One of my favorite trips is several trips I took with my two sons and my brothers to southeastern Alaska. We would load up a small 16’ aluminum on top of the pickup and put a small freezer in the back of the pickup to put the fish in we caught and away we would go. The trip would start in Idaho Falls and go through Calgary Canada then through Banff Park then traveling west to Prince Rupert. At Prince Rupert we would hook up with the Alaska Marine Hwy boats and go north to the little town of Kake Alaska. There is not much there for accommodations so we would try to contact a school teacher and rent their home for a week. This was good for them to make a little money and was great for us. Southeast is one of the best halibut fisheries I know of in Alaska. I learned how to fish the area from one of the local Indians of the area by chance.
One day we were fishing the area and noticed a boat drifting to open ocean so we fished toward the boat as we trolled for halibut out of curiosity as it seemed that the boat was drifting unusual to be fishing. As we approached the boat one of the locals was out fishing and his motor quit working. After attempting to fix it to no avail we pulled him about 10 miles to shore. He was one happy camper to get to shore because the way he was drifting the next stop was Japan and in a 14’ open boat the likelihood of him getting there alive was slim to none so you could only imagine how grateful he was to be safe on shore.
He told me that I could have anything he had to which I quickly responded that I sure would like to know how to catch some of those big halibut I had heard of being caught in the area. He told me to meet him in the morning bright and early and he would show me a place that he had found. He knew the area very will and showed me a couple of great holes that I have marked with my GPS. These are the kind of holes you don’t take just anyone. We have kept the where abouts to ourselves but does it have big fish.
I have found that to catch big halibut you need to find a hole in the ocean floor that all the crabs and fish naturally fall in and the halibut just have to set there and get big and fat.
We always enjoyed watching the whales that came to the area to feed on the large schools of herring that is in the area and to watch the eagles feed on the herring also. The whales would bubble feed on the herring. This is done when several whales circle a school of herring and blow bubbles to keep the herring in a tight ball then all together they come up under the herring with there mouths open and fill up on the herring.
The eagles also feed on the herring and look like dive boomers when they come down to pick up the herring.
As you can tell the fishing was only part of the excitement of fishing Alaska. The first time I went fishing to Alaska the person that I went with told me that if I was only going to Alaska to fish I would miss the total Alaska experience. I thought at the time he was crazy, but found him to be totally correct. There is so many things to experience in Alaska!! What a great place to spend some time.
