Category: Alaska

Alaska Halibut Fishing

Big Halibut

If you are in search of some monster sized halibut to fill your freezer back home, then you must head up to Alaska to go halibut fishing.  The size and the amount of halibut that are swimming in the cold waters up north is amazing.  Most of the time, people who wake up very early for a full day of halibut fishing are back home with their limit within just a few hours.  There are just that many fish to be caught.

Fishing Deep Water For Alaskan Halibut

Most people who go after the halibut figure they need to be fishing in 300-500 feet of water.  That is actually not the case all of the time.  Many extra large 200 lb halibut are caught in just 150 feet of water.  This makes for a much more interesting fight with the fish too.  When you begin to pull up a monster halibut from five hundred feet of water, it can turn into a very boring catch which nobody really wants to be a part of.

Shooting the Halibut When they Reach the Surface

One of the most common forms of killing a large halibut is to shot it with a lead shot.  There are different types of ways to shot the halibut, but the safest and most popular way is to use what is called a bang stick.  This delivers a shot from a .22 caliber bullet which goes right through the halibuts head and sometimes can hit the brain and create an instant kill which is desired.  The large halibut can really damage the cockpit of the boat if they are brought over still alive.

Packing Halibut and Taking The Meat Home

One thing you will all want to do is bring some of your fresh caught halibut back home with you.  That is actually the most popular thing to do for all visitors who fish in Alaska.  They all want to bring home halibut.  It is even more popular than bringing home salmon these days because the value of the halibut is so much higher.  Nobody should worry at all, the towns in Alaska are well aware of the goal of the fishermen.  They are prepared to pack up and vacuum seal all of your fish within just hours of it being caught.  And once it is all processed, they will bring it back to your fishing lodge and store it in the freezers until it is time for you to take everything home.  Most people end up taking with them over 50 pounds of halibut on the airplanes.  Sometimes for people who catch a several hundred pound halibut, there will be some options to actually just ship some of the meat back to your home state.

Alaska Halibut Derby near Homer

That’s right, its halibut derby time again in Alaska, and there is not much time left to catch the jackpot halibut this year.  Currently, the leading halibut is coming in at 273 pounds and was caught by Mark Hilts from Grand Rapids, Minnesota.  Also, there are a couple of halibut in the 250 pound range that were landed in July too.

Weather has been typical Alaska weather, tiny bit of sun, tons of overcast and some rain.  Water conditions have been a little bit nasty several of the past few days with quite a few out of town anglers getting a bit sick out there.  But hey, its derby time, and you got to be able to play with the big barn door halibut if you are going to have any shot.

One of the big questions of the year is where the heck is Deep Creek Fishing Lodge right now in this derby?  Haven’t seen crusty man Steve Moe at the weigh in scales yet, so not sure if he has been able to get out of bed to do some fishing lately?  But, knowing him, he will probably be sliding in the winning halibut on the last day of the tournament.

Alaska Fishing Lodge Trip Picture Gallery

We took hundreds of pictures on the trip to Deep Creek Fishing Lodge in Kenai, Alaska. Here are a few of them.  The pictures are all from early June 2010. During the fishing trip, we fished the salt water for halibut, the river for king salmon, and a remote glacier fed lake for lake trout.  Some of the greatest times were spent just sitting around the fishing lodge which was located just next to Deep Creek, Alaska.  The staff and the guides and the owner of the Deep Creek Lodge are all excellent people.  With the views across the channel that were to die for, it was a vacation of lifetime that will not ever be forgotten.

One of the most spectacular parts of the fishing lodge experience was taking the float plane to the desolate lake to go fishing for trout. We caught all kinds of trout within just a few hours and then we fried them all up afterwards.  It was super tasty and alot of fun at the same time.

The fishing lodge is called Deep Creek Fishing Club and it is located in Kasilof, Alaska.  There is another deep creek fishing lodge so you need to make sure you fish the one with the captain called Captain Crusty.  Otherwise you won’t be getting the same experience you see in the pictures above.  The first night that you spend at the lodge, you will probably dig into a massive dinner of Alaska King Crab legs which should get your fishing vacation started off right.

Deep Creek Fishing Club on the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska

Here is a brief overview in video of my first fishing trip to Alaska.  We visited the Kenai Peninsula and fished for halibut, trout, and salmon at the Deep Creek Fishing Club.

This place is amazing.  The first day we went out on the ocean and fished for Halibut.  There were two boats of us, 4 people on each boat, and one captain and another crew member per boat too.  All eight of us caught our limit of two halibut each.  The largest halibut of the day was 69.4 pounds on the scale outside the lodge.  It was great fun.  The weather out on the water was a bit choppy, but nothing too bad, infact nobody even got sea sick.  It did get a bit windy towards the end of the day

river fishing the kasilof Alaska
Kasilof float fishing

On the second day, we went fishing on the Kasilof River on the Kenai Peninsula.  Some of the video is also from salmon fishing on this river.  The fishing that day was pretty good for our drift boat.

We brought 3 salmon to the boat, and had a total of 5 salmon strikes.  We released two of the salmon because they were wild king salmon, and we kept one that was a hatchery fish.  Our guide Todd who works for the Deep Creek Fishing Club was excellent.  He had been guiding tourists who come to Alaska to fish for over twenty years now.

On the final day of our trip, we chartered a small airplane to fly us to some remote lake across the channel.  We landed and started fishing for lake trout.  We were using salmon eggs, and our group of eight caught about 15 trout in about one hour.  Next, our guides and Capta

alaska lake fishing for trout by bush plane
fly-in lake fishing

in Steve aka Captain Crusty fixed up all the fish on the side of the lake with a bunch of charcoal, and we had some awesome fish tacos.  They setup a nice table and there was everything you could need for a great meal including wine and beer and best of all fresh caught trout for our taco meat.

Please enjoy the video of the fishing trip to the Deep Creek Fishing Club: