Took the kayak and fished Valdez for the first time in my life.  I think it’s the first time in over 30 years I have even been there! 

Launched from the FREE kayak launch near the city dock at around 2pm.  Managed to limit out but it took till well past 7pm.  I caught most of them by Mineral Creek using planer, dodger, and herring.

As I was ready to call it a day, I see a bunch of jumpers right at the kayak takeput.  You have to be careful of the security zone around Crowley’s dock but I cast over with my ultralight and manage to land 5 silvers in less than an hour using a #5 vibrax with blue body and silver blade. 

Day two starts at around 7:30am.  I hit one immediately in front of the City dock.  Then its nothing until I get all the way out to Mineral Creek.  Then its blank again for all the remaining high tide.  I find fish shallow right up against the cliff walls in less than 20ft of water.  I use vibrax spinners and a wiggle wart and get a good flurry.  I see boats hooking up off shore so I join them and finish out my limit by 1pm. 

Well it wasn’t as good as advertised but that’s hard to say when you easily limit out both days.  I think while it’s fun to troll with the powerboats, this late in the year, I think if you were just trying to catch as many as you can, I would use my kayak and a spinner with spinning gear and poke around the edges.  This weekend, I bet the shore fishermen did as well if not better than the boats.

This late in the season, I shouldn’t have been, but I was surprised to see how mature the silvers were.  Lots of roe and pretty thin belly walls on many of the fish.  Of course they are all bright and meat color still looked good.  Seemed like a mix of the softer scale shedders and the firmer cohos.

It's not the best video as the spottiness and rain made it hard to get good footage.  The only rods I didn't break out were the flyrods.  Next year!   But the video shows conventional trolling gear, ultralight with spinner, a magwart, and a mooching coho.