Topic: Homer Elk's King Derby Full report..sort of... (Read 2120 times)

October 05, 2015, 02:53:57 PM

Posted a few of the pics already but I can't get to the pages with the blank page issues.

Hit the water early Saturday morning. I get two good strikes but can't connect. Then my son lands two back to back on red label herring. I manage one on a coho killer spoon then he hammers two more which he released. Three hours later I have my second fish plus add another proxy fish.

Most of the fish were caught in 50 to 60 ft of water about 20 ft down.

Day 2 was slower.

We both went fish-less for the first few hours. Then I take the advice of Capt Shane of Driftwood charters and fish right up against the shore line in 10ft of water. We hook up four times and my son land both of his...I missed both of mine. You can see Shane's boat in the background of the fish my son releases on the video. We were in 15 feet of water and you can see how much closer he is trolling the shoreline. They had hooked a double up the pass before. I finally manage a three pounder and its time to leave since kids have school the next day.

So, I used the coho killer spoon and got more strikes and more pollock. My son used a two hook rig with red label herring. He landed a much higher percentage of the fish he hooked which is exactly why I had him using gamakatsu octopus hooks rather than a spoon. Oddly every one of his fish came on the top hook which is usually not the case. Fish are striking aggressively.

On an odd side note, I ran into Atz Kilcher, father of the pop singer Jewel (Kilcher) and reality show guy (Alaska -the Last Frontier on Discovery I think). I spoke with him for about a half hour. He took my info down and said he may want one of us to take him out King fishing for the show I have to admit, I am not sure that's my cup of tea, but if someone here was interested, and I ever get a call, I will post it up. They do pay for appearances but I wouldn't take the money since it could be considered "guiding".

So the video of my son's fish I got on video. I'll post my fish later but just his fish pushed 5 minutes so He gets his own video. Oh, I should note that this was my son's first king salmon EVER (aside from the landlocked dinkers they stock in the lakes).

So the video:

A few pics:

Day 1