Alaska Vacation - Day 9

I had thisssss much fun in Alaska.

Downtown Anchorage in the distance.

Alaska Vacation - Day 8

Just before catching the last fish of the trip. Today we got some chickens. 6-8 foot seas meant a good portion of the boat was chumming for us.

Next stop, Russian River Falls. A 'light' little hike, we caught some snaps and video of sockeye salmon going against the flow.

Some more scenery along the Russian River Falls trail.

Finally caught sight of a juvenile moose on the way back to the cabin. Tomorrow opens the moose hunting season.

Action Video of the Moose

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Alaska Vacation - Day 7

More halibut fishing on Cook Inlet. This time it was our turn to get the big ones. First fish was mine, decent size 45 lbs. Largest fish I've ever caught. 10 minutes later Steve lands the biggest of the day, 72 lbs.

Alaska Vacation - Day 6

Ah yes, day of the big flyout. Plan was to take this Dehavilland Beaver from the Kenai Peninsula, over Cook Inlet, and on to Big River Lake for some silver salmon fishing.

As you can see the terrain near the coast is pretty marshy. We got to see some moose, dolly sheep, and a black bear or two.

We weren't the only ones, there were quite a few float planes.

The sockeye salmon pictured here are spawning. Eventually they would hop on to the rocks to reach a lake further up.

Action video of the salmon

A couple of juvenile black bears came to check us out.

Action video of the bears.





Unwinding with some brews after finishing up our 3 salmon per person quota.

Before heading back home, we flew over a glacier and got some awesome pictures.

The town of Kenai at the mouth of the Kenai river.

Haul for the day. Not too shabby.

Alaska Vacation - Day 4

Our first official day of halibut fishing starts with a photo op on the east side of Cook Inlet. In the background is Mount Redoubt, an active volcano and is the highest peak in the Aleutian Range on the Alaskan Peninsula in Alaska. The last eruption was in 1986, when a KLM 747 was caught in its ash plume.

Boats are launched in Ninilchik by tractor. Here's a picture I found on the web of a launch in less than perfect conditions.


What kind of tackle do you use for large Pacific Halibut? Try a 3-5 pound lead sinker, some shoestring, and a mongo 12/0 circle hook, as our deck hand Josh shows us.

I didn't get a lot of action shots during this trip, I was pretty busy. Here's a scene we saw 30 times during the day, Captain Tom pulling in halibut after halibut. See you in Mosquito Lagoon, Tom.

Steve and I were on a boat with a large family party, who actually took up 2 boats. As you can see, halibut fishing is ALOT of work.

Beats working for a living...


Here's the sister boat, pulled out of the water the same time as us. Very professional crew at Afishunt.com, great people, and great boats.

Oh, did I mention our boat pulled in a 110 pound halibut. The man on the right caught the fish, the boy on the left is his son.

Nice haul.

Alaska Vacation - Day 3

Day 3 started pretty early, we left the cabin around 5:00 AM. After turning back to look for my fishing license, we arrived in Seward to a drizzling rain. Today's charter was a 10 hour trip, to include fishing for silvers, rockfish, and halibut. After leaving Resurrection Bay, the weather started to clear and we got some awesome vistas. Our first spot was just east of the mouth a small river just east of Resurrection Bay. Just 20 yards or so from the cliff shoreline and we were in 100 feet of water.

Steve with a silver...

Steve caught his limit of 3 silvers before anyone else caught one, so he got to take a seat.

We moved on east to catch some rockfish. Vertical jigging around 30 to 60 feet, it took only 20 minutes for the entire boat (6 people) to reach their 5 fish limit.



Back to silvers, there were still a couple of us to reach our limit. Took a while, but I finally got mine too...


Just in time too, cause the Orcas started moving in. Our skipper tells us they're also here to hunt silvers, and usually scare off the fish from feeding for a while.

After hitting our limit on silvers and rockfish, Captain John took us to a halibut spot a little further east. The bite here was undersized compared to what we've seen at Cook Inlet, but was consistent. One of the last bites of the day was a bit of a surprise, a 40 lb lingcod.

If you can't see the video below, get the flash player @
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Catch of the Day. Great job Rick!


Not a bad haul on the day. Here's Rick with his son RJ.



And myself with Steve. There's still a dozen or 2 rockfish NOT in the picture. Banner day!! Next time you're in Seward or Ninilchik, check out AFishunt charters.

Alaska Vacation - Day 2

Today we were supposed to go halibut fishing on Cook Inlet, but the wind and waves were so bad on the beach that we had to reschedule. Today we went fishing for silver salmon on the Kasilof river in a drift boat. Here's an example of another boat.


Our guide and his dog Copenhagen had a pretty slow day. After 2 1/2 hours, Steve finally had to take a pee. The second the guide grabbed his pole, it was fish-on! One of the other two guys on the boat pulled in the biggest silver of the day... after that the it got pretty windy (and cold!).

We forgot to take pictures, but fyi here's a picture of a silver. Steve brought back 2 silver, and i just had a dolly varden or two.

Alaska Vacation - Day 1

Today was nothing but traveling. Flew into Ted Stevens International in Anchorage around 3:00 p.m. ADST. Here's a couple cool pictures of the glaciers we flew over.







The tides here are amazing. Arriving near low-tide, huge mud flats of Cook Inlet near the airport are visible. They can go out into the inlet a mile or two.