Our 11th annual Let's Talk Hookup trip to Kingfisher Charters in Sitka Alaska was fantastic. First, everyone that has fished the ocean in Alaska knows the wind can play a big part of your success on the fishing ground–and this year every day was flat and calm. Though this year was slower than any previous ones I have been on, I still brought home over 75 pounds of filets! Of course the entire west coast is about a month behind schedule with water temperatures and conditions, and that could account for part for some of the slower fishing.

The Alaska fish and game also predicted a smaller return on king salmon, probably the primary factor on why they were not as abundant as in previous years. Except for one of our three days, we actually had to work at getting our limit. In previous years, it took as short as 15 minutes, but this year one day it took us 3 hours, the next two hours and the third 45 minutes! The quality of our kings was fantastic–averaging 25 pounds, with our largest on our boat caught by Jeff Young of San Marcos–a beautiful 30 pound fish.

The king salmon run prediction for 2009 is supposed to be huge, so this “slower” fishing was considered a cycle. Each day after we had our limits of kings we would anchor for halibut fishing. Our captain Heath Bone had a spot that was the best action I have ever seen. When your bait or jig hit the bottom at 200 feet- you had a bite. Though they were small fish–15-30 pounds–it was a lot of fun. We limited on halibut each day, in fact one day we caught over 80 fish- throwing back the smallest. There were several big halibut over 100 pounds caught in our group, and Gary White of Lawndale caught one of them, a 140 pound monster.

If you want to fish for salmon and halibut in the ocean in Alaska, it doesn’t get any better than Kingfisher Charters in Sitka. Call Kingfisher Charters at 800-727-6136 or check their web site at www.kingfishercharters.com