Our blog, like our business, stems from a deep love of sport fishing. We’ll inform our readers about the fishing, the techniques, and the fisheries resources that are unique to Alaska. The focus begins with what we do at Angling Unlimited – high quality, light tackle, hands-on, saltwater sportfishing in Alaska. The view extends to locations and species all over North America.
Sarah Levar began as hostess at AU then moved on to become a deckhand. In 2017 she began running trips as our first woman captain. She took the helm on a more full-time basis in 2018. She’s also a licensed Occupational Therapist in Minnesota in the offseason. There she met Curt Farber, a manufacturers rep…
DetailsThe second half of our fishing season begins just after the July 4th on the calendar. On the water it’s best defined by the arrival of silvers (coho). This year the coho first trickled in toward the end of the second week in July – slightly later than average. The mother lode showed a few…
DetailsThe silvers fishing remained fairly strong through Thursday. Limits aren’t necessarily the rule, but we’re averaging three or four per angler. The size of these fish is impressive with big hook nosed males in the mid to high teens common. To our surprise, we’re still seeing the odd king mixed in with the catches as well as…
DetailsThe past week brought pulses of silvers swimming past the outside waters. Some days have been excellent, some days good. We’ve had a few rough days, a few calm days. Sounds a lot like fishing. The size and fitness of the fish remain impressive with some coho reaching into the high teens and testing the…
DetailsSunday brought calm waters and fast action for silvers and halibut. On Monday we experienced increasing wind and rain with steadily growing seas. Still, the fishing for silvers remained solid, but getting offshore for halibut got dicey. We headed out Tuesday to find the wind down and the seas up – a big swell and much confusion. The situation was…
DetailsSilver fishing got even better throughout last week with the exception of Wednesday when we had a very rough blustery day with lots of rain. Some of the boats managed decent scores amidst what was probably the roughest day of the season. The plus side of the Wednesday blow came the very next days as larger schools of silvers…
DetailsWe left the dock last Friday facing a challenging forecast of southeast winds up to 25 mph with gusts to 40. The fishing on Thursday was excellent for silvers and good for halibut, but the locations were all exposed to a southeast wind. After a breezy trip around Cape Edgecumbe, I pointed my boat “Albatross” straight to Shelikof Bay with…
DetailsThe strong action for silvers continued the past three days. The boats headed southward to Biorka have generally gotten limits or near limits. Those headed north brought back at least half limits or a little more. What then go north? One reason is the recent northwest winds made for rougher water to the south, plus we never…
DetailsThursday this week delivered the best salmon actions we’ve seen yet in 2018. The our boats that ran north found fast action on silvers with limits landed by mid-morning along with a few kings thrown in to spice the action. Those of us that went south found slim pickings at the Cape, but ran north…
DetailsA splashing noise in the distance accompanied the sight of a jumping fishing 30 yards off the stern. It caught the attention of one of the anglers on my boat. Thrilled by the sight, said angler told the rest of us to look as she watched the fish jump repeatedly. My deckhand Tyler soon figured…
DetailsChum salmon have a public relations problem. The common names for this fish – chum or dog salmon – don’t conjure an appealing image. A while back, chums were marketed as “silver brites” which for some reason didn’t work out. Now they are sold as “Keta” – the taxonomic species name for the fish. Most…
DetailsSilvers Settling In The fishing for silver salmon (coho) has been steadily improving again for the past three or four days with some boats getting pretty close to limit catches. It still seems a bit more hit or miss than we’re accustomed to, but today (Monday) a number of boats got 20 or more silvers.…
DetailsHiccup? As last reported, the silver run appeared to be building. We had decent numbers of silvers and they came in from a number of different areas. Though limit catches weren’t happening, we liked what we were seeing. Then we had a rain and wind event on Sunday and the catches dropped, partially because it was hard…
DetailsPerhaps Yes! In the last report we wondered whether, perhaps, we were seeing the vanguard of the silver run. The answer appears to be yes. Last Monday we saw catches of up to 20 silvers on our boats, with most boats bringing in decent numbers. We had a patch of rough weather on Tuesday that drove boats…
DetailsAre The Silvers Here Yet? Perhaps! Most of the past week continued the pattern we’ve seen all spring. Very challenging salmon fishing, good fishing for rockfish and halibut. The ocean remained wonderfully calm, as it has much of the season, but the king salmon were evasive. We haven’t seen many coho, which isn’t super unusual. They typically…
DetailsJune ended pretty much as it began with mostly calm weather, not much rain, excellent fishing for rockfish and halibut but slow, spotty king fishing. The component of luck in the king formula remains exceptionally high with a few boats doing okay amidst others that don’t get a bite. This reflects the ongoing low abundance of…
DetailsMonday afternoon, June 18, Captain Ryan Refshaw and the Ravalin party fishing on Skute made one more stop before heading home. Captain Ryan metered the area with the depth sounder and found a big mass of baitfish. He stopped and the lines went in. Not long afterward, Matt Ravalin hooked into a king and thus began…
DetailsI’m temporarily suspending one of my favorite sayings: “Good luck is a bad fisherman’s estimation of a good fisherman’s work”. Hard work and fishing skills, the hallmarks of all our captains, currently require an usually large portion of luck right now. To the point, the kings remain in short supply despite good signs of bait,…
DetailsI’ve often wondered when spin, as in political, advertising, or in this case fishing, becomes lying. We like to remain positive and there’s much to be said for fishing in Southeast Alaska and Sitka that goes beyond the catching. Also, salmon aren’t the only fish in the sea. But, to cut to the chase, the…
DetailsWe opened the season with Hook It and Cook It featuring chef Ludger Szmania and his son chef Lucas Szmania who flew all the way from Munich, Germany. Lucas was a deckhand at AU back in 2012 and has been training in Germany in recent years. We had a full house for the event which…
DetailsWe usually fish for halibut every day after salmon fishing or as a break between periods of salmon fishing. The switch requires a change in mindset and reaction. With salmon you’re looking for a subtle bite, waiting to confirm it, then reeling as fast as you can. With halibut, you’re looking for an obvious pulling…
DetailsOur own Captain Tom was recently interviewed and profiled by prominent travel writer Everett Potter for Forbes.com! Here’s an excerpt: “The sport fishing season in Alaska is upon us and there’s no one better to discuss it with than Captain Tom Ohaus, the founder and co-owner of Angling Unlimited. The Sitka-based outift was started by Ohaus some…
DetailsQuestion (often asked): “What do you do in the offseason?” Answer: We prepare for the next season. Over the course of the winter our boats make trips to the mechanic to fix anything that concerns us and to replace parts we know, based on experience and keeping a good hour log, have the potential…
DetailsAlaska Department of Fish and Game released King Salmon Regulations for 2018. King Salmon Sport Fishing Regulations For Southeast Alaska including Sitka include; Daily Bag Limit: One king salmon greater than 28 inches Annual harvest limits: April 5 through June 30, the annual limit is three king salmon 28 inches or greater in length; From July 1…
DetailsDoes low king abundance equate to bad fishing for kings? In a word – no. We’ve said this before and we’ll say it again, the predictions of abundance are the best thing we have for properly regulating the catch, but they don’t always predict the quality of the fishing. We’ve seen great action in years…
DetailsHigh Altitude View Bad News: A two to three-year episode of warm water and low ocean productivity has resulted in lower numbers of chinook (king) salmon coastwide. Southeast Alaska’s king salmon annual limit is derived in most years by the Abundance Index (AI). The AI is a complex calculation that uses all kinds of…
DetailsObservations on Clothes and Climate on the North Pacific: Packing for your fishing trip to Sitka and wondering what to bring? Here are a few observations and suggestions based on 30 years of guiding on the North Pacific. The temperature tells only part of the story. Yes, 58 or 60 degrees doesn’t sound that cold,…
DetailsFor all of us at Angling Unlimited, May can’t come soon enough. Long bright spring days replace long dark winter nights. The fishing shifts into gear with an exciting combination of king salmon, halibut, lingcod, and rockfish. The captains and crew are fresh and eager to do what we love doing – taking our guests…
DetailsGreek word baros which means pressure. Trauma is the Greek word for “wound”. In our fishing in Alaska, the principle group of fish that barotrauma applies to are rockfish which have a gas filled swim bladder. This gases in the swim bladder are slowly extracted from the blood stream. The purpose of the swim bladder is…
DetailsIn 2013 we enjoyed an unprecedented stretch of warm sunny days during mid-summer in Southeast Alaska. Fishing in t-shirts at 8 AM is not common on the North Pacific, but it was in 2013. We also had a spectacular summer of fishing. The initial meteorological description was the “ridiculously resilient ridge” (RRR), a large…
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