VOL. 37 • ISS. 02
Tips For Fishing Success In Alaska!
<
Team Fish Sniffer 2017 hammered big halibut, lingcod and silver salmon during an epic trip to Captain Steve’ s Fishing Lodge. As long as the weather is decent, Alaskan saltwater fishing is consistently good, but Team Fish Sniffer got lucky and found themselves in the middle of exceptional action.
^Cousins Tackle jig sticks, Accurate reels brimming with heavy braid and jumbo swimtail jigs. When this gear comes out, the excitement level goes through the roof, because huge vicious lingcod are the target. When you fish with Capt. Steve you fish with some of the best gear available.
>
Your catch is brought back to the lodge and immediately cleaned, vacuum packed and frozen. It’ s fun to hang around the cleaning station, talk fishing and watch the Captains and crews go to work with their fillet knives. In this photo deckhand Hunter Smith shows off big fish tote of salmon fillets. The fish that produced these fillets were caught in less than 20 minutes during a wide open bite.
^A 40 pound halibut glides to the boat after chomping a silver salmon head. Halibut like this are the staple of saltwater fishing in Alaska. Halibut fill fish boxes with top quality world famous ALASKAN HALIBUT fillets. On the surface halibut fishing seems simple, but in reality it is physically demanding and requires technique
FRESHWATER
Jan 18- Feb 2, 2018
Alaskan Saltwater Fishing: How It’ s Done At Captain Steve’ s Fishing Lodge On The Kenai Peninsula …
Iast summer I spent five action packed days fishing Alaska’ s Kenai Peninsula with Captain Steve Smith of Captain Steve’ s Fishing Lodge and a diverse group of five Fish Sniffer readers that included three motorcycle enthusiasts, a Vietnam Veteran and a real estate broker.
We fished both inside the Cook Inlet and beyond the inlet in the Gulf of Alaska. We enjoyed red hot fishing for lingcod to 50 pounds, big yelloweye rockfish to 15 pounds, silver salmon to 14 pounds and we got limits of halibut
FISH SNIFFER HOW – TO by Cal Kellogg daily that ranged from about 40 pounds to 100 pounds!
With lings grabbing jigs, silvers savaging bait on the surface and multiple soul testing fights with big halibut I could easily devote thousands of words to describing the Fish Sniffer’ s epic 2017 adventure to Captain Steve’ s, but I’ m not going to do that.
Instead of telling you about the fish we caught, I’ m going to utilize this week’ s How To column to inform folks that are prepping for a trip to the Kenai Peninsula what to expect.
I know a lot of Fish Sniffer readers dream of taking a trip to Captain Steve’ s Lodge and when it comes to fishing in Alaska or anywhere else for that matter, knowledge is power!
The Boats
Steve fishes from big 26-foot-long aluminum cabin boats. On the trailer the boats look pretty big. When you turn the corner outside the Cook Inlet and head into the Gulf of Alaska, they seem a whole lot smaller! presents
15
With no harbor or ports nearby, Steve launches his boat every day and it’ s quite an experience.
In the morning, everybody boards a van with their raingear on ready to fish. Steve’ s boat is attached to the van. After a short drive to the beach everyone hops out of the van and boards the boat via a set of portable metal stairs.
As that happens the boat and trailer is taken off the van and the trailer is attached to a huge logging tractor. The next thing you know, the tractor is pulling the boat, with you in it out across a big gravel and sand flat to the edge of the water. The tractor spins around, backs into the Cook Inlet and Steve motors off the trailer …. And so, the adventure begins!
At the end of the day, Steve radios the folks that run the tractors, they back the trailer back into the water and Steve drives the boat on. If the wind has come up and there are rollers coming onto the beach, he basically surfs the boat onto the trailer … It’ s quite a spectacle and a fun ride to be sure!
Halibut Fishing
Challenging, physically demanding, frustrating and technical are all terms that describe Alaskan halibut fishing Capt. Steve style.
Before I’ d visited Alaska, I imagined halibut fishing to be a relaxed pursuit. Something akin to sturgeon fishing. You know, plunk out your bait into a mild current, wait out the bite and crank that big fish in except in the place of a husky sturgeon there would be one of those“ barn” door halibut looking at me with his“ googly” eye... Eyes? Hmmmm.
At this point I’ ve probably caught well
CONTINUED ON PAGE 19