By Pete Gray
Alaska is an amazing place. The one factor that can enhance your trip is good weather. There is an old saying in Alaska-“If you don’t like the weather- wait a minute”. Our 26th annual Kingfisher Charters/ Let’s Talk Hookup trip timing was great- amazing weather and fantastic fishing. Our group arrived on Sunday with a bit of rain, a normal occurrence in Alaska, and we never had a drop of rain the rest of the trip. Rain gear is provided by Kingfisher and normally you need it, but not this time. The wind blows often in the open ocean in Sitka, but not this trip. We had perfect timing.
Our Let’s Talk Hookup group were all assigned to their rooms and boats and the first day we were off to the docks at 5:45 AM. On my boat it was me, Steve from Dana Landing, Pat and Dan with Captain Heath Bone on the Intrepid- a custom 30 foot twin Yamaha powered aluminum boat. We started at the salmon grounds trolling plastic “hoochies” on downriggers at 100 feet and it wasn’t long before we had our first legal king salmon on the boat. The fish this year were a bit smaller than I have seen in previous years, but still a nice 15-to-20-pound average. It took about an hour with several “s
hakers” or short kings to get our 4 legal kings, then it was off to the halibut grounds offshore. We passed Cape Edgecumbe and headed into open ocean and there was a bit of a swell and almost no wind and we knew we were in for a great time in the halibut and rockfish grounds. Captain Bone dropped the anchor in 410 feet of water, and we put our bait rods and waited for the halibut and rockfish to attack! It generally takes about 30 minutes for the scent on the bottom to attract the fish, while we were waiting for the bait rods to go off, Pat hooked a nice “keeper” halibut on the MC slug pinned on a 12 ounce lead head. The slot limits this year on halibut was under 40” inches, and this one was 39 ½. A great start. It was not long before we had our 4 fish halibut limit and we headed even further offshore for black cod or sablefish. Captain Heath anchored in 1400 feet of water and both Steve and I were glad we each brought our Shimano Beastmaster electric reels. We dropped our bait down to the bottom and it didn’t take long before we were getting bites. The black cod limit is 4 per person or we could catch 16 a day for the 4 anglers on the boat. As we chummed in the fish, the hookups became more rapid until on every drop we had each of our two hook rigs filled with black cod or a large rockfish called a short raker. In about 1.5 hours we had our limit (16) of black cod and our limit (4 ) of short rakers and were headed back to the dock.
Our second day was much the same as day one, but our salmon limits came fast- withing 45 minutes we were off to the halibut and cod grounds.
Our 3 day we awoke to bright blue skies and absolutely flat calm seas and we decided to do an exploration run 50 miles south of Sitka nearly to the end of Baranof Island We were in search of big king, big lings and more. Captain Heath had had success in the area before, but it was a bit early in the season for this run, but we decided to go for it. We managed only 2 of our 4 kings because we caught so many coho salmon, pink salmon and chum salmon the kings didn’t have a chance! It was fun but we hoped for more big kings. The coho are also great eating but the pink and chum went to Heaths halibut bait box. We were fishing close to shore with not another boat in sight- it was absolute paradise! We would catch a short rock fish and throw it back, as it floated on the surface bald eagles would come from the nearby shoreline and grab it in a spectacular display. We didn’t’ get any keeper halibut, but we had some ling cod and black rockfish to fill our boxes, and a spectacular ride along
the Baranof Island coast. We knew that we already had plenty of fish to take home, in fact we each had 80 pounds of prime filets at the end of the trip. The experience was worth the sacrifice of a few missing halibut!
Kingfisher Charters is absolutely the best operation in Sitka, and one of the best values in Alaska. Our trip in 2023 is already almost sold out- June 18-22, 2023. Price for the 4 night, 3 days fishing all inclusive package is $3295 plus tax. That includes lodging, fishing 4 per boat, fish processing, licenses, airport transfers. You only need to add airfare to Sitka and tips. Owner Seth Bone continues to do a fantastic job of keeping the price down and the quality up. If you want to join us on the Let’s Talk Hookup trip book soon, or for the remainder of the 2022 and 2023 season call 800-727-6136 or check kingfishercharters.com
By Pete Gray
Alaska is an amazing place. The one factor that can enhance your trip is good weather. There is an old saying in Alaska-“If you don’t like the weather- wait a minute”. Our 26th annual Kingfisher Charters/ Let’s Talk Hookup trip timing was great- amazing weather and fantastic fishing. Our group arrived on Sunday with a bit of rain, a normal occurrence in Alaska, and we never had a drop of rain the rest of the trip. Rain gear is provided by Kingfisher and normally you need it, but not this time. The wind blows often in the open ocean in Sitka, but not this trip. We had perfect timing.
Our Let’s Talk Hookup group were all assigned to their rooms and boats and the first day we were off to the docks at 5:45 AM. On my boat it was me, Steve from Dana Landing, Pat and Dan with Captain Heath Bone on the Intrepid- a custom 30 foot twin Yamaha powered aluminum boat. We started at the salmon grounds trolling plastic “hoochies” on downriggers at 100 feet and it wasn’t long before we had our first legal king salmon on the boat. The fish this year were a bit smaller than I have seen in previous years, but still a nice 15-to-20-pound average. 
It took about an hour with several “shakers” or short kings to get our 4 legal kings, then it was off to the halibut grounds offshore. We passed Cape Edgecumbe and headed into open ocean and there was a bit of a swell and almost no wind and we knew we were in for a great time in the halibut and rockfish grounds. Captain Bone dropped the anchor in 410 feet of water, and we put our bait rods and waited for the halibut and rockfish 
to attack! It generally takes about 30 minutes for the scent on the bottom to attract the fish, while we were waiting for the bait rods to go off, Pat hooked a nice “keeper” halibut on the MC slug pinned on a 12 ounce lead head. The slot limits this year on halibut was under 40” inches, and this one was 39 ½. A great start. It was not long before we had our 4 fish halibut limit and we headed even further offshore for black cod or sablefish. Captain Heath anchored in 1400 feet of water and both Steve and I were glad we each brought our Shimano Beastmaster electric reels. We dropped our bait down to the bottom and it didn’t take long before we were getting bites. The black cod limit is 4 per person or we could catch 16 a day for the 4 anglers on the boat. As we chummed in the fish, the hookups became more rapid until on every drop we had each of our two hook rigs filled with black cod or a large rockfish called a short raker. In about 1.5 hours we had our limit (16) of black cod and our limit (4 ) of short rakers and were headed back to the dock.
Our second day was much the same as day one, but our salmon limits came fast- withing 45 minutes we were off to the halibut and cod grounds.
Our 3 day we awoke to bright blue skies and absolutely flat calm seas and we decided to do an exploration run 50 miles south of Sitka nearly to the end of Baranof Island We were in search of big king, big lings and more. Captain Heath had had success in the area before, but it was a bit early in the season for this run, but we decided to go for it. We managed on
ly 2 of our 4 kings because we caught so many coho salmon, pink salmon and chum salmon the kings didn’t have a chance! It was fun but we hoped for more big kings. The coho are also great eating but the pink and chum went to Heaths halibut bait box. We were fishing close to shore with not another boat in sight- it was absolute paradise! We would catch a short rock fish and throw it back, as it floated on the surface bald eagles would come from the nearby shoreline and grab it in a spectacular display. We didn’t’ get any keeper halibut, but we had some ling cod and black rockfish to fill our boxes, and a spectacular ride
along the Baranof Island coast. We knew that we already had plenty of fish to take home, in fact we each had 80 pounds of prime filets at the end of the trip. The experience was worth the sacrifice of a few missing halibut!
Kingfisher Charters is absolutely the best operation in Sitka, and one of the best values in Alaska. Our trip in 2023 is already almost sold out- June 18-22, 2023. Price for the 4 night, 3 days fishing all inclusive package is $3295 plus 
tax. That includes lodging, fishing 4 per boat, fish processing, licenses, airpor
t transfers. You only need to add airfare to Sitka and tips. Owner Seth Bone continues to do a fantastic job of keeping the price down and the quality up. If you want to join us on the Let’s Talk Hookup trip book soon, or for the remainder of the 2022 and 2023 season call 800-727-6136 or check kingfishercharters.com
