Prince Of Wales Sportfishing - Craig, Alaska Fishing Reports

On this last rotation we had coho chaos every day on both Kim’s boat and my own. Yesterday we were drifting over a huge school and I just told the guys, Hang On! The guys baits were below the school, which was holding 25 feet deep, but with the line counter reels they quickly adjusted and WHAMO! All four rods went berserk, Richards rod pulled directly under the boat as his fish shot the wrong direction and right into a line on the other side of the boat and the two back rods were immediately tangled. Of the four fish hooked two were landed and who knows what happened to the other two. This is kind of how it went every day…good clean fun!

Jim Wilson from Georgia had the lucky rod yesterday, releasing a chrome chinook of about 25 pounds and another in the low 30’s. Jim was all smiles, but he and Denny, both from Georgia, just couldn’t figure out why the fish needed to be released. Releasing Chinook and huge ling cod “just ain’t right”.

Halibut fishing has remained rock solid and it seems like we get big fish every day. During one of the gales last week Kim managed to fish the ocean for a couple of hours one morning, getting Mark Yuasa into a 155 pound halibut. Mark was here to do a story for the Seattle Times, which should appear sometime in August. Dave Vedder was also on board, enjoying the good fishing and the even better weather. On board the Polar Bear we’ve had halibut over 90 pound three of the last four days.

With the weather looking like it’s going to hold for another week, or so, we’re hopeful the fishing will even get better. Yesterday while we halibut fished offshore I gawked at the sonar, which was picking up school after school of silvers. I don’t think we’ve even seen “Wide Open” yet!