Baranof Blog & Fishing News

The "Alaska wilderness dining" tours are dear to my heart for a number of reasons, the first being, it is how Baranof fishing was born... and that tour allows some latitude at times to vary the sequence of experiences before going to the camp to partake of a wonderful meal in a beautiful setting by a warm fire...

For instance, one charter I had on June 11th, 2017, was with two nice families on their first trip to the Ketchikan area; we were able to find some beautiful quillback rockfish in a fairly quick amount of time that was sufficient to feed everyone on board, so I presented them with some options: we could use the remaining time before the meal to do some wildlife viewing and try to do some trolling for king salmon if they were so inclined...the first opportunity was the seal haul-out in the middle of the blank inlet, and we cruised the shoreline to possibly spot a black bear or deer on the beach, which took us in the amount of time needed for the current and state of the tide to be at its changing point... the prime time of tide, perfect part of the season, and we were next to the camp channel where I have caught many king salmon with and without clients...

I rigged the baits and dropped them on the downriggers to the depths I felt best, one of them being 15 feet from the bottom, a whole herring on a slow roll; we trolled about 50 feet when the bait pulled out of the clip on that side, and as the client pulled back on the rod, it bent towards a line coming to the surface at a fair distance from the boat!

A King salmon! Confirmed by the tail and dorsal breaking the surface as it strained at the line, with the client holding steady pressure and keeping the line taut, the beautiful fish was netted within a few minutes and brought on board to the wonder and joy of those who had never caught one, a privilege to behold and participate in... then we did it again, within a few minutes of boating the first one, I had the lines back in and we hooked another King salmon within 100 feet of the first!

Another good fight and netted some pictures and then it was time for the camp meal; they don't always include fresh filet of King salmon, but it can happen, and this time it did... An amazing day with wonderful people in a beautiful setting...