Alaska Kingfisher

Alaska Kingfisher Lodge fishing report August 7th – 15th, 2017

Hall Thompson group last day of fishing. GAF halibut.

Prince of Wales sport fishing report for Kingfisher Lodge in Craig Alaska for the dates of the 7th to the 15th of August 2017. So since my last report we had fished 7 days straight so no time to write the report. As of the 10th of August the Alaska Dept. of fish and game put an emergency order that no King salmon may be retained so that ended all King salmon fishing or the ability to keep King salmon. It was a shame since there have been large numbers of King salmon in our area of nice chunky size and the trollers were shaking many large Kings as well as they never did get a second opener which was a big hit on their years income. Sounds political to me not management but too busy working to know all what is going on with the politics of it…pretty fishy though with all the whining by Canada and the lower 48 who haven’t held up their part of the treaty agreement from what I hear. Anyhow thanks to good returns from our Klawock hatchery Coho fishing has been very good and halibut, bottom fishing is good enough. They also shut down the rock fish retention on August 1st, so no rockfish including yellow eye till the 27th or some date like that for rockfish. Weather took a dive for us but fishing inside has been good so only a few who got sea sick when we were out near the entrance of the ocean and had the swell coming in made some queasy, but hey

At 45″ size maximum only 55″ can beat this!

nothing like more chum to get the fish to come in to the boat. Hoping the fish keep coming and we finish with a strong season. Best to all and thanks for reading the reports. Check out our Facebook page for more pictures.

Alaska Kingfisher Lodge fishing report July 26th – 28th, 2017

Kings for everyone!

OGrady, OHare family’s

Craig Alaska sport fishing report for July 26th thru the 28th on the southwest side of Prince of Wales island. Salmon fishing remains strong as both Coho and King salmon have been being caught in good numbers in the Craig area. Limits for both species have been fairly easy to procure the past couple of weeks although sometimes the King salmon are a crap shoot, it seems the past few days there were more king salmon getting caught. August 1st will shut down the Yellow eye rockfish limits until I believe the 27th of the month so don’t plan on being able to keep a Yellow eye. Ling cod and halibut the same limits. ADF&G feels the fishery needs to be closed (although there have been large numbers of the Yellow fish where ever we go) they believe there is a reduction in numbers, we can only trust that their management is correct and erring on conservative measures is always best on such a long lived fish, but we also hope it isn’t just for allocation issues. Klawock river hatchery now operated by SSRAA and run by Jeff Lundberg are doing a great job and we attribute the strong Coho runs to this hatchery. Jeff says this run is looking like the 2013 run when there were lots of fish, we are hoping it continues, great job Jeff! Check out our Facebook for more pictures.

The Dario trio.

Alaska Kingfisher Lodge fishing report July 22nd – 24th, 2017

Don’t find these in Nebraska!

Alaska sport fishing report for July 22nd thru the 24th for the Craig area on Prince of Wales island. Weather was our friend the past 3 days with ideal ocean conditions and salmon fishing as good as it can get for Coho salmon. King salmon are still being caught and our boats landing part if not all limits each day, and same for most boats fishing in the Craig area. Coho limits seem to be quite easy to fill with hardly any Pink salmon being caught…(I say that with trepidation). I like to have some pinks around as they make great halibut bait but past 3 days I never even had one on. The commercial seiners have not been fishing much off Noyes island so that might be the reason but we don’t miss the seiners since they scoop up lots of Coho when they are stretching out their nets, and when they do we see a drop in numbers. Commercial trollers are saying it is slow Coho fishing off shore so not sure what that means if we will see a drop off in our sport numbers or not but for now it has been steady and good. Halibut fishing has been good but putting in many hours trying to find a quality size fish say 38″ to 44″. We have been spending up to an hour a fish at times and been fishing a large area scouting but not finding any consistency anywhere. There seem to be a large number of oversize halibut 46″ up to 65″ and have landed and released some in the 70″ plus size. The largest landed for a GAF halibut has been 72″ if my memory is correct.
That is what I have to report for now, thanks for reading my report and all those who come fishing at Kingfisher lodge in Craig, we appreciate your business, we love catching fish!! Check out more pictures on our Facebook page.

Alaska Kingfisher Lodge fishing report July 13th 2017

A great day of fishing!

Alaska Kingfisher Lodge fishing report July 13th 2017. Ok so I haven’t been posting fishing reports not because fishing hasn’t been good since it has been a good summer so far. Most guests went home with limits of King salmon throughout the month of June minus a few here or there but overall on a scale of one to ten I would say it has been a 6 for number of fish caught. Halibut fishing up to now has been a scratch and all lodges are struggling to find a steady supply of quality halibut. Putting in time is what it takes to get anything next to the 44″ maximum and many lodges are probably falling short on that, my guess is the average halibut caught is around 32 inches and that may be stretching it. There are a fair number of halibut in the 46 inch to 55 inch range but they outside the slot size to retain. Extra large halibut also seem to be in smaller numbers, those in the 68″ and above size. We have been landing quite a few in the 55 to 58″ size. Some of these I believe to be large males so hopefully there are still those large females that lay the 4.5 million

eggs each year, I feel some concern about these numbers.

July fishing we have done well with King salmon and since July 1st we say a decline as the commercial fleet took many thousands of King salmon but since they shut down the King salmon fishing our numbers have been returning so limits have been possible and most boats are limiting on King salmon. Guests and Kingfisher Lodge here in Craig have been able to limit on King salmon these past few weeks.
Coho fishing has been pretty fair landing 4 to 6 Coho per angler the past few days. I will try to post pictures on our Facebook page but will include a few here and try to update my fishing report every 3 days.

June fishing at its best!

Awesome fishing

Thanks for reading and look forward to seeing you here this summer!!

Alaska fishing report for July 6th thru the 8th.

Pat Dylan group with GAF halibut.

Alaska fishing report for July 6th thru the 8th, Prince of Wales sport fishing report for Kingfisher Lodge in Craig Alaska, an Alaska sport fishing lodge. The past 3 days fishing was very good for us landing some really nice King salmon and halibut. This group had pre-purchased 4 GAF halibut which gave us the option to keep 4 halibut any size in addition to the regular 1 halibut daily limit but with the size restriction of 43 inches. GAF or Guided Angler Fish is when the lodge sets up a lease from a commercial permit holder of halibut and then the angler who wants a halibut of any size will pay the fee for that fish which reimburses the cost of the lease, roughly about $400/fish. The Pat Dylan group had set this up this spring and had pre-purchased the 4 fish,  so we spent an afternoon looking for big ones landing and keeping 4, but also releasing at least 7 other very large halibut as we looked for our daily limit halibut. There was also some very nice ling cod and yellow eye landed over the course of the 3 days.

Big king day!

King salmon fishing was very good for us as well limiting each day with our second day a larger strain of fish moved in so we landed two at 46 and 47 pounds as well as 3 or 4 in the 30 pound range, the next day those fish seemed to have moved on although Joel’s boat landed a couple in the 30’s on the last day.
Coho fishing remains spotty and low numbers for now but we expect that to change at any day as the fish move in, our best day was about 16 Coho for 12 anglers. Reports are there are schools of fish off shore so our optimism remains high that we will have a consistent Coho fishery this season. I have posted more pictures and video on our Facebook page so please click on the Facebook emblem on the upper right corner to check them out. Thanks again for reading my reports!

Last Fishing report for Kingfisher Lodge Craig Alaska from the 29th to the 30th of August.

Scott Donnelly with his first and beautiful King salmon

This is the last Fishing report for Kingfisher Lodge Craig Alaska from the 29th to the 30th of August 2015. The weather came in from very nice sunny skies and light winds to heavy rain and gale force winds to finish the season out. We were allowed one day of partial sun and good King salmon fishing off the

Harley Lisherness with his 30 pound King salmon.

outer coast of Noyes island at Pineapple rock where we landed 4 out of the 6 Kings hooked and Joel landed 5 out of the 6 Kings he hooked. The largest King landed

RWC group catch.

was 30 pounds by Harley Lisherness and he thought is was the largest of his fishing career. Silver fishing turned out very good despite the weather landing limits of Coho all three days as well as our halibut. We didn’t attempt snapper or ling cod fishing due to weather conditions.
Thanks again to all who checked out my reports this summer and looking foreword to seeing you all again next year. I’m off to the Alaska Range looking for Dall sheep and the quiet and solitude of the Mountains! Wishing you all the best until 2016!

Fishing report for July 25th thru July 28th, 2015.

Bob Cormack family with a great catch of fish!

Emily with Grandpa and her nice King salmon.

The Dick O’Grady family with an outstanding catch of fish.

S.E. Alaska Fishing report for Kingfisher Lodge July 25th thru July 28th, 2015. We had 2 separate groups in the O’Grady and Cormack groups both families bringing sons, grandsons, and a grand daughter, 12 in all. The King salmon fishing was very good with limits being had most days although we fell a few short overall, but the Coho fishing was outstanding as well as halibut fishing. Most all boats in the Craig area were limiting on Silver salmon and some or many boats limiting on King salmon during this week. More pictures will be added to the Facebook pages.

Fishing report for July 21st thru July 23rd, 2015.

Steven Wang group with a great catch of fish, Michael Drews with his 42 pound King!!

Paul Branske with a great trophy King salmon.

The Branske-Wang groups together with limits of salmon and halibut.

Kingfisher fishing report for July 21st thru July 23rd, 2015 in Craig Alaska. The past 3 days was probably at the top of the season for great trips for our groups as nice King and Coho salmon were moving in. It was apparent that most boats in the area were landing limits of King as well as silver salmon making everyone very happy. The weather forecast was for 30 knot winds on the 23rd but never did develop which really helped everyone have a great trip. Michael Drews landed the largest King salmon of the trip at 42 pounds so congrats to Mike on the big catch. He thought he was stuck on the bottom till the fish started to move, then it was “game on”. There have been some nice 50 pound plus fish being landed and I heard of a 70 plus also being landed by Waterfall resort, but not a confirmed weight on that. The silver salmon that we have been catching are of nice size so for those of you coming up it should continue to get better as the season progresses, also the trollers are telling me they are turning lots of King salmon loose as their season is over but appears many more Kings to migrate through our area. I will post more pictures of this group on the Facebook

Dr. Emory Chenoweth with his big King salmon.

page so you can click on the tab to the right to access that site. Thanks for checking the blog.

Fishing report for July 18th thru July 20th, 2015.

The Stutz and Hutcherson families with a wonderful day fishing posing with a boat limit of fish.

Alaska Kingfisher Lodge fishing report for July 18th thru July 20th, 2015. The past three days fishing with two families of 11 members brought lots of fun and laughs with our youngest at 7 years old although not the youngest in our fishing history. It wasn’t all about catching fish with these groups as the kids loved catching fish but they mostly enjoyed getting back to the lodge and swinging on the tree swing over the water, swimming and running in the woods. Catching fish was very productive though except the first day when all the kids had anti sea sick medicine and they had a really hard time keeping their eyes open to fish but after that got straightened out catching picked up. So for King salmon their seems to be plenty of them around if you have a bit of luck and are persistent can catch both limits of Kings as well as silvers. The Coho or Silvers are in good numbers landing limits again if patient and persistent. Halibut fishing remains good. David Stutz loves to look for big fish (been on Wicked Tuna twice for big Tuna, Australia for Black Marlin and Kingfisher Lodge for big halibut) Dave wanted the 80″ or bigger butt and so we went a looking landing the largest at 150 pounds landed by Debra Jordan, and many in the 100 pound and under but finding not close to the 80 inch mark. A King salmon derby contender was landed yesterday by Wayne Baxter from Klawock at 64 pounds (fishing with Rich Manning who owns Catch a King lodge). Wayne is a huge contributor and organizer for Craig-Klawock King salmon derby so I really hope Wayne wins, Good job Wayne and Rich!

The past three days was a hoot and look forward for another year with these folks. Check out the Facebook page for more pictures and thanks for checking in with us.

Enjoying the campfire and good music after a fun day fishing.

Debra Jordan fighting a big fish.

LaShawn Stutz with a nice 30 pound King salmon.

Fishing report for July 14th thru July 16th, 2015.

Weyerhaeuser family with a great catch of fish.

Coho fishing in calm waters.

Alaska fishing report for Kingfisher Lodge in Craig July 14th thru July 16th, 2015. These past 3 days King salmon fishing was very good as more King salmon have moved into the area as well as Silvers or Coho salmon. Although we didn’t catch limits of silvers the first two days we did limit on King salmon for the three days and day 3 landed limits of silvers for both boats. Most charter boats were doing the same landing limits of King salmon as well as mostly limits of Coho or were limiting out. Halibut and bottom fishing remains good. I will post more pictures on our Facebook page if you want to visit it click on the link to the right of the blog. Thanks for reading.

Blackmond group with a great catch of King salmon, silvers, and halibut.