Sitka, Alaska
June 16th, 2010 | Published in general
This was the second trp to Alaska for my dad, brothers and me, the last time being 4 years ago but further north, in the Kenai Penninsula. We wanted to see a different part of the state, plus while we had great halibut fishing in Homer and excellent salmon fishing in Soldotna, staying in SItka allowed us to fish for multiple things from one home base, so we spent less time driving cross-country.
We all met up in Seattle then flew north together. We fished with Frontier Charters, and they were great. They picked us up at the airport and let us use a van for the first couple of days we had before we fished, and we had a good time exploring the sights in and around town. Sitka is on beautiful Baranof Island, surrounded by little islands and filled with mountains and dense forests. Fishing is the main attraction to the area, but the hiking and biking is also wonderful.
One of our first stops on Monday was a nice whale watching park just outside of town. It was low tide, and we had a nice little hike among the rocks.
We had a couple of days to do some sightseeing before our fishing started, so we explored town, did a little hiking and exploring the trails outside of town and took a glass-bottom boat tour to see some of the sea life along the coast.
We fished 2 days and did very well with the salmon (20-30 lb kings, one coho) and rockfish, got a couple of nice lingcod inside the slot limit, and a couple of nice yelloweye too. The halibut fishing was unusually slow, but Mike and John each hauled up a smaller one on the first day. The rockfish action was nonstop while we were over the reef, pretty much as fast as you could drop a line and pull it up.
A fantastic trip, beautiful country and great guys to hang out with.