WHAT TO FUEL YOU SHOULD FISH AND WHERE:
Alaska offers some of the most diverse and incredible fishing opportunities in the world. You can drop a line into a roadside river and catch a nice size rainbow trout. Or charter a boat and reel in one of Alaska’s giant Pacific halibut. You also can treat yourself with a freshly caught shellfish- shrimp, crab, clam.
There are almost 400 fish species in Alaska’s fresh and salt waters including all five species of Pacific Salmon: King (chinook), Silver (coho), Red (sockeye), Chum (dog, keta), Pink (humpy). It is not uncommon to catch a 50-pound King salmon, the Alaska record was set by a fish weighing 97 pounds. With Alaska’s vast waters you should have no trouble finding some sort of fish. There are 400 fish species throughout the state. In some Alaska communities it is not unusual to find a fisherman trying to catch several fish species at once.
You can find many Alaska species along the migratory fly fishing routes of the state. Alaska is a very diverse state. There are thousands of species of fish, including lake trout, northern pike, arctic grayling, whitefish, and grayling. In some areas, like Kuskokwim Lake, there are over 50 species of fish. Alaska is simply a fishing paradise. The terrain is so varied that there are “champagne” fishing sites in the town of Kuskokwim, surrounded by the Tundra National Forest. The weather is as wonderful as the fishing.
Rainbows are not that common, but when they do occur they can be truly spectacular. You can catch a rainbow trout about 98 percent of the time, but only about 10 percent of the time you will actually see them. They can be as small as only four to nine inches or as large as dragonfly. You can see them flying at about 3,000 pounds. They are just fabulous. The film, “Beforeix” with Robert Ken Reeder is the best description of what to expect on your Alaska sport fishing vacation. There is a scene in the movie where one of the main characters, played by Ronday Name, is in the river, dressed in a wet suit, flipping through some fish. This is exactly what we experienced on our Alaska sport fishing vacation. We Jaunted into the wilderness of Alaska and caught a lake trout with our fishing bait (gradually through theagus) and a two-eye largemouth bass with some nice lures. These are the types of fish that attract the big fish and weigh up to 15 pounds.
Since we caught these large fish, we had to portage them back to the boat where we kept them overnight and then brought them on board. We planned to do some deep-sea sport fishing and eat them on the Half Moon Island when we got back to the Alaska mainland. We also planned to have a nice breakfast and lunch on board the ship and enjoy a little game time. After our stop in Anchorage, we headed west toward our first port of call, Pedro Island. We passed some amazing ocean beaches and ocean otters. The portage was quite a bit of a hike, about 2 ½ hours of portage, with about a 200 foot change in elevation.
We planned to stop for lunch and a swim and as we neared the second half of our goal, we spotted some whale trail sculpin. They are really cute and are plentiful. We kept on going and ended up at the top of an almost vertical cliff, where we rested and had a quick snack and some photos. The top of the cliff was littered with various shipwrecks, most of them small, from ships that had been blown off long before. Some of the larger ships had run aground and been battered so badly that the anchors were broken off and the ships lay in the middle of the cliff.
IPhithea is a very popular stop for those vacationers that just want to cruise on the ocean without doing much of anything. There are shops to shop in Iphithea, but they are very limited. If you want to explore the area more, do bring a camera and some binoculars. You never know what you are going to see. We walked on the beach to eat, went for a swim and enjoyed some waves before heading back to the ship. The boat ride back to Anchorage was pretty amazing. The wind must have been huge because we felt as if we were held back by it.
We had a nice trip through Alaska. We went to different parts of the state and we enjoyed each one. Great trip.
