well I'm back from Alaska.. What a beautiful place it is... All I coud say to people today was imagine putting Narragansett bay inside the Rocky Mountians and you'd get something like Alaska..

Halibut fishing was pretty interesting. The best way to discribe it is to cross fluke fishing techniques with shark fishing tackle. We were using your standard heavy boat poles with a large Penn Senator reel loaded up with dacron braid.. and get this 32 oz cannon ball sinkers hooked up to rigs that consisted of a tube with a large ocotopus skirt and a 14/0 circle hook. On the hook was a octopus tentacle, a herring, and a halibut belly strip.

We fished a plateau in the Icey Straights (about half way between Jeneau and Sitka) in 350 feet of water.. It took about a minute to get the gear on the bottom and about 5 to 10 to crank it up after we completed a drift. Just cranking up the grear without a fish was distructive on my body and After a few days of recovery all my muscles on my back and ribs are torn from jigging and reeling..

my Bro in Law and I caught 4 halibut all were 20-25 lbs each and IT was a trip I will never forget:D:

heres some pics for bragging rights:hihi:

Whoa double chin:eek:

more shots-

:eek: :eek: Nice trip.

Mendonhall Glacier

We also trolled for King salmon and hooked up with a big one.. My nephew who is not a skilled angler dropped the tip and gave the fish some slack and the fish shook the hook.... Talk about a fighting fish though. IT made a striper's tugging abilities seem lame.

I have tons of pics but I dont want to clog up space here.. I'll close with this shot of a lighthouse waaaaay out in the middle of nowhere-

Duuuuuude - my dream trip! Good for you, man! :btu: I'm envious....

Ya scared the poop outta me though, man - at first I thought it was a thread about people stealin' big flounders....:hihi:

AWSOME
definitly something i want to do.
how do the halibut fight?

also a dream trip of mine for years now!!

Nice Pic's!!

Originally posted by Christian

how do the halibut fight?


actually they dont fight at all. It felt like I was cranking up a log.:smash:

It really was a dream trip. I wish I had more time to fish but the main focus of the trip was a family reunion/highschool graduation get together. My Bro in Law is a Comander in the Coast Guard. He's also trying to play his cards to be stationed at the Woods hole lighthouse in 2 years.... Hellloooo Stripers:D:

I might make it out there next year and if so, I'm bringing my surf gear and am going to target King Salmon from the rocks. More challenging ;)

Eben, a very good friend of mine is billeted with the Coasties up there - his name is Mac.

I figure it's gonna make life a little easier if I go to have a buddy there who's already got it scoped out.

Damn, I gotta start pinchin' pennies and start a travel fund. :smokin:

Alright, man - surf-casting from the rocks for Kings!

:btu: from a fellow member of the BFDC Society.

Ooops, careful :hidin:

You suck. :D

Awesome scenery, I'm glad you had a chance to enjoy it. :btu:

i was supposed to do that on my honeymoon. but future inlaws live in england and said come there as they get a house in wales for the summer...


great fish.. great pics.. please post more..

later
crash

Awesome pics eben:claps: I am green with envy. Some day I'll get there. Looks like a really beautiful place.

Wow, looks like you had an awsesome trip! :cool:

Screw the bandwidth, more pictures please :happy:

Thats the biggest GD fluke I've ever seen...
so is the plan to knock them out with that cannonball then snag em?

going to place like alaska must have been a surreal experience. must've been hard to take everything in. overwhelming beauty. glad you enjoyed it.

Eben,

Don't burn my spot! Kidding of course. Beautiful photos.

Okay.. more shots :D:

heres some sealions that were basking on a can near that lighthouse

scared of heights??


this is HALF way up the mountian behind juneau. We took a tram up to a observation deck and then hiked up to the sumit... Uncle Eben almost tossed his cookies several times:yak: It was around 70° and the top o fthe mountian had about a foot of snow in places.

Hi Eben

Was there also last year on a cruise, went fishing one morning in the rain, it was interesting to see salmon jumping out of the water being chased by something bigger. Mangered to catch several salmon, had to play them like bluefish as they like to jump. The boat did all it fishing with downriggers. Wished I had time to fish for big halibut.
Also the water color is different from all the silt coming off the land. You have to image mountains that come right up to the water and continue down so that the water is hundreds of feet deep within a stone throw from the beach.
Of the three cities/towns that we stopped at, one is on a island, one you cannot get to by car, only boat or air, and the last you have to drive thru Canada to get to.

Casper you were probably there right after the spring runnoff if you were experiencng murkey water... I really wish I would of had a chace to tangle with some salmon, but theres always next time..
Jeneau is land locked. You cant drive there.... only plane, ferry, or if your crazy.. walk.

Back to halibut tactics... we anchored a couple of times in 350' of water. I kept wondering which sucker on the boat was going to have to lug the anchor up from the bottom.. But as it turns out, no one did. WE atached a float to the anchor line and gunned it. THe drag of the float pulled the anchor right up to the float and all we had to do was pull in the slack. Pretty cool.

Heres my nephew and my sweeetie pie

HALIBUT HO!


I wish these were bigger, but hey... it will only make me go back for more.

man oh man did they taste good with a little bread crumbs, lemon butter and capers:drool:

How common is the 100 pound halibut. Is that the 50 pund striper equivalent?
The halibut you caught look like great eating...

From what I gathered the ones im holding are pretty much schoolies. The locals call them chickens. If you latch onto a 100lber you've got an equivilent of a 20-25 # Bass. then if you hook into a 200 lber you've got something in the field of a 30 lb Bas.. A 300 LB halibut would be like getting a 50. If I remember right the world record is something like 525 lbs..... If you caught that you'd be in the magazines for sure.

That is my dream fishing trip. I'm young so give me time I'll go. I understand that when they get to the boat they harpoon them if they're over 100. Nice trip....

Fantastic Man Good on you bud! :D Sounds like a killer trip! Thanks for sharing the pics :D

We call big fluke dorrmats - don't they refer to big halibut as "barndoors"?

Oooohhh....halibut with capers, breadcrumbs and lemon....oh man, Uncle Crafty's trousers are getting tight....:tooth:

Okay, sorry, I know that's a little weird. Ya know when ya get older the desire for food becomes a substitue for ...well, you know.

Hell, I was gonna put a mirror over the dining room table but the missus wouldn't allow it. :rotf2:

Dammit, I can't have any fun....:(

Originally posted by Crafty Angler


Hell, I was gonna put a mirror over the dining room table but the missus wouldn't allow it. :rotf2:


Thast allright crafty...my dining room table is heart shaped and vibrates:humpty:

Food is the spice of life:D

Nice pics Eben . . . when we gonna see a glass halibut :D

Eben,
That's a trip I've been wanting to do, but never had the time/money. One of these days. Congtas on getting there and catching.

Originally posted by Eben
WE atached a float to the anchor line and gunned it. THe drag of the float pulled the anchor right up to the float and all we had to do was pull in the slack. Pretty cool.

Buzzards Bay technology in Alaska.
Rock on ;)