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.
New Boat Name Announcement: “Petrel”
Thanks to all our loyal fans for the boat name suggestions. We ultimately landed on “Petrel” for the new boat name. We begin with looking at seabirds with attributes we like. Petrels are in group of off seabirds we often see offshore that includes albatrosses, shearwaters, and fulmars. Albatross and shearwater are already taken. We…
DetailsSitka Fishing Report: The Kings Are Back
On April 29, Captains Ryan and DJ spent the morning fishing and brought three king salmon to the boat. They also admit to missing a few bites that were definitely kings. The ocean was dead calm and they found nice size halibut on the bottom while mooching for salmon. They saw lots of baitfish…
DetailsEvolution of the Revolution
In the spring of 1999 “Shearwater” arrived at our dock. It was a custom walkaround cabin Almar that we designed, and she pretty much revolutionized the Sitka charter fleet. Within a few years there were at least a dozen Almar walkaround cabin models in the local fleet along with another dozen or more similar designs…
Details8 Reasons to Book May and June in 2019
For all of us at Angling Unlimited the season can’t come soon enough. Bright 16-hour spring days replace dark 16-hour winter nights. King fishing kicks into gear along with an exciting combination of halibut, lingcod, blackcod, and rockfish. AU is ready to do what we love doing most – sharing the excitement of fishing the…
DetailsPreparing for 2019 Regulations
We get calls constantly regarding the regulations for the upcoming season. Of special interest are the king salmon and halibut regulations. Both species are managed based on forecast abundance for the coming season. This is the right way to manage fish, but it does mean waiting for data that will establish sustainable harvest levels.…
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Welcome to the World, Raika!
Anyone who fished with us between the years 2005 and 2014 more than likely remembers Aleta. She began as a hostess from 2005-2008, then moved up to office manager from 2009 – 2014. Her smiling face, lively sense of humor, and customer service lit up the office for all who entered. She loved getting to…
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Captain Spencer and Hostess Alli Get Married
Captain Spencer Chute and hostess Alli Godin met on the job at AU when they were new hires in 2015. It was Alli’s first summer in Alaska. Spencer had been fishing and working at other charter businesses in Sitka since 2007. The two were just friends thru the end of that first season. Alli missed…
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Welcome Back Lev
Back in 2013, Ryan Leverington was going to college, studying criminal justice. A life-long lover of the great outdoors, especially hunting and fishing, he became aware of Angling Unlimited through a friend. He immediately applied for a deckhand position and started with AU in 2013. Lev earned a captain’s license in the winter of 2015.…
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Farewell to the Cobrah
Angling Unlimited has been blessed through the years with a long list of great captains, deckhands, and land crew. The list most assuredly includes Captain Bryan Christensen, aka “the Cobrah”. For the past five years he has brought a terrific combination of fishing smarts and people skills to the helm, quickly developing a following of…
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Cheers to Captain Sarah and Kurt!
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 Kurt Farber, a manufacturers rep…
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Review of the Second Half of the 2018 Season
The 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…
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Sitka Fishing Report: September 7, 2018
The 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…
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Sitka Fishing Report: End of August, 2018
The 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…
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Sitka Fishing Report: Rough and Ready
Sunday 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…
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Sitka Fishing Report: Silvers Move Onshore
Silver 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…
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Sitka Fishing Report: Weather Proof?
We 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…
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Sitka Fishing Report: The Silver Lining
The 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…
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Sitka Fishing Report: July 27, 2018
Thursday 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…
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The Sights and Sounds of Fishing
A 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…
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The Unsung Chum
Chum 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…
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Sitka Fishing Report: July 23, 2018
Silvers 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.…
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Sitka Fishing Report: July 17, 2018
Hiccup? 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…
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Sitka Fishing Report: July 13, 2018
Perhaps 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…
DetailsSitka Fishing Report: Early July 2018
Are 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…
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Sitka Fishing Report: End of June 2018
June 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…
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Sitka Fishing Report: I Think We’ll Need a Bigger Net
Monday 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…
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Sitka Fishing Report: June 13, 2018
I’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,…
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