By Pete Gray

The mere mention of Alaska often gets the response- “I have always wanted to go”.  For anglers, it is truly on most “bucket lists”. Alaska is still an amazing place to go fishing.    On our 28th annual Kingfisher Charters/ Let’s Talk Hookup trip in June, those Let’s Talk Hookup listeners that joined Rick and me were treated to a fantastic experience.  Great weather and fantastic fishing. Our group arrived on Sunday Father Day with good weather and reports of limit fishing.    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, 11-year-old son Ben 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 were nice 15-to-20-pound average.  It took about 1.5 hours 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 the open ocean and there was a bit of a swell and a bit of wind.  We also had the option to go catch black cod or sable fish, but we opted to put that off to Tuesday and Wednesday with the forecast showing little or no wind.  Captain Bone dropped the anchor in 350 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.  Young Ben was the first on board with a perfect size halibut. The slot limit this year on halibut was under 40” inches or over 80 inches, and this one was 39 ½.  A great start.  We gave it some time releasing several halibut.  We were looking for bigger halibut to release or perhaps even get the “Holy Grail” halibut over 80 inches or close to 300 pounds.  We never found the big halibut but settled for a beautiful limit of keeper halibut and our limit of rock fish.

Our second day the weather was even better and we caught our limit of king salmon then we headed 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 so 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  now moved to “shallow” water or 400 feet to get our limit of halibut.

Rick fishing with Captain Simon, his wife Dallas and Todd and Pat had fantastic catch and release ling cod fishing and limits of everything as well.

On day 3 we awoke to absolutely flat calm seas and had a replay of day 2, and even added a stop at the end of the day for black rock fish on bass gear.  We limited out on everything, and each took home about 90 pounds of filets. Rick fishing with Captain Simon, his wife Dallas, Todd and Pat had fantastic catch and release ling cod fishing and limits of everything as well.

Our trip started on Father’s Day, and Steve brough his son Ben along for a fun way to celebrate.  Ben was fantastic to have along.  He is a true “chip off the old block”, loves to fish and loves the water!  Plus, at 11, he is a darn good fisherman!

Kingfisher Charters is absolutely the best operation in Sitka, and one of the best values in Alaska.  Our trip in 2025 trip is already almost sold out- June 15-19, 2025. The trip leaves on Father’s Day so what a great time with Dad!  The price for the 4 night, 3 days fishing all-inclusive package is $3395 plus tax.  That includes first class lodging, amazing meals (including crab, steak seafood and more), fishing 4 per boat, fish processing (which in itself is worth close to $1000), licenses and 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.  If you can’t join us on our dates, book for the remainder of the 2024 and 2025 season call 800-727-6136 or check kingfishercharters.com