I hear the Homer Elks King derby is Oct 4 & 5 so I
thought I better go check out the action. I am still not sure whether I am
fishing it out of a power boat or a kayak.
Launched by Land's End around 2pm to hit the falling tide.
The good news, in the first 30 minutes I pull up a half dozen kings. The bad
news, they averaged about 16 inches long. Nice thick chunky, but small kings.
Over the course of the next 4 hours, I manage three solid
big fish strikes. Hooked 2, landed 1. As always, the fish I lost seemed much
bigger. But I did manage a 10 to 12 pounder plus I kept one of the larger
"shakers" that was a bleeder.
The pollock have thinned out but still too many to be using
bait or a down rigger, I used a deep six diver, to a flasher, to a needlefish
hoochie. Worked great!
Good to see tons of bait and a lot of the smaller kings. I
am hoping the larger fish will chase the soon to spawn sandlances closer to
shore. I did hear that another kayaker managed a king further North. So they are
there and available!!!
I was fortunate enough
to fish with Kokatat Pro staff Allen “Polepole” Sansano, Allen “Bushy”
Bushnell, Mark “Spot” Veary, and Chris Mautino from Liquid Adventures.
Jeff and I were the Alaska representatives of the
NorthWestKayakAnglers.com team (Polepole and Bushy run that site along with
KayakFishingMagazine.NET). I can’t believe I had the opportunity to fish
with people of this caliber! Even if I had not caught a fish, I am sure I
would have come back with knowledge and connections worth every penny of this
trip and then some!!!!
Day Zero (Saturday/Sunday August 23-24)
I pick up the out of state
portion of the team at Anchorage International Airport. It’s always a tad nervous meeting new folks,
but thanks to NorthwestKayakAnglers.com, it was like I already knew these folks
well.
I pick them and ask “Ok,
do we need any gear?” The answer in
almost perfect unison…”Heck no, let’s fish!”
Ok, this is going to be epic with a great group of guys.
Load up the vehicle and we stop by the Russian River at the confluence with the Kenai River. Get there late, but we get about 3 hours of fishing. Tomato Sockeyes, a few dollies and rainbows somehow find the end of our line. We even manage to see a bear on day zero!
We crash at a friend’s house in Kenai to prepare for the nine hour voyage from Homer to Kodiak on Sunday. We meet up with Chris Mautino of Liquid Adventures at the Ferry dock in Homer.
We took two vehicles via Ferry from Homer and rented a house. Round trip cost for 5 people on a ferry plus two vehicles and berths for six (only one way for berths) was roughly $1,600. The house for the week was $1,400 making the cost $3,000 or $600 per person for an entire week of unguided fishing. Pretty dang reasonable!!!
Day One
We try Kalsin Bay.
The bay looks great. We see birds
working out in the middle. Silvers are
jumping but generally speaking no love. Bushy hammers a nice 13-15 pound
silver but that was the only fish for the entire day. Hmmm…this is going
to be a little harder than we thought….
I’d find out later after
the trip, that the silvers and kings were being caught exactly where we were
at the following week. Arghh. Missed it by just a few days!
Ok, I am a tad superstitious… I used my “new” reel today and left my girlfriend’s (and MY
lucky reel) back at the rental house…. switched out to the pink avet sx on day
two….
Day Two
This time we get a tip
from local fishermen and we try Pasagshak Bay. Weather is beautiful AND
we find fish. It’s the best day of the trip.
After scrutinizing the
charts, 2.5 miles from the launch, there are kelp beds and some very good
terrain. I start fishing on the edge of
the kelp beds but quickly slide downhill from a bout 40 ft of water down into
80 ft of water. Second pass at about
60ft, I hit our first halibut of the trip!
I manage a 40 ish
pounder and a 20 pounder. I release another one. The other team
members land 4 other fish. The biggest was Polepole’s 51 pounder.
Fishing was best as the
tide was rising. The current appeared to
create an eddy in the area and the fish were stacked in one fairly small
location.
I’m telling ya!!!! It’s
the pink reel! lol.
Day Three
Weather is blowing hard.
It looks like we might not get on the water. We try Kalsin Bay a
little further to the East. We fish in pouring rain and 20 knt winds.
Fortunately, I was wearing a new Kokatat Hydrus 3L SuperNova Angler
Paddling Suit and Kokatat SeaO2 PFD. The Hydrus 3L kept me bone dry and
with a few layers of fleece, I fished comfortably all day! The SeaO2 is a
design with 7.5 lbs of flotation but you can inflate it (CO2 or manually) to
get 22.5 lbs of lift. Super comfy! Highly recommend!!!
I troll looking for
anything that will bite. 10 minutes from launch I troll up a 25 pound-ish
halibut. Mid day I do find a big school of black rockfish that I played
with for an hour or so. The rest of the
day almost nothing until once again I am minutes from the launch and almost in
the exact same place I manage another 20 pounder. Hmmm…what’s that
saying…”Never leave fish to find fish?” Well I guess we are exploring
Kodiak so it was ok, but I was the only one lucky enough to run into the fish
that day. An interestingside note to the day were the foxes we saw at the launch. One scraggly looking hybrid was working our scraps hard. Even taking an apple to stash away for the winter.
Day Four
We head back out to Pasagshak Bay. Half of the group opts to fish silvers in the river even though it is a touch early in the season. They manage two SUPER nice silvers. In the gin clear water, you could sight cast to them.
Out in the Bay, Spot, Jeff, and I fish in shifting winds. I miss four or five good takes because I had switched over to a circle hook. I HATE THOSE THINGS!!!!! Missed every single one despite letting them take the bait for 10 seconds or longer and engaging the drag as they are just ripping out line. I am sure its operator error since many people are successful with the circle hooks, but I didn’t lose a single fish after a solid takedown using the Gamakatsu 12/0 Big River hooks.
Spot manages a nice 65 pounder in very challenging conditions. His fish would win the "fight of the week” award. His fish manages to take down an A2 Buoy for over 30 or more yards while 12 pounds or more of drag was also being applied. We aren't talking “surface skimming” take down. We are talking “no wake” completely submerged takedown. His buoy was nearly as twice as large as the buoy I was using. Just an AWESOME show of power. I think the biggest disappointment was our failure to find Silvers in the salt. There were enough fish jumping and in the streams that we thought we could have hooked a few of them. From the launch which is right next to the river mouth, to the halibut grounds was roughly 3 miles each way. I trolled a dodger and hoochie on both days to and from halibut fishing and did not get a single strike! Not even from cod or pollock. Inside the Bay seemed fairly void of life.
Day Five
Well we have to try
Pasagshak again after that nice fish. I pedal 3 miles out and in the
first 15 minutes I am hooked up. The area we were fishing was super rocky
and snaggy. Over the course of the week, I had to cut my line several
times and I was actually running low on line for my “lucky” reel…ok, ok it;s my
girlfriends but I think I am taking it back!
I drop my bait to the
bottom and immediately it seems stuck to the bottom. I yank on it several
times…thankfully I had switched back to a J-hook. All of the sudden the
“snag” starts throbbing! NICE!!!!! The battle is on.
After a few mistakes, I
manage to harpoon it, bleed, and apply the club. But now what? I
can’t get it into my kayak so I pedal what turns out to be a mile back to find
a suitable beach. I finally get it strapped onto the back of the kayak.
Hmmm….it rides nicely….limit is two…I am going to back out again!!!
Bad idea that I was
fortunately saved by luck. The halibut was so heavy, it was causing my
rudder line holes to submerge under water. Fortunately for me the group
was already headed back since I had taken so long dealing with this one fish.
Once I got back to the launch, there were several gallons of water in my
hull. ACK! I have closed cell foam noodles and empty gatorade
bottles stuffed into my kayak so it wouldn’t sink. But it would have made
a long pedal back a WHOLE lot longer if I had fished longer. Lesson
learned.
I didn’t think the fish
was that big but on tape it came out to 59.5 inches. 59 inches was 103
lbs and 60 inches
was 108 pounds not he weight length so I am calling it
105!!!! WOW!!! mission accomplished for a triple digit ‘butt from a
Kayak!!!! SWEEEEET!!!!!!!!!
Day 6, the final
day.
We are too tired.
We had to check out of the house so we fished the Buskin River.
LOTS of pinks and a quite a few silvers. They weren’t hitting
though and I was a little disappointed to see the method of choice for 90% of
the Anglers was the “flossing” method. Beautiful river…but was
disappointed in seeing that. I did manage one on a pink fly, but I think
I flossed that one too….
Day seven (bonus day!)
On the way back to
Anchorage, we stop by the Russian River again.
Although its only been a week, the silver salmon have entered the stream
and the team hooks up to a few nice silvers as well as a few trout. Along the way we manage to bust the factory
roof on the explorer but other than a slight ding on the roof of the SUV, all
looks good. You can see the problem in a
good write up here at Kayak Fishing Magazine. http://www.kayakfishingmagazine.net/gear-guide/91-new-kayak-gear/1964-factory-roof-rack-fail.html
A short video of the offload.
Summary:
So the trip was pretty
dang good given that none of us had fished Kodiak from a Kayak before. I want
to thank the Polepole and Bushy from KayakFishingMagazine.net and
NorthwestKayakAnglers.com, Spot, and Chris Mautino from Liquid Adventures out
of Seward and Baja, To be able to fish in the company of such skilled
Kayak Anglers really gave me the confidence that much more can be done from
this platform.
We fished some very
challenging weather days. But the ability to launch from virtually
anywhere gave us access to water that even power boaters would have had a difficult
time fishing. In the 6 days, we saw two trollers on Day one in Kalsin and
one troller who was waiting to pick up passengers in Pasagshak fishing the
entire time we were there. It was amazing!!!!!!
We set out to catch a
100 pound halibut. Mission accomplished. I am pretty fortunate to
have been the one to get that lucky strike. It wasn’t easy trying to
learn all of the spots. Of course we all have our favorite fishing holes that we
know like the back of our hands and that consistently produces fish. To
not have the advantage was a bit of an eye opener. We had a lot of good assistance along the
way. I want to specifically thank Hank and Abel who gave us TONS of good
information and frankly made the trip for all of us.
In some ways you could
sense the disappointment that more and larger fish weren’t caught. But we
walked away impressed with Kodiak’s potential. With a kayak we could
launch and fish in semi-sheltered areas no matter the wind direction. A
few more trips and I think I could get Kodiak dialed in. Hmmm…maybe next
spring? I hear they catch big kings in Kodiak in the spring time….I LOVE
BIG KINGS. The wheels are already turning…..
