Winter kings!

Despite the fact that the winter king tournament depleted a large number of winter kings out there Sat., my client Ella was able to pick up this nice little 10 lb. white king yesterday at one of my favorite "go to" spots.

And we missed a really nice takedown not long after we boated this one. They're still out there!

Gotta love those winter kings

Last Thursday a friend of mine and I went out to the Bluffs to see what we could find and we had one of those days that you can either love or hate. I pulled in these two (11 lbs. and 13 lbs.):

and we missed 4 other "takedowns" to equipment failure on the rig my friend was using.

King me!

Well after a long period of cold weather and not being able to get my boat back into the water I'm finally out fishing again.

I've had some good days and bad, but even the "good" days have been beset with "operator error" and missed fish. There definitely are some nice kings to be had out there right now.

But yesterday I connected with a nice 15 pounder. Guess what's going on the grill tonight!?

Big kings abound!

October 28, 2010

There seem to be a lot of bigger kings being caught recently. I haven't been out for a while because I bought a cabin and I'm renovating it, but I took my client Lou out today and this was one of the kings we caught:

He also boated one about 5 lbs. and we released another small one.

You gotta love it...

October 07, 2010

...when you can go out at this time of year and put some nice little halibut in the box and some fresh king salmon on top of that. Here's what my client took home with him yesterday:

The bigger halibut was 24 lbs. and the winter king was 16 lbs. (and a white one at that).

"Winter" kings!

October 04, 2010

It doesn't get much better than this. The two on the left are 15 and 16 lbs. and that bruiser on the right was 21! LOTS of kings around out there right now. And it's kind of hard to see in the picture, but they're standing in front of 4 chickens they put in the fish box a couple of hours before we got these beauties.

...and even MORE nice halibut!

Well, let me beat a dead horse here. I'm still perplexed why no one wants to fish for halibut right now. Believe me---there are still plenty of decent butt out there.

I caught this one on a solo "meat" run today at the same spot I got the other ones in the last few days. Just 12 miles from the end of the Spit. This one's 42 inches and 36 lbs.:

...and more halibut and kings!

September 11, 2010

I'm not quite sure why people seem to give up on halibut at this time of year. I took some friends out day before yesterday to my favorite spot only 12 miles out, and then some clients yesterday to the same spot and this is what we got:

The big butt was about 38 lbs. and those are two kings---10 and 11 lbs.

And yesterday:

That big one there was 46 inches and 46 lbs. I'm not sure why people think there aren't any decent sized halibut close in at this time of year.

And "winter" kings are just starting to heat up. If you're interested in trying for some of these beauties I'll be chasing them every day the weather allows. Come on down and join me. Contact me for info.

Halibut, coho and kings

September 04, 2010

We'll there are still plenty of halibut around out there and some fairly decent ones that you don't have to go too far out to get. This one measured 46 inches and according to the tide book chart should be right at 46 lbs. My scale said 41. Need to check that scale.

And yesterday my 2 clients and I got these nice little chickens and also a silver lined, king sized bonus. The two on the right are 9 and 10 lb. silvers and the one on the left a 10 lb. king.

Yeah, I'm a dereclict. But I fish a lot.

August 28, 2010

I have been very dereclict in my "news updates" duties. Sorry to all you loyal readers. Here are pics from my most recent forays out into the salt:

Aug. 22nd
"Salmon Slayer" was a bit worn out there. That's a 28 lb. ling in the center of the fish.

Aug 24th
The two bigger butt are right about 40 lbs. and there are two silvers there (13 and 14 lbs. and a 15 lb. king).

Aug. 26th
Two kings (13 and 14 lbs.) I caught by myself today while trolling for silvers.

Aug 27th
Here's what we got today. Those two bigger butt in the middle are right about 40 lbs. and that silver on the left tipped the scales at 16 lbs!

Big butt III.

August 07, 2010

Whoops! I almost forgot to post this one. This is from August 1st. The big one was 55 lbs.

Notice the two nice silvers thrown in for good measure. They're still not "thick" out there, but they are around and should show any day now in good numbers.

Big butt II!

August 06, 2010

Well we got into them today. The two pictured here are 46 and 66 lbs. We also got one that was 26 lbs. and a last minute one we put in the box that went just 11 lbs. And this was only about a half hour out from the end of The Spit.

Silver mining!

I went out on my own today to see what I could find and I wasn't disappointed.

I spent about an hour trying to find them, but when I did this is what I came up with. It took me less than an hour to put these beauties into the boat.

They are out there!

BIG butt!

Today marked a milestone with the first 100 plus pounder brought into the Pretty Penny. I don't think it will be the last! This one was 59 inches and maxed out my 100 pound scale. According to the "tide book chart" it would have been 103.

Yelloweye and reds

For those of you wondering about other species than halibut, there are other fish to be caught out there. I went out on my own today on my "day off" and caught this "little" yelloweye:

And then headed for Tutka Bay Lagoon to harvest a limit of reds that are in there for the taking:

The schools were a little difficult to target at times because there were commercial boats netting up a lot of them, but with patience it wasn't difficult to get your limit.

Halibut heaven.

The last couple of days have been really rough weather days (literally), but we managed to catch some decent butt. And we're seeing a LOT of humpbacks, too.

Another nice butt day.

We had a pretty stellar day out there yesterday despite some pretty lousy weather. I think it was the most consistent "big butt" day so far with a 42 pounder, a 38 and a 32, and then a bunch of mid-20's fish. The 3 smallest ones we kept so we could finish up and go in and try for kings. Unfortunately no kings, though.

Here I am holding the 42 and 38.

Lings, halibut and salmon

For those of you that may have been looking for updates lately and haven't seen any, I've been incredibly busy for the last couple of weeks, and VERY lazy on my "days off" and haven't been updating my "news" feed.

But I am still out there just about every day and catching lots of fish. Limits of halibut are common with some bigger chickens becoming more frequent and I've also put a nice ling into the box on one of my days off with my buddy Jim Lavrakas of Skookum Charters. We also picked up a nice 60 to 70 lb. butt that day (no picture).

Here are some recent pics:

Pretty big butt

Filled the boat today with a nice limit of 15 to 30 pounders and then this one that was about 65:

Rock fish city!

Well, the guys wanted halibut, kings and rock fish today and we did them all. I will now be changing my name from "Coho Dave" to "Rock Fish Dave" after today. We hit one of my favorite spots to NOT fish because there are way too many black bass that hang out there and we pulled in a limit of nice ones. The king wasn't a BIG one, but a king nonetheless. And what can you say about those halibut!? I guess it would have been nice to get a few bigger ones, but those provided a LOT of nice white fillets.

Spawing kings

I haven't had a "day off" in a long time and yesterday I decided to take advantage of a rare day to fish by myself and this was the result:

I caught this one off Pogi Pt. and it was 39.5 inches and 28 lbs.

Still kings despite the lousy in-river runs

Well despite the lousy showing of kings in the local rivers we've had some pretty good success out there. This is from last Tues. (June 1st):

A pretty nice little 25 pound spawner. We also caught a couple more and a bunch of nice little halibut, too:

Then I took the same bunch of guys out the next day to concentrate on kings and this was the result:

From left to right, 15 lbs., another 25 pound spawner and a 7 lb. feeder king.

...and more halibut and kings!

Here's what we got yesterday. The halibut were being uncooperative, but we finally got our limit. And then a pretty nice 20 lb. king! The perfect "exclamation point" for a perfect day.

Chad Greene with the biggest halibut and his king.

Halibut and kings!

Found a really nice chicken patch yesterday and we got a nice limit today. All in the 10 to 20 pound range, but I pulled a 30 pounder out of it yesterday. They're there if you're persistent.

The kings were an added bonus from Pogi and the Bluffs. Some nice feeders out there to be had. We actually caught a 4th one for a king limit, but it was on the smaller size and we let it go to grow more king sized.

Got halibut?

We did. My clients took home this nice limit of chickens today. They are out there and plenty more where they came from!

Kings and halibut!!!

Nathan and "Boomer" and myself with today's catch. These are the 3 kings and 6 halibut we kept. We released 6 kings about the same size as these and also released about 4 or 5 halibut that we caught incidentally while trolling. FISH ON!

Spawning kings are in and some decent halibut, too!

I was up trolling the Whiskey Gulch area just north of the Anchor River the other day and I hooked into and released 3 kings in the 25 to 30 lb. range in about 3 hours of trolling (sorry, no pictures!).

I also went out and plunked for halibut in 70 ft. of water off Stariski for an hour or so and caught and released two that were about 40 and 50 lbs., and retained a nice little 17 pounder for my grilling pleasure! here's a picture of the 40 pounder:

The halibut keep coming!

It took a long day of plunking and weeding through a bunch of chickens, but my group from Ft. Rich in Anchorage finally managed a limit of halibut in the 10 to 30 lb. range on one of the most beautiful days we've had since last summer.

More halibut and kings!

Days don't get much better than this. The big halibut are still in deeper water, but Travis got 2 pretty nice ones---26 and 12 lbs. And then we went in and trolled for kings. You can't beat a limit of kings going 21.5 and 16 lbs.

Some BIGGER butt moving in close! And plenty of kings, too.

I went out with my furry companion, Penny, today to do some mining for halibut. Here's a picture of what I put in the fish box---44 inches/40 lbs. I also "released" another one about this size.

Still some nice "winter" kings around, too. Boxed this 20 pounder and had two near misses.

Halibut and winter kings!

We had a wonderful day out on the water today. For three people we put a limit of 6 nice chickens in the box in about 2 hours---all in the 10 to 20 lb. range. And then headed for The Bluffs and put a 10 lb. king in the box and then missed 3 nice takedowns after that. Sure would have been nice to put those missed kings in the box, but it's nice to know there's still plenty around.

Winter king fishing is still hot!

Day before yesterday Chris caught two 11 pound kings (released one) and one that tipped the scales at 17 lbs. Yesterday Julia caught her first ever winter king---a beautiful 19 pounder---and Justin put a 12 pounder in the fish box. And I don't have a picture of all the "chicken" halibut we caught. Stellar day!

...and more halibut!

I had a charter today with 4 guys that wanted to put some "flatties" in the boat and I don't think I disappointed them. They're out there! And the season is just beginning.