Prince Of Wales Sport Fishing - Craig, Alaska Fishing Reports

My big, fancy Nikon camera went kapuuut shortly after our last report on August 5th. I’ve taken a few shots since with a Nikon Coolpix and luckily we’ve gotten some additional awesome shots from guests to use here.

Our August salmon fishery has been about as goofy as it gets. One day we’re on the silvers and doing well and the next they are few and far between. Luckily we got a good shot of king salmon in the middle of August to keep us going.

The Ram Construction group that joins us every year had some exceptional king salmon fishing offshore during their stay here the first week of August. A calm ocean allowed us to roam around and we had some great fishing, with limits of king salmon to 27 pounds and some decent coho action mixed in.

Ram’s owner, Mike Hammes, snapped up the 200 pound halibut in the photo below on a 16 ounce glow-in-the-dark scampi tail jig. The battle was a total rodeo and lasted nearly an hour. It was Mike’s biggest halibut to date and he grabbed the Ram halibut jackpot that usually belongs to Stu Heaton. Good times!

The Candini’s were the next to join us and they jumped right in with some wide open king salmon action on their first morning. We tripled up on big Chinook immediately, losing one of them after a brief battle and getting solid hooks into the other two. While those two fish were screaming around the bay Chris kept bombing bait at the school and missing bites. He did everything text book and they just wouldn’t stick. No biggy!

Finally I had to spin the boat around to keep one of the fish from running into the kelp and we lost the school. After a great battle Jerry and Milo landed their kings, 27 and 39 pounders. I had some great photos of their kings, but unfortunately they went bye-bye when my camera went down. Sorry guys!

We slid offshore in the fog and Chris drove the hook home on a 20 pound king salmon within five minutes. The bite was on and we were getting bit repeatedly, but the combination of a six foot swell and pea soup fog drove us back into calmer waters. No problemo…we managed to grab a quick limit of chicken halibut on the way in. Below is a photo of Milo with the 30 pound chicken halibut he caught on an 18 ounce pipe jig tipped with salmon belly. He’s always smilin’…

The Kvam’s and the Quades were on tap next and got to experience some outstanding salmon action. We hit Hole in the Wall on their first morning and caught four or five coho before Sally hooked into a 30 pound king salmon. She landed the fish after a great battle under sunny skies. After the bite died we diddled around at Roller Bay, hooking a handful of fat silvers, a bunch of sea bass, and a limit of halibut.

The ocean was relatively flat the next day, so we blasted well offshore to an area another charter captain said was holding a good mess of silver salmon. We were the only boat in the area and it didn’t take long to find the fish. We hooked around 30 silvers in two hours and landed half of them before the tide turned the bite off.

Amidst all the chaos Kathryn layed into a king salmon that ran off 400 feet of line out of the gate. We chased the fish on glassy calm seas and she landed it 25 minutes later, an identical 30 pound Chinook to Sally’s. This was Kathryn’s first time salmon fishing and well, she was hooked!

We ran back to this area again the next morning and the silvers were still jumping on like crazy. Our first drift produced twelve hookups and while we only landed four of them…who cares…we were having a ball! The schools would come and go and every other drift would produce wide open action with silvers running all over the place. Ms. Nicole also joined us for the day and when it was all said and done we landed 27 silvers and lost just about as many. Fun stuff!

On the way home we dropped on an offshore rockpile and cranked up a mess of ling cod on pipe jigs and scampi tails.

Sally’s 30 pound king salmon

Kathryn’s first king salmon is a 30 pound beauty!

We took some time to go cave-hopping while we were there, pulling the charter boat into two massive caves full of puffins and other nesting sea birds. Awesome!

Strong winds forced us inside the islands for a couple days on our last rotation of the summer, the Webb and Mihalic groups. Salmon fishing was slow, slow, slow and after several hours of “watching the paint dry” we decided to torment some sea bass and halibut.

The Webb group, fishing on the Polar Bear, got nice limits of sea bass and three of their four chicken halibut messing around in the islands. We ran back towards town at the end of the day to look for signs of salmon and after actually hooking up on two silvers Neal’s salmon rod doubles over with a huge halibut.

An hour and another rodeo later we landed the 160 pound beast and the guys were all smiles. In Alaska you just never know what’s going to happen!

Here’s Neal hooked up on yet another strange sea creature, this time a huge octopus.

Greg holds up the big yelloweye that he caught fishing aboard the Siketi with Capt. Mike Hailey. The guys had a great time fishing with Mike, catching a mixed bag of just about everything in the sea.

After four days aboard the Siketi with Capt. Mike I was lucky enough to take Greg, Tom, John, and Ted on my last charter of the summer. Nice group of guys from Colorado that fished with us for 5 days. Here’s Tom with his first saltwater king salmon.

Check out the teeth marks on Gregs silver salmon. All of our salmon on this particular day were gashed up with teeth marks…salmon sharks!

A few play days for us before we pack up everything and head back to Washington for the winter. Even though our fishing here in Craig, Alaska was a roller coaster ride this summer we still had a great time, had many memorable experiences, and look forward to seeing you all back here again sometime.

Rob Endsley

Prince of Wales Sportfishing

Tags: Alaska, alaskan, Charters, chinook, Craig, endsley, fish, guides, Halibut, island, king salmon, prince of wales, reports, Salmon Fishing, saltwater, silver salmon, southeast.

A saltwater angling adventure in Southeast Alaska is perhaps is one of the most dynamic experiences one can enjoy in the outdoors. Five species of salmon, halibut, ling cod, and over 30 species of rockfish make the west side of Prince of Wales Island a very special place for wetting a line, but the experience doesn’t stop there. The fishing alone isn’t what makes this place so special, it’s the scenery, marine wildlife, the North Pacific’s rugged coastline, and the ever-changing tide and currents that swirl around hundreds of islands that really make Prince of Wales Island an exciting place to fish. Sharing this dynamic experience with close friends and family is what life in the outdoors is all about!

A picture is worth a thousand words! I can describe this experience a hundred different ways, but nothing highlights the saltwater experience better than a photo.  These photos and more are available on the Prince of Wales Sportfishing Photo Gallery page.

We’re hosting all of our Southeast Alaska fishing videos over on The Outdoor Line video page. Check’em out when you get a chance!

Preseason scouting turned up this mid-30’s Chinook for Jim “Bucket” Heins. A better king salmon run than 2008??? You bet it was!

The sweetest lady on Planet Earth, Diana Rumley, bags her first Chinook ever. After a 30 minute battle-royale she landed this 42 pound Chinook!

From the sweetest lady ever to salmon slayer extraordinaire. Tim Linderman with a mid-30’s King on one of those mornings at Cape Ulitka.

You’ve heard that women catch more fish. Well, they do! Bob Say snaps a few photos of Danielle’s 37 pound beauty over on Capt. Kims boat.

A double on a king and silver, both in the upper teens, made this rodeo-bite a memorable experience for all of us! Lots of fun with Al and Julie again this year.

Mac’n Cheese, Top Ramen, and king salmon with a side of halibut. Food for college! I just found this pic from 2008 and couldn’t resist.

Tim “Slice and Dice” Koentopp prepares to slice and dice a thousand pounds of halibut. If you’re into halibut check out these great halibut fishing vids, “Al Sloka’s Halibut” & “Pipe Jig Hammers Halibut”

Those big halibut aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Deb Adams lifts this great-eating chicken halibut for a quick photo off St. Johns Island. We catch plenty of these halibut throughout the summer!

The Marshall gang shows us how to have some fun back at the pier. Chris Miles, owner of Cookin’ on Wood in Phoenix, Arizona (and a POW Sportfishing pro-staffer) whips up a mean mess of grub every night on the dock.

Just another day in paradise! Robert Aguilera lands another fat coho while a humpback whale breaches in the background.

“Quck, everybody grab a fish for a picture before the rain hits!” The Hine gang from Bakersfield with a very quick dock shot before heading for cover. Yes, it rains in Southeast Alaska!

Pete Rathwell with our biggest silver of the summer on the last trip of the summer. A 17 pound brute from Black Rock near Warren Island.

Rick shows some variety with a yelloweye rockfish from an offshore ocean pinnacle.

Ling cod numbers continue to build off the coast providing some pretty wide-open action in 2009. Here’s Robert with a keeper-sized ling caught on a pipe jig. A couple of ling cod videos worth checking out, “No Mas!” & “Ling bites it’s own tail”

A massive school of baitfish slides under the Polar Bear with a wide open coho bite following shortly thereafter.

Capt. Troy hauls a nice halibut aboard the Makai for the Preddy gang from Texas.

A little silver chaos for the Beaudry gang over on Capt. Kims boat. These guys brought 30 pounds of Kobe beef for our evening barbecues on the pier!

One bite of burrito, one chug of salsa! Nothing like a little hair of the dog in the morning.

It wouldn’t be a Southeast Alaskan experience without the humpback whales. A few photos from Rob Endsley’s collection.

From Capt. Rob Endsley, Nicole Huggins, and the great people we work with in Craig, Alaska we sincerely hope you’ll join Prince of Wales Sportfishing for another great summer of fishing and adventure in 2010!

Tags: Alaska, alaskan, blog, Charters, chinook, cod, coho, Craig, endsley, fish, Fishing, Halibut, humpback, island, king, line, ling, lodge, outdoor, photos, pictures, prince, report, rob, Salmon, saltwater, silver, southeast, videos, wales, whale, whales.