookings. We have great openings in the second week of September. Great fishing deeper into September depends on the weather. Clear sunny skies without rain keep the coho hanging out on the ocean and packing on the pounds. Heavy rains send them to the rivers. In years when the silvers stay out on the ocean in September, fish in the 12-18 pound range are common and you can hope for the holy grail of a 20 pound plus coho. If we get calm ocean waters, the pursuit of blackcod is also an option. Last year we even found albacore tuna way offshore – very, very rare and nothing to count on, but one can always hope. .
If we get heavy rains in September, our fleet heads to inside waters to intercept coho as they head for their home rivers or hatcheries. We find halibut and rockfish on the inside waters as well.
A bit riskier than dates in the heart of the season, the rewards in September, especially for big silvers, can be well worth a roll of the dice.