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Unbeatable summer salmon fishing two hours from Seattle Bruce Gray
Every time I'm out on the water, especially the salt, I have a moment where I wonder how I got there and what I'm doing there. At this particular moment we were cruising on flat water off the tiny village of Craig on the west side of Prince of Wales Island in Southeast Alaska. I was out back on the stern watching the sun come over Pin Peak, a 3800' mountain rising up from the middle of the island. My fishing partners were in the cabin badgering our captain about the previous days fishing, weather for the next couple days, how far out we'd be running before dropping bait-all the important things I should have been more interested in starting my first day of fishing in Alaska. But the boat wake over the glassy inlet turning tangerine in what passes for dawn this time of year in Alaska had me dazed and confused. Here I was, a born and bred Hoosier transplanted by chance in the Northwest, heading out to fish some of the richest salmon feeding grounds in the western hemisphere that you still can not get to by car. Hundreds of miles from the nearest Wal Mart, strip mall, lot full of pollution-belching $50,000 SUV's and cookie-cutter housing developments. The day before I'd been at my regular job sitting in front of a computer for eight hours in a windowless office. How'd I end up here? How'd I get so lucky? The big outboard throttling down snapped me from my stupor and I was back ready to start fishing. We pulled into one of the thousands of inlets of this archipelago to get a quick rundown of the "program" for the day. Our captain, Bob Gray (no relation), refers to most everything as a "program". As in, "Yep, with the wind laying down we'll be running outside today. That'll be the program there." Gray has that Northwest native accent that's a mix between Midwestern and Scandinavian. It's kind of choppy with the words snapped sharply off at the end. I think it comes partly from talking over the motors of the various boats he's worked on for the past 25 years from Bristol Bay to Craig. Anyway, when you're running a charter boat for 30 or more days in a row you better have a system, or program, of doing things or your going to end up mad as a hatter by the end of the season. We ended up fishing with Gray over two trips at the beginning and end of his charter season in Craig and he was just as excited to fish at the end as he was at the beginning. So his program must be working.
On my second or third drop to the bottom I got a
couple little TAP TAP TAP's about half-way The local derby tally board back in Craig already had chinook in the 50 lb class listed, big fish any time of the year but especially big for our arrival early in the season (mid June). This could be my first 50 lb king! That first hit of the first day of a big trip always sets off a flash of overblown expectations and possibilities. But this wouldn't be my first king topping the magic 50 pound mark! After a couple good runs and rolls the hook came unpinned and I was left to reel up my mangled herring. By now the flotilla of boats from a nearby lodge was coming around the point to join in the action. Later in the day we would learn that three fish breaching the 50 lb mark were caught in this same inlet on this very day. Gray manned the kicker motor as we slowly made our way up and down the inlet mooching our herring off the bottom. Within the span of about ten minutes my fishing partner Rob Endsley got a beautiful chinook in the high 20's, I managed to land another one about the same size and all around us nets were flying and kicker motors throttled up and down to chase fish. The bite was on and there was no time to wonder how you got there or what you were supposed to be doing. We were too busy rigging herring, fighting fish and keeping an eye on who was catching fish around us. A Little History The waters around Prince of Wales Island and Southeast Alaska have supported generations of Alaskans and Northwesterners. In 1930 the Bellingham-based Pacific American Fisheries Co. ran 30 different canning and support operations throughout Southeast Alaska. While air transport and the descending price for salmon has killed off most of the canneries, remnants of these booming little outposts sit rotting on the edges of Craig and Ketchikan and still cling abandoned to the shorelines of inlets like Steamboat Bay on Noyes Island which we motored past every morning. Fishing this region was, and still is for some, the sole means of income for generations of fisherman. Some of the heartiest of these fisherman went north to work for Pacific American Fisheries in the 30's and 40's out of 30-32' dories with nothing but sails and oars for power. Flotillas of the snipe-looking boats big enough for two men, a couple gill nets or early versions of the purse seine nets darted around the fishing grounds for up to a week at a time filling their hold until the bigger, motor powered, "monkey boats" would come to tow them back to the tally scow where they'd unload their catch. Imagine spending a week out on the water in sometimes nonstop rain and wind, mooring at night in some small cove, eating whatever canned food the company gave you with your only shelter being a canvas tent to prop up over the bow. You can also spot remnants of the old fish traps that jutted out from points along the islands which intersected salmon on their feeding and migration runs. These traps were rows up to a couple hundred yards long of pilings driven into the ocean bottom with chicken wire strung along the pilings. Large pens were built at the end of the row that the fish were forced into as they tried to turn toward the open water. Big tenders could pull up to the pens and scoop out thousands of salmon. To give an idea of the traps efficiency, one of the first ones built was by James Robert Heckman in 1907 near Ketchikan reportedly caught over 4000 salmon in its first month of operation, testament to the richness of these waters. The conglomerate-owned traps and their deadly efficiency were a point of contention among some local communities and fisherman who sometimes took to robbing the traps at night. The traps were banned from commercial use when Alaska became a state in 1959. Moving On The beautiful thing about fishing the saltwater around Craig, aside from being in a wilderness of thousands of islands with grey whales breaching and feeding in casting distance of the boat, is the fact that when the bite slows in one area it's a quick run to the next spot. Remember, salmon from the entire west coast of the lower 48 states and Canada pass through these waters. When the bite slowed at our first spot we made a quick run south to fish an area called "Granite" for the hundred foot granite outcroppings that rise from the beach there. We motored past a few other boats halibut fishing
along the way but had Granite all to At some point I took a break and couldn't believe a couple hours had passed. With our king limits in the boat we picked up the salmon gear and headed north to pick up some halibut on heavier gear as they were too much for our salmon setups. The halibut program took all of 5 minutes bouncing a 20 oz. lead dropper and circle hook full of guts on the bottom to hook into a big flatfish. Once hooked up it's like reeling in a wet mattress, but the prize would be halibut cheeks and fish and chips for the winter. We weren't looking for and didn't find any halibut over 60 lbs and had our limit of tender flatties in the cooler in no time. While massive halibut over 200 pounds do haunt these waters, our tastes were set on the smaller, eating-sized halibut. Silver Slam Through a strange set of circumstances we made two trips to Craig last summer as bookends to the summer salmon season (June-August). It's easy to do in short trips with the flight from Sea-Tac to Ketchikan only taking less than two hours. Ketchikans commercial runway is rock-tossing distance from the float plane docks where you hop on for an incredible 45 minute flight west over the islands to Craig. If you get on the early plane out of Seattle you can be fishing by 1:00 because it's a quick run from town to the fishing grounds. Our second trip north was to be a quick trip to
help Endsley get some more footage for an We thought we had plenty of footage so I grabbed the single-action Canadian setup I'd brought, rigged a herring dropped it over the side-literally. About 30 feet into my spool the line was cut and the sinker and bait dropped freely to the bottom. Must have been cut in Transit from Seattle, or maybe I was set up by a friend who had borrowed the rod the previous week. As I rigged a new setup I noticed the bite was slowing down. By the time I had bait in the water it was over. The rest of the day went pretty much the same way by I got my fish here and there. The topper was Endsley's 38 pound chinook that we weren't expecting to be hanging around that late. He hooked it as soon as I took a break from fishing and picked up the camera to get some shots of the scenery. Fighting a big chinook on coho tackle makes for great television footage. I almost turned off the camera just to see if he'd lose the fish, as any good fishing buddy would consider in such a situation. Back to Reality Not every day of fishing in Alaska is as good as we ran into. There can be times when it blows for days on end and the fishing is spotty, though in Alaska during the summer those days are few and far between. But like generations before who've gone north looking for treasure you know there's a better chance of it happening here than most anywhere else. And at some point later back in your hometown after another long week at your regular job you'll toss the perfect fillet on the grill and friends will ask, as they always do, "Did you catch this?" You'll say yes, it came from Alaska. And you'll suddenly wonder how you got where you are and are so lucky. If You Go If you're putting together a trip to Southeast Alaska now is the time to start setting aside time and making reservations. Charters We fished with Robert Gray (no relation to the author), the owner/operator of Prince of Wales Sportfishing. The Bellingham, WA native has been guiding in the area since 1991 and runs a top-notch operation. His packages include float plane transportation to/from Ketchikan to Craig on Pacific Airways, lodging in town and two light meals a day. Contact Gray at Prince of Wales Sportfishing or call 1-888-943-4746. Rob Endsley, the owner operator of Kulshan Excursions (now Pacific Northwest Sportfishing) will also be running charters with similar packages out of Craig in 2003. He can be reached at Pacific Northwest Sportfishing or call (360) 676-1321. What to Bring Remember, Southeast Alaska sometimes gets more rain in one summer than all of Puget Sound does in a year. So pack your bulletproof raingear. I was glad to have my heavy-duty PVC-type raingear. A lot of the breathable raingear just can't stand up to Alaska's sometimes constant rain.
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down, stopped the free spool and pulled off a couple more lengths of line to
feed whatever stopped my herring, then slowly reeled down before getting the big
TUG that's usually the fish taking the bait and slashing away. A quick
hookset and I had a chrome-bright, pissed off, chinook salmon on the end of the
line. We'd been fishing all of 5 minutes and I was hooked up!
ourselves. Our drags were getting a
workout ten minutes after the first herring dropped alongside a massive rip line
where the currents form something like an eddy in the open water. The
entire water column from 50 feet down to 200 feet was full of fish. If you
could get your bait past the pinks in the first 40 to 60 feet you had a good
chance of getting a chinook. If you made it past the shelves of salmon and
let it bounce on the bottom too long you'd be fighting, or more likely breaking
off, one of the large halibut that carpeted the area.
upcoming cable fishing show called "Fishermans Heaven". I got to ride
along as the cameraman. With only a day to fish, I had to concentrate on
the filming and would have to wait until we got enough good footage for the show
before I'd get to fish. Of course, almost every time I'd put the camera
down to fish, the bite would go off. I filmed Endsley and Gray catching
one 12 to 16 pound coho after another. It was the kind of day you see on
those damn fishing shows. Sunny skies, not a breath of wind, glassy waters, fish
everywhere.