back from alaska - 2007

Awesome trip and report, Alan! I got a little teary eyed seeing pictures that reminded me of my home in Kodiak many years ago. And, yeah, I remember the 40 degrees (and lower) but then add on that wind-chill factor--brrr.... BTW, are you going to patent your TBR?

Janice aka "Big J"

I saw your report on Coastside too!  Great report!!  Sounded pretty cold...too bad about the Salmon.  Halibut tempura is the way to go!!

You didn't miss much down here...I hit soquel hole on Sat and it was slow.  We didn't catch any salmon,  just some rockfish north of the lighthouse on the way home.

Dave

Great report, and great inspiration!  I fly up to Sitka next week...it will be a combination of Forest Service cabins and a buddies living room floor...should be quite the experience!  A full report with pics will be coming...congrats again!

-beenfishin

Am I the only one who has not been to Alaska???
That report was as close as it has gotten for me thus far.
Well done.

Another Alantani classic report. You take the best pics and plenty of them. Easy to live vicariously though them... well maybe I'll have to go up there someday too. Great work Alan, you guys absolutely slayed 'em!!

Z

I guess they have to have the open boats to be able to beach launch like that.

the cabin boats would be too heavy and expensive?

alan do you know the difference in weights of an open vs cabin boat of that size?

just curious, looks like they got the whole beach launch system pretty down.

J

you could launch a big boat from the beach, but you could never get it up and down that steep road. 

i really didn't mind bagging up the fish ourselves. it was a good opportunity to get together with the other guys. lots of stories and lots of alcohol. mostly we were just trying to thaw out again. it also meant we could bag them the way we wanted. that was the best part. i already had some and the quality is just excellent!!!!!

it's not the most elegant place in the world. phil and his brothers actually built the place themselves. they worked all through the winter to get it have it done that first year. i could have had a couch and a sleeping bag and i would have been fine. half of the day was 1 hour to get up and have breakfast in the morning, 1 hour to poop, shower and shave in the evening, 1 hour for dinner, 2 hours for fish processing, and 7 hours to sleep. the other half of the day was spent fishing. that's right, you could actually spend 12 hours on the water. it was a 5 minute run before you had lines in the water.

not even the long range trips give you this much time with lines in the water. being this close to the fishing grounds meant eliminating a 4 hour boat ride every day. the down side is having to fish in small open boats. this type of trip is not for everyone.

In Nanilchik, they launch cabin cruisers right off the beach but they use one huge vehicle ie a forklift. They hook the boat trailer up to it then it just effortlessly puts the big boat into the water. Freaked me out the first time I saw them do it.

well done Alan.   amazing pictoral and logging of the trip.   I got hypothermia while reading about it.

Great report! I wanna go... Ive got lots of ll bean winter wear.

Alan, terrific report, excellent photos, and fine dialogue.  But the best compiliment comes from  Rock Hopper (and I feel the same) "that's the first time I've been to Alaska."  It was better than anything I've seen on TV or ever read about fishing in Alaska.  Thanks for taking the time to post the trip.   
Tom