Whiskey Gulch (9/11) & Seward (9/13) report

Met up with Jeff (jimbx2ditto) at Whiskey Gulch.  Hit the morning low tide and drifted South.  I managed three small halibut with one of them being a potential keeper except it was covered in lice and felt soft so back it went.  Tried the afternoon high tide which I don't typically like.  Found 60ft and immediately Jeff is hooked up.  Not sure if we found a patch of them but the action picked up with both of us landing two or three halibut each. 

I then hook into some that feels really solid.  I get my line caught up with Jeff's and one more big run and the fish is gone.  Though initially I think both of us thought that his line cut me off, I reel in to find this:


Are you kidding me???  Who knows if the fish was 30 pounds or 300.  But I figure that I had been using that particular spreader bar for a while now and it likely that opening and closing the snap several times per trip eventually weakened it.  I tend to tie up 3 or 4 leaders and when I catch a fish, I unclip it, tie on a new one so I can send a bait right back down before I start dealing with a fish.  Well that cost me a fish....no wait, it cost me two fish today!!!

Because all the fish we had seen had been under 15 pounds, I finally land a clean one about that size and am contemplating keeping it.  Well it self released while I was screwing around with my rod.  Bummer.  For better or worse, I got it on tape.  Its worth a laugh...I guess...

But all was not lost, I did manage a forty plus pounder to save the day.  The only fish I kept.  Oh, Ripndrag, user error caused me to break off the steel shaft on the first harpoon you gave me.  ARGH.  So let's see, Jeff broke a rod.  I broke a harpoon but got the fish.  Broke a swivel and lost a good fish.  I am not using snap swivels anymore.  Converting everything to corkscrew swivels.  I ABSOLUTELY DESPISE GEAR FAILURE!!! 

I think in general there are fewer fish.  They are on average smaller.  There certainly are more of the mushy halibut.  BUT there seems to be a few big ones cruising around.  I would say the fishing was good enough that there is at least one more good halibut weekend left in the year.  Hopefully the weather holds up. 

Whacky weather on Saturday.  Spot forecast calls for 1-2 ft.  But checking the buoy in Homer, it was 4 feet or better.  When the direction is SW, it can make for some good surf at launch.  I drive down to take a look and I am greeted by this:


Oh I see what happened, I don't think I have ever seen the waves come up so fast.


Decide its not worth it and head back to Anchorage thinking I would hit Seward Sunday.

Got to Seward to find dead calm waters.  IT SUCKED!!! NOSEEUMS EVERYWHERE!!!  Even a couple of hundred yards offshore.


Good news I caught a dozen silvers.  Bad News, they averaged about 12 inches.  ARGH.  Only one black cod today and I caught it deep.  Did manage a few copper rockfish, kept one.  A starry flounder, a yellowfin sole, and a couple of greenling to rond out the day.  Oh, I sent the greenling back down live in 250 ft of water.  After an hour my you can see the bait getting nervous.  I LOVE that about live bait.  Rod goes down, and up comes a 12 to 15 pound P-cod.  ARGH.  When the P-cod pops up, there is a pollock that comes floating beside it.  I have no idea if the P-cod spit it out or what.  Looked fresh, but was dead on arrival.  Odd. 



So here is the video from Saturday.  I hate posting lost fish and broken gear but so be it.  It is what it is and I can only learn from it.

Nice report!

Broken gear does really suck. I have to say I really like the cork screw swivels because they seem unbreakable.

It is weird that the silvers you were getting were so small. I haven't caught any near Seward that small... must have just been that particular day?

Let me know next time your are going to fish Seward and I'll try to join you!

Spent Monday in seward  with girlfriend, flat calm with a bit of sunshine 10am in water at lowell point 2.5 miles out south. Fished from 30 feet to 250 feet. 3 cod 2 polluck 1 halibut maybe 10 inches long, trolled back to miller's for more trolling in 30 to 60 to 200 nothing, out of water 530. No silvers .

I think I g of looking at WG for tue, if weather holds for next weekend I will be going to WG Sunday night til tue, unless seward picks up I might go to caines head and camp.

? Did the fish turn before the harpoon hit it or did it flip while the harpoon was in the fish I will get you another one nice fish btw

? Did the fish turn before the harpoon hit it or did it flip while the harpoon was in the fish I will get you another one nice fish btw

Complete operator error. The fish turned just as I struck. Head toward me. Not feeling the harpoon shaft go through the fish, you can see I try and push it through again not realizing at the time it was useless since you can't run it all the way through from the head to the tail. Lol. Them it turned for the bottom with the shaft embedded in it still.  The buoy was down momentarily but popped back up tearing a gash in the halibut. If the harpoon had not broken I could easily see me breaking my wrists or the very least dropping and losing the harpoon completely other than the tip.

After Surfing at WG I went to Seward and fished behind the Sea Life Center looking for Black Cod. Found none but did get 16 P Cod, 1 Polluck, 2 small halibut, 2 flounder and a Sculpin with Black & white striped Pectorals (Very cool looking). All fish were caught using a jig in a 2 hour window (before slack high tide) with not even a bump outside that window.

Well 2nd day in Seward was not better than first 8 miles of kayaking and not even a bite, fished 4th of July beach down to the cliffs. Only cools thing was we got to be entertained by a family of porpoises and go figure my go pro was dead. They hung around for about 20 minutes and then moved north.

Fished from surface (try for some jumpers) to 280, I might have had one bite but I think it was the bottom. Flat calm no swell or chop so can't complain. Would have been nice if caught something. But enjoyed the day with girlfriend.

Yah o hate being a one trick pony but it's why I drive the extra two hours. You can be in the water I suppose and enjoy the time but I'd rather fish four hour in homer or WG versus 8 in Seward almost year around except late July through First week of Sept.

Next year Seward should be much better I think the smolt release was 95k for this returning class vs 250k  plus  for next years adult class.