One landed today in Homer!

Matt landed a nice one this evening. It had a scratched up nose, so it must have been scrounging for sand lances.



He also had one on in front of the condos. Think I'll focus there tomorrow.

It was a beautiful evening with a whale, sea lions in front of the condos, and a beautiful sunset.




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Sweet!  Great report.  I'd be interested to know what was in the stomach.  I think they may be worms vs sandlances. But very good to know.

Love seeingbthe fish!

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Great fish!  Makes me hungry looking at it.

Down at Kodiak when their faces were scratched up they would be full of shrimp.  Grubbing around in the rocks I guess.

Thanks for all your help last night, Kat!  Wish I could be out there again today.  Here's the contents of the stomach: 

Im no expert but that looks shrimpie to me, as well as a beautiful salmon and absolutely gorgeous background, plus a happy kayak fisherman in between. Nice job so jealous after this mornings cold windy jetty rockfish skunk.

Thanks for all your help last night, Kat!  Wish I could be out there again today.  Here's the contents of the stomach:

Cool a shrimp and change too. 

Oooo......not at all what you would expect from kachemak bay. VERY INTERESTING.

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CONGRATS MATT~!  It's been a long winter king dry spell on the board since Kat's January catch. Way to break the ICE.....literally. In the background.

The presence of a baleen feeder off the Spit signals a good concentration of crustaceans and plankton in the area. Sea lions may have been looking for edible fish targeting the smaller food supply like smaller feeder kings. They can swallow a 10 pound salmon in one gulp.

Since Alaskan shrimp and krill are a cold water loving beast just perhaps the cold and frigid Homer winter and freezing water temperatures have produced a "golden lining" to attract the feeder kings. No doubt it will help them fatten up faster too. I just worry about their cholesterol intake~!    Have you ever read the dietary label on one serving of shrimp. 35% of your daily cholesterol intake. And that is for only 4 ounces.

The belly contents are about the size of a krill or glass shrimp (which use to be very thick in the bay in the 80s and I caught them at night with a hawaiian cast net in the water column) but they seem to be too opaque for those critters unless the stomach acid has caused that. Could be a young northern pink which was a predominant trawl fishery in the bay when we had an open fishery.  No apparent arch for a humpy...the salad shrimp of the Pacific Northwest!

As an aside: I just contacted the shellfish biologist in Homer earlier this week about whether they will be performing a tanner/dungeness crab survey this year for Kachemak/Cook Inlet to see if we might get a personal use opening. NOPE, not in the budget. I didn't have to ask if they would be doing a shrimp survey.   

But the good news is shrimp populations this year across PWS are on the rise. PWS shrimping should be much better this summer.  I'll post more on that in the near future. Better start thinking kayak shrimping out of Whittier beginning April 15th.

Just got a variety of these in this week. Looks like my kokanee/sockeye gear will be a perfect MATCH THE HATCH on these feeders right now. I'll bet a lazy dodger and a mono spreader with two of these moving through the water at kokanee trolling speeds might be the secret weapon! Shane has caught many kings on a bare red hook that may resemble a polychaete.  Sometimes ya gotta go with the flow.

I see the harbor ice is flushing out and melting very quickly. No problem for this next weekend it appears based on weather projection.

Awesome! If they're hitting shrimp or sandlances, these rigs ought to cover it.

Awesome! If they're hitting shrimp or sandlances, these rigs ought to cover it.

Keep in mind with the hoochies, you will need to use a dodger or flasher that swings side to side to give it some action.  That also means at least 6 inches but more like a foot require between sinker and dodger. 

Also its something you can observe, but when I put those super light wings ahead of my hoochies, they ended up deadening the action the dodgers imparted on them.  But maybe the in-line spin will be enough to get a hit. 

I am definitely trying to gear up to head down tomorrow.  Though we will likely be running bait (at least one rod) I am going to try and run artificials if I get out tomorrow.  I have similar hoochies, my silver horde coho killers, and I may try out a few flies. 

Good luck tomorrow. My initial run will definitely be herring, either cut plugged or on a pro troll head clip. Got coho killers rigged and ready as well. Can't wait to get out there next week!

Well crap, just called the Homer harbormaster...they never answer the phone and never return the call. Rang up Shane and he was just getting ready to come around the end of the Spit at 5:50pm. Was fishing up North today and they got kings up that way too. Wanted to find out the status of the launch ramp and whether it was still locked up with ice. He said he'd call me back as he was plowing through ice at that moment but made a quick mention that the upper end of the Harbor at the ramp was still froze up with maybe a single "trail" cut through for launching. No really water movement to get things loosened up and very little sunshine hitting that area.

He said the Homer Chamber is going to assess the harbor conditions on TUESDAY and make a call whether the derby will be on for the weekend or postponed to the last weekend.  I was seriously thinking about taking the PB down Sunday for a launch to run some hoochies and experimentals behind the downrigger cam but that option appears to be dead in the water!

Plenty of power boats on the water  today, but I don't know if any of them were using the ramp. I fished almost all day for a pollock. Didn't see anyone doing much to the kings, in Tupperware or PBs.


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Nice fish matt! Glad to see someone get one! There were a few of us out there today. It was a tough one out there though. Tried a little bit of everything today. Just getting back in the swing of things. Really didn't see a whole lot of action on the lowrance. Tried halibut as well today. No luck with one good take down. Caught some small cod for bait. Jake and I fished as long as we could until we couldn't feel our feet anymore lol.

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Thanks for the report. Looks like it turned into a beautiful day.