June 21-July 3, 2010

Catch up fishing report.  I have fallen behind on these because I have been fishing too much.  Definitely in July ”Grab Bag” season everything is available, just in varying amounts.  King Salmon—Still some around but the peak is over I have heard of lots of fresh kings still being landed behind Gravina.  Silvers—Good fishing south of town for this time of year and starting to see some larger ones.  Pinks—are here and moving in more each day.  Halibut—Good Fishing for Halibut with most trips getting a limit.  Size is improving within 6 hour fishing trip range.  Outside waters wide open on all sizes.  Picked up 9 yesterday between two combo trips  smallest 18 lbs largest 45lbs.  Another halibut charter tomorrow then salmon for the remainder of the week.  Tight Lines…cm.

June 18-20, 2010

King Salmon Update—Definitely Peak of King Salmon Run for waters close to Ketchikan.  Opportunities on Kings are the best I have seen in a while.  The last few days, we have seen almost all the boats catching fish.  Went out for an evening fishing trip and attempt at getting some on film and landed 3 and missed 8 none lost.  Biting pretty soft but lots of chances.  Filming is Hard.  Just uploaded some video on youtube here’s the links: http://www.youtube.com/user/claytondmoore#p/a/u/1/H14Wg3SMb14 , http://www.youtube.com/user/claytondmoore#p/a/u/0/quiJP2ava9o . 

Halibut fishing trip Friday was good.  We had 5 anglers aboard and landed 6 Halibut (released 2), 1 Yelloweye Rockfish, 8 Quillback Rockfish, 2 Pacific Cod, and 2 large skates in about 4 hours of fishing. 

June 15-17, 2010

I had some great groups to fish with this week.  Many thanks to the Garces, Kenngott, Estacio, and Gomez families for providing very memorable trips this week.  Tuesday morning, we had a 6 hour salmon charter and began fishing the Mt. Pt. Area early.  We did not see much activity and after about an hour Alex spotted a large group of Killer Whales feeding over at Annette Island.  Went to take some pictures and then moved on out about 9 miles to a different area.  Found fish holding tight to shore and landed 4 or 5 two of which were keepers.  Had a lot of “takes” but for the most part not very aggressive.  Had some humpbacks come through to finish out the trip.  The outgoing tide hasn’t been the best to fish, but early Wednesday morning proves that you never know when fish might be feeding.  Within 10 minutes of setting gear we had our first King Salmon on board.  In 2 ½ hours we landed 5 kings and lost or missed at least that many.  We were back at the dock before 10 am as the bite had shut down at about 9.  Fished Wednesday afternoon expecting it to be wide open on the high tide switch and didn’t find much.  Around tide change, we had three Kings hooked up and landed 1, all in all a very good day of King Salmon Fishing.  A small group of Humpback Whales were bubble feeding for most of the afternoon trip. It was just awesome to watch! I have a Halibut charter tomorrow (Fri.) I’m hoping the weather cooperates and let’s us get out to some good fishing.

June 8-14, 2010

And the wind did blow.  This week was most memorable because of the 20-40kt winds that were present for most of it.  We fished Carroll Point to avoid it for the most part.  Kings were present but fairly finicky about feeding just at the tide change.  During charters this week we had 5-7 “takes” per trip, landing 1-3 kings per trip.  The exception was Sunday mornings trip, which was on a strong outgoing tide and we only caught one undersize King and some True Cod.  I went back out Sunday afternoon for some Derby fishing and landed one King in Herring Cove and around 8:30pm got into a good “bite” where Randy and I hooked up 4 Kings and missed one before 9:00pm weigh in.  In total, there were 778 King Salmon weighed in during the three weekends.  The 42.4 lb fish caught by Robert E. Cunningham stuck it out to win.

May 30-June 7, 2010

Derby update and Weekend Report–  Second weekend is now over and there have been 453 Kings weighed in so far.  Robert E. Cunningham is now in the lead with a 42.4 pound fish.  Mountain Point fishery had Killer Whales (about 20) Friday and Saturday which slowed fishing considerably.  I fished Saturday afternoon and Sunday landed 7 King salmon  4 Coho/Silver Salmon, and 2 Halibut trolling.  Mountain Point seems to have recovered as quite a few Kings were caught this morning 6/7/10. 

 May 23-29, 2010

King Salmon fishing remained pretty slow overall through Thursday 27^th when the charter fleet began bringing a few more in.  This was the first weekend of the 63^rd annual King Salmon Derby.  Here is the link to the leader board: http://ketchikankingsalmonderby.com/2010Leader.html . There were 256 King Salmon weighed in the by Sunday.  The largest was a 30.3 pound fish weighed in by Jessie Embree.  From the looks of the leader board, most all of the Kings were weighed in either at Mountain Point or Bar Harbor.  I took my daughter out for her first solo father/daughter trip.  We caught one shaker King, and lost  a double hookup.  She landed her first fish (with help) about an 8lb Lingcod.  The weather report was off and we quit trolling to look for calmer waters. We ended up setting the anchor and Halibut fishing for an hour or so landing one nice 35lb halibut and a mixed bag of other bottom fish.  Halibut charter on Sunday:  Nice group of four landed 7 Halibut/ released 3.  Largest fish about 25 lbs.  Lost one nice fish at double-line.  First limit on Halibut during charter for 2010.  Fished Mt.Pt. Sunday evening and landed 27lb King. 

May 10-22  2010

Fishing for Kings is beginning to improve again after a lull last week.  We had some visits from Killer Whales that slowed down the fishing some.  Reports of good catches on King Salmon within an hour of Ketchikan starting to come in.  Had a Halibut fishing charter today and landed a nice 80 pounder.  Hopefully some more will start moving in here in the coming weeks.  It’s still just a little early for the waters close in but I have a bunch of spots I still need to check out. 

May 9, 2010

I fished today with a group from here in town today.  Got off to a pretty late start and missed the morning tide change.  We stopped and talked to a friend at MtPt and he had one King in the boat and had missed two so we decided to fish for Kings for a while.  I didn’t really see any bait to speak of and it showed.  After about two hours, we didn’t have a nibble. The weather was so great we decided to try fishing somewhere else.  We stopped at a spot that has been good for halibut and started doing some bottom fishing.  Same story again.  Nothing for about two hours.  Finally the tide switched and we stayed busy catching Pacific Cod and Rockfish until it was time to come in.  The Halibut just weren’t ready to show up there yet.  Laurel caught her largest fish ever and was very tired by the end of the trip.  Everything considered, a good day on the water.   

May 7, 2010

“Zimmerman Family Charter”  Left the dock early this morning with Bob, Mike, Jack, and Patrick hoping to pick up up some Kings early and then do some bottomfishing.  But, it didn’t quite work that way.  We stopped at a good spot for King Salmon that I have been having luck at and trolled baits for about 2 hours and missed one.  After that, we decided to move on and try another place that has been good lately.  On the first pass, we found that there was a lot of herring balled up close to shore and started working the area.  It took about 45 minutes to find the depth and Patrick hooked and landed up a nice 12 pound King Salmon.  We made a couple more passes without anything and then Jack hooked up and fought a King to the boat only to have the hooks pull out at the net.  I wasn’t quick enough to get under him.  He looked to be a solid fish in the mid 20 pound range.  Tough luck, but a good first charter of the year.

 May 4, 2010

“Capt. Jim Parrott Birthday Invitational”–  Capt. Jim and I went out for our annual birthday trip today.  For us, it marks the official beginning of the Fishing season.  Left out pretty early and started off with some trolling for King Salmon.  Almost immediately, birthday boy hooked and landed a nice 15-16 lb King.  We trolled close to shore on a tide rip for about an hour before I hooked up another nice King.  He was longer but more slender and ended up weighing quite a bit less.  After that, we fished for another hour or so without a nibble.  We decided to try some Halibut fishing at a spot nearby.  It is a good incoming tide spot so we moved and got the anchor set.  It was very slow for about four hours but with the beautiful weather and calm seas we just stayed at it.  Near the end of the tide change, Jim hooked up a nice Halibut in the mid 20’s using a double-hooked herring.  It had begun!  Within an hour and a half we landed three more nice Halibut up to about 40 pounds and 8 other species of bottom dwelling fish. We caught: King Salmon, Halibut, Pacific Cod, Lingcod, Copper Rockfish, Spiny Dogfish, Turbot (Arrowtooth Flounder), Bigmouth Sculpin, Ratfish, and a Quillback Rockfish.  All we needed for a Super Duper Slam was a Yelloweye Rockfish.   We were both pleasantly tired after the trip and came in earlier than we had planned.  Mountain Point tempted us as we came back into town.  We considered trolling for Kings to try for two more, but decided that we had enough to clean for the day.  Great fishing trip!

May 1, 2010

Great weather, I solo fished for about 2.5 hours this morning.  After yesterday, I decided to go out at daybreak to see if there was a morning bite.  I landed a solid 25 pound King Salmon and missed another.  I talked with a friend this afternoon and there were quite a few Kings caught about sunset on the evening bite.

April 30, 2010

Beautiful weather today and I went out fishing for about 3.5 hours.  I hooked up a Halibut within about 20 minutes of putting my gear out.  He was about 20 lbs.  It was a nice fight on Salmon gear and will make several good dinners.  I did not get a King bite until just before I pulled my gear.  I have been solo fishing with one rod and wasn’t paying enough attention when it happened.  I am really excited for tomorrow, because I think I have finally got the speed and leader length dialed in.  We will see. 

April 29, 2010

The weather cleared some and I have finished the installation of the TR-1 autopilot and kicker.  All I can think of is “Let’s go try it out!”  Still pretty breezy, but kicker and autopilot handled boat nicely.  I fished for about an hour and a half without a bump.  I think I was the only boat out fishing for King Salmon today.

April 27, 2010

We finally “splashed” the new boat West Cape this morning and got through sea trials perfectly in windy 3-4 ft. seas.  It has been months of work and more air miles than I like to generate in several years to finally get to this point.  She handled very nice in head and following seas I am looking forward to getting her out fishing.  I have heard that there are some King Salmon being caught close to town in pretty good numbers for this time of year. 

Ketchikan Fishing Report for Mon 8/27- Sun 9/2

Fished Monday through Friday this week, with best catch coming on the 31st. Fishing generally slow, as silver salmon run still tends to be a little far out for our half day trips.Friday August 31, 2007 had best catch of my life! 5lbs 11oz. My wife Miranda and I were blessed with a beautiful baby girl. Looks like I’m going to be wrapping up this season a bit early this year! I haven’t fished since Annabelle was born. Report is that Silvers have begun arriving en-masse on the backside of Gravina Island with good catches being brought in from out North. South end fishing has picked up some too, with some decent catches of 4-5 silvers in the 10-12lb range. Looking forward to next year’s Kings. I am finished for this season and will be visiting family in Texas for a while. Good luck fishing and be safe on the water.

Ketchikan Fishing Report for Mon 8/20-Sun 8/26

The last week of fishing in Ketchikan almost surely marked the end of the Pink Salmon run. I am not expecting another group to come in until next season. Silver Salmon are moving in, but recent catches have been spotty.Really good some trips and slower on others. The good news has been the size of the fish.The Silvers we have been catching are 8-10 lbs with some around 12. I took a test trip out yesterday afternoon and found a good bite going on for about two hours. I am eagerly awaiting a run of fish I have heard are just a bit South of us.

Half Day Charter Breakdown: Mon-Wed Good catches of 2-10 Silvers and Handfull of Pinks, Wed-Sat: Hard Fishing 0-3 Silvers and few Pinks. Sat-Sun Better Fishing 4-6 Silvers 0 Pinks. I will be out Halibut fishing all next week and hope to have good things to report.