Bud and Jeff
Nelson, from the Seattle area, joined us during our three
days of fishing. Greg's Sea Sport provided lots of elbow room
for us all. Instead of following the bulk of the sport fishing
fleet, Greg generally travels farther, through the inside
of Kruzof Island, past Salisbury Sound to the super-productive
western shores of Kruzof Island.
Our boat ride to the fishing
grounds lasted less than an hour and revealed miles of pristine
shoreline and wildlife. Within minutes of our arrival at Pt.
Mary, Greg located a school of fish with his fish finder.
Instead of drifting, he lowered the anchor, securing us in
200 feet of water. Sitka guides and residents have discovered
that anchoring over fish, once they've been located, often
works better than waiting for luck to drift the boat into
a school of fish.
This method proved itself almost
instantly. All four of us eagerly free spooled our cut-plug
herring to 45-feet. Bud first called 'fish on' with a pink
salmon, followed by Joe with a 30-pound Chinook and me with
an ocean fresh, double digit coho. Throughout
the day we traded positions as each aerial coho or darting
Double headers, triples and even quadruple hookups provided
entertainment and limits of six coho each. Instead of waiting
till the end of the day to clean fish, Greg immediately removes
the guts from the fish and places them in a bucket. Each fish's
belly cavity is then filled with ice and placed in the fish
box on ice. I've never encountered another guide who takes
such excellent care of retained fish.
The heavy diet of Pacific sandlance
gives the salmon's guts a super high acid content. This acid,
if left in the fish's belly, will ruin portions of the meat.
On Greg's boat, the guts don't go wasted - halibut love them
like no other bait!
With only 90 minutes of fishing
time remaining, Greg moved us to his can't-miss halibut hole.
Once again he anchored the boat, this time in 235-feet of
water. Greg suggested that we try using his light weight G.
Loomis salmon mooching rods for halibut. We all agreed with
eager smiles. Guts impaled on our hooks quickly began their
slow downward decent.
As if on cue, three out of four
rods twitched the presence of hungry halibut. This can't-miss
hole truly couldn't miss. Each of us had our limit of chicken-sized
halibut in less time than it takes to watch most TV fishing
programs - and this action was for real!
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Hot Halibut fishing
action!
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