frontier charters, sitka, alaska 2008

i packed my bags wednesday morning and hopped a plane to seattle.  then we took the milk run from seattle to ketchikan, then to sitka where we disembarked, then the plane continued on to juneau and anchorage.

our party included my father ......



my daughter .......



and my younger brother. we were met by justin guzmam, the lodge manager from frontiercharters.com.  justin used to work at the local tackle shop down the street from my house. 



the lodge is really nice!  here are a few photos .......









here's the fish processing area on the ground level. 









a few more shots of the lodge......













morning came early.  5am was the wake up call.  this is my brother, ed!





this was the spread set out so that we could make our own lunches for the day. 





it's a 15 minute drive to the dock. 







boots and foul weather gear are provided.  there were 16 staying at the lodge, and four boats. 







our guide's name is jon geyer.  we're looking at a 90 minute run to get to salisbury sound.













lot's of nice tackle.  all accurates!!!!!!



we ran to the outside of salisbury sound, looking for sliver salmon. we ended up bailing after a couple of hours.  little did we know that this would be our calmest day!



we ran inside and stuck a limit of rockfish.





then we set up for halibut.  this white cord is alaskan fluorocarbon.



i have no idea what this is, but it was my best catch of the day. 





at least we had these guys to keep my daughter entertained.  they were everywhere!!!!!





it was an easy run back to the harbor.



dinner featured a full salad bar (rare, and very expensive, in alaska) with roast duck and rice pilaf.



day two, we stuck an easy limit of rockfish.



we decided to head straight out for slivers and got lucky for a change.  we ended up with 7 in 2 hours. 







dinner was a steak, baked potatos and mixed veggies. 



day three and we're off and running again.







it started off nice and got ugly fast.





we could barely hang on all morning and only stuck one silver.  and lucky me, i got an over 40 inch 30# king that we had to let go.



when jon fired up the engine to reset, he got an alternator and temp warning, then started to smell smoke.  we fired up the kicker and struggled for 2 hours to get out of the slop and tuck back inside salisbury sound.  i was at the tiller for most of that time, while jon dealt with the engine and the radio calls.





trying to keep a 27 foot boat straight in a following sea with a quartering wind is not my idea of a good time. 






once we established that this was not fixable on the water, jon took over.  you know, he never stopped smiling.  he actually runs his own guide service in oregon and will be back home to oregon in september.





these guys came to our rescue and towed us in.







finally back at the dock, we got a quick ride back to the lodge.  dinner was stuffed pork chops.  really tasty!!!!!!



we have a 6am flight back to san jose tomorrow morning, so i'm hitting the sack early. 

ok, so we're up at 3:45 am for a quick cup of coffee, through airport security at 5am and off to juneau at 6am.



at juneau, the we sat at the airport for 3 hours while they fixed some ductwork in the cargo compartment.  once in seattle, we found one last flight to san francisco.



all of the flights from seattle to san jose were packed, so we caught a 6 pm flight to san francisco that finally left at 8:30 because of fog in the city.  we finally made it back to the bay areat at 11:30, then home at midnight, 10 hours late.  thank you, alaska airlines ........



my wife was able to pick up the fish at san jose earlier in the evening.  i unpacked it at midnight and it was still frozen solid.  the fish was beautifully packed. 







overall, this trip was every bit as tough as last year.  at least we stayed dry this time.  compared to last years trip to casa de kings, the flights this year stunk, the lodge accomodations this year were a little nicer but very close, the food was equally as good, the boats were much better, the run time to the fishing grounds were 1.5 hours versus 3 minutes last year, the salmon fishing was about the same both years, the halibut fishing this year stunk, rockcod was better because we did not have a rockcod option last year, the fish processing was better because the lodge took care of all of it (although processing our fish ourselves last year was alot of fun!), the cost this year was higher for 3 days of fishing versus last years 5 days of fishing, and we came back with 2 boxes of fish this year compared to 6 boxes of fish last year.  oh, and fishing with my daughter, priceless!





today we repack and tuesday we're off to hawaii.  another full report to follow!  alan

Sounds like a great time, Alan. Sorry to hear that the Halibut were staying away in droves. What did you think of SE scenery? Or did you get to see anything besides the run up the strait to Salisbury Sound?

Regards,
Scott

Nice pix.  Deja Vu for me.

Three friends and I fished out of Sitka the last week of May on Raindancer charters (about 8 weeks ago).  We we able to get limits of kings (3 each), most were in the mid twenties with the smallest at 20# and the biggest at 38#.  We also caught a few halibut, the biggest were one at 94# and another at 130#.  We also got limits of yelloweye (very tasty) and a couple of lings.  Most of the lings we caught were over the slot limit of 36" and had to go back.  Its tough to toss a 40# ling back.  Its interesting to see how the fishing has changed in just a few weeks.  All in all we had a very nice time.

-Dan

  Did you ever identify that lump of sea goo you landed?  Looked like it had tentacles like an Anemone.  Ewwww......
Sounded like a great trip!  Tell us you didn't do any reel maintenance while you were there did you? Hahaha....

Would you be willing to adopt me Alan?? Looks like an awesome trip and that lodge is sawheet! My kinda digs. Too bad the fish didn't cooperate with you like Alaska should but looks like you got a pretty good haul still. Plus fishing with the kids.. awesome! That's one lucky girl.

Z

you need to have your own adventure show Alan....it would get HIGH RATINGS!
Thanks for sharing ANOTHER trip with us....too bad on the breakdown&lack of Halibut action... I would've PANICED&Freaked out!.....Your Daughter is one heck of a FisherWoman!

Alan; what was that silver looking fish you caught, I have a faint memory of those but forget what they are called.  Nice report.  Looks like you had fun.

Oh man, that's so weird to see Justin all the way in Alaska!  He was very good staff at FW, sure to be missed.  Thanks for the awesome report, again!!

Thanks Alan for sharing your great adventure and awesome pictures.

Jed

i spoke to my brother just before i left for hawaii. he wants only kings next year. i guess that means the last 2 weeks of may. he is not interested in halibut at all (long story) and would fish for lings as "catch and release" only. we will see what next year brings.

a couple of guys asked about the cost.  well, the flight was $700 plus a $50 companion flight with an alaska airlines platinum visa card for a total of $375 per person. the price of the lodge for 3 days of fishing was $2100 per person. add incidentals and it's almost $1000 per person per day of fishing. it was tough coming back with rock fish and only 9 very small silver salmon in two of the 50 pound boxes. we would have felt much better coming back with two boxes each of just salmon. the weather did not cooperate, the fish were very scarce, sitka sound was closed (unknown to us) and kings were limited to 48 inches or better (a late closure by alaska fish and game).

regarding alaska air, i sent them a polite and very precisely worded letter about our problems and received a $200 discount on a future flight.  frontier charters took care of us for the lost afternoon of fishing as well.  all in all, it was still two tough years of alaska fishing.  very discouraging.  alan

Cool report.  The best part is the smile on your daughter's face - you are a lucky man indeed.  WTG, Dad.   

Hey Alan,

I fished Sitka in the second week of June. I thought we did ok but the other 3 guys in my party said it was the worst fishing they have ever experienced in Alaska. We also decided that our captain/charter service sucked.

Question for you... I returned home with some of those black rock fish. They look identical to the ones I have caught here in CA however mine tasted very fishy. Have you noticed this? I'm wondering if they weren't cleaned properly or the fish just taste different.

I'm not Alan, but I have literally caught hundreds of pounds of black rockfish in AK. Yes they are the same species. No, they should not taste fishy.

Scott

Thanks for the reply, Scott.

My rockfish from AK smells bad when I open the bag and it tastes like it smells when cooked.

I wish the charter operator had skimmed rockfish instead of our halibut.