Fishing in Ninilchik

Yes, it’s all a big fish story! But that’s why I’m here… to catch fish, eat fish and freeze fish. It has been a very successful visit indeed! After the Perfect Day, we scheduled another halibut trip for Monday, but in between, we did a Sunday river float for King salmon. Before we get into that, let me tell you a little bit about the King season this year. First off, the fish numbers returning to spawn are very low, possibly the lowest in recent years. That has caused the fish and game folks to issue a number of restrictions on sport fisherman. Right now, King season is closed in many of the rivers that are traditional King fishing spots. You can’t take any Kings at all on these rivers. Fortunately, the Kasilof river nearby does allow some fishing for Kings, but the restrictions are fierce:

• You are only allowed one fish per day.
• If you catch a wild King, you must release it without removing it from the water.
• If you catch a hatchery King (identified by a missing aft dorsal fin) you may keep it.
• You cannot use any kind of bait. Only lures, and only a single hook.

If you do the math on that, the chances of catching a King that you can actually keep are pretty small. However, we are undeterred, and we all book a river float trip. The boats are small, so we have to split into two groups. one group will go at 5am, and one at 1pm. guess which one I ended up on….

Yes, that is a sunrise. I hope it’s the only one I have to see in Alaska. The only good thing about being up so early is the moose are up early too… we see several on the drive to the river.

  

We meet up with our guide, Zach, and load up the boat. These boats are non-motorized, so it is really nice to have Zach along to paddle! You fish by sending your lines out into the current with large lures on them, and essentially troll in the river current. The boat is sometimes anchored, and sometimes the guide is constantly back paddling to slow the boat against the current.

        

Sitting on anchor, Wallace spots some movement on a nearby island. Dang, there’s a moose in there!

  

As we continue down the river, we see a number of fly fisherman on the banks. They are after Kings or Sockeye.

  

We are not getting any nibbles, the rods are in holders, so I break out the camera and get some shots of the many eagles sitting in the trees along the river. The first are immature bald eagles… they don’t have their signature white top yet.

  

  

I have the camera stuck to my face when Zach hollers “Fish! Fish! Fish!”. What? Where? Me? The strike is on my rod, and I grab it and find myself in a battle with a very active King. I play the fish for a while until I can get him up to the boat. Zach nets him and hollers “That’s a keeper!” Hot Damn! I caught a hatchery King… what are the odds? He’s a beauty, too, about a 12 pounder.

  

My fishing day is now over: I have my one fish. We keep floating, hoping for another one. I shoot some more eagles, and the talk turns (as it always does with fishermen) to the memorable fishing moments, and the one that got away. Unfortunately, that is the only fish we get today.

  

Couldn’t resist a shot of these seagulls pretending to be eagles. Hah!

My King quickly becomes fillets, and the majority goes into the smoker, I reserve just enough for dinner. There is nothing like fish caught a few hours ago.. man, that’s tasty!

  

We arrived back at the park and were unloading our stuff from the car when a mama moose and two little meeces came into the park and passed within 15 feet of us! Whoa! Where’s my camera! They exited stage left, but we all were jazzed by their visit… only in Alaska!

  

We all go to bed, get some sleep, and don’t get up until the next morning… at 5am dammit! Another sunrise! Who’s scheduling these trips anyway? We meet the boat at 5:30, and another halibut day is underway.

  

Somehow, we have managed to order up another beautiful day: sunny, and smooth as silk. Our captain, Seth, says we can fish with him anytime, since it’s always sunshine and flat water when we are onboard. LOL

  

As before, we stop in a honey hole and quickly have our small one onboard. We head out into deeper water and start fishing for the “big one”. For those of you who have never fished for halibut, let me describe the experience. You are fishing at anchor, in water depths anywhere from 175 feet to 300 feet, or deeper. The tackle resembles hand-held winches… big reels and short stiff rods. Using a 5 pound weight, a leader that is about the size of a piece of clothesline, and a big-ass circle hook, you bait with herring and drop that rig to the bottom. Then, you wait for a strike. The trick to catching one is to wait a really long time once you are getting a strike, then reel like Hell to set the hook. After that, it is essentially a winch job. They fight a bit, but not like other large sport fish I have caught. About 1 time in 4, you’ll bring a halibut up. the other 3 will be cod, or dogfish, or other non-keepers. I was surprised that they don’t keep the cod, but around here they are considered trash fish and used for bait or thrown back.

  

After winching in a few cod, your arm starts to get pretty tired! Bait checks are a bitch! So, halibut fishing is a lot of grunt work with moments of great excitement when someone brings in a nice halibut. Is it fun? You bet! Here’s a gallery of our big fish on this trip.

Halibut! VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Mark Hall holds the record for most non-keepers winched in for this trip, including a big octopus! We were sure glad when he finally got his second halibut and we could go home!

     

That’s the fish story from here. I’ll be here a couple more days, then will be heading North to Denali to rendezvous with a bunch of the goosey group. I will be coming back to the southern coast to fish some more in July. Till I see you again, here are a couple of random scenic pix from Alaska.