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.
Best King Fishing in Years From when we got started on June 8 until the end of June, the kings came in numbers we haven’t seen for many years. Big schools, multiple hookups, early limits – all were common throughout much of the month. The second week of June delivered three kings over 30 pounds…
DetailsOur season began on Sunday the 7th of June with 4 boats out. Kings, halibut, rockfish, and a few lingcod made it into the catches. The weather was slightly unsettled – gray, a bit of drizzle and a little bit of lump on the ocean. The bite was spotty but most of the anglers managed…
DetailsGood News – It Begins The State of Alaska has provided options to the 14-day quarantine. AU’s 2020 season gets rolling on Sunday. The Options: Arrive with a negative COVID-19 PCR test taken within the last 72 hours and present results upon arrival. Participate in a COVID-19 PCR test when you arrive in Alaska,…
DetailsThere’s a lot of “we don’t know” going around whether you’re talking to your money manager, your employer, your elected officials, or the management of AU. Here’s a bit of what we do know: Update from the State of Alaska: Extended Until May 19: Mandate 10: All people arriving in Alaska, whether resident, worker or visitor, are required…
DetailsSITKA January 8, 2020 — Angling Unlimited has been selected for the 2020 Best of Sitka Award in the Fishing Charter category by the Sitka Award Program. Each year, the Sitka Award Program identifies companies that we believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are local companies that…
DetailsFishing in Alaska is a faraway bucket-list dream to many people in the lower 48. A mere 2-hour non-stop flight from Seattle, AU and Sitka deliver that dream without the faraway. Alaska Airlines continues to add non-stops to Seattle from more and more cities across the country, making a trip to Sitka more affordable and…
DetailsHard to imagine we’re about to hit the 2020s. Our outlook for the coming summer is positive for king salmon. The kings were more abundant and bigger in 2019. The commercial trollers had a good fall of king fishing off Sitka which is about the best predictor for abundance in the following year. We see…
DetailsWe christened Petrel, the first outboard powered AU boat, in the spring of 2019. Shiny and new, she drew a lot of attention at the dock. For many of our curious customers the main question was “why outboards?” Here’s the short answer and a quick review of the new boat after one season: Why: Refining…
DetailsUnique benefits to fishing mid-May through June 10th, 2020 in Sitka, Alaska. Kings only – If catching chinook is your thing, this is the time to focus on them. Catch rates are high and hopes of the tyee (over 30 pounds) are ever present. Inshore – In the early season we find kings in classic…
DetailsGrades for 2019 Coming up with grades for a season that runs from mid-May thru mid-September presents a challenge. We see ups and downs every year, but 2019 seemed particularly prone to peaks and valleys. Grading the season is an exercise in averaging 110 days of fishing into a single score that will look low…
DetailsFinal Report of 2019 Season – Saving the Best for Last September offers the widest range of possibilities in Sitka. We’ve seen it all from hard rain, wind and tough fishing to solid action under a cool blue sky. What we saw on September 10 extended the upper limit of that range. The morning dawned…
DetailsThe past week brought the biggest silvers of the year and a decent shot at kings. After a slowish day of silver fishing on September 1, we experienced a southeast blow with heavy rain on the 2nd which brought excellent silver fishing along with some kings. It was rough, the drift was fast, but the…
DetailsSilver fishing is coming into late season form. The numbers range from good to excellent and the size occasionally reaches the high teens. For the uninitiated, silvers reach a critical mass at somewhere between 10 and 12 pounds at which point they go from swirling and thrashing their way fairly quickly to the net to…
DetailsSilver fishing has ranged from excellent to picky over the past week. There have been days of early limits, there have been days of scratching all day to get half limits. And, there was Sunday when we had a howling north wind that made for very rough seas and difficult fishing. That was the first…
DetailsOur guests often wonder how in the world our regulations get set, so we’ll start with step one. Abundance based management is a means of establishing harvest levels based on the current abundance of each species. The abundance of stocks of fish, particularly salmon, can vary significantly from year to year. So, when stocks are…
DetailsKing Salmon: B- King fishing was solid throughout July which would have earned them a higher score were it not for the regulations which limited our anglers to one per trip. We found kings in all the usual place nearshore and a fair number out in deeper water as we pursued silvers. The kings of…
DetailsFishing in the last 10 days of July was good for kings and very spotty for silvers. As our season progresses, the emphasis become more and more on silvers and right now we’re wondering when they will make their way onshore in good numbers. The best silver action has been offshore in 300 to 400…
DetailsKings Salmon – B minus Kings made a significant comeback from a very slow 2018 as we continued to recover from the effects of the warm water event called “the blob” which began in 2013 and lasted nearly three years. There were stretches when king fishing got hot followed by a few days of hit…
DetailsKing fishing took an unexpected dip in the second week of June. It wasn’t totally bleak, but it got to be very hit or miss. On any given day, some of the boats would get limits while others struggled to get one. The general pattern is steadily building numbers of kings in mid-June. Thankfully, we’ve…
DetailsWe’ve been fishing two weeks now and can say unequivocally that 2019 is off to a very promising start. We’re finding good numbers of kings in a variety of spots along a wide stretch of the coast. The kings are bigger than the previous few springs with an average weight in the upper teens. Our…
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