Summer Salmon Trolling


Doug with a 20lb King
Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) allows trollers to fish for salmon in outside waters beginning in July of each year. They gave us just 5 days to fish for Kings in July but we are allowed to fish for Coho all month. Usually the Coho are near shore by that time but this year they were not close in. It is increasingly warm in Alaska in the summer months (climate change is very noticeable here, especially as I can compare my experiences from the 1990’s when last I lived here to now and the differences are quite apparent) and some speculate that the fish just aren’t moving in as there hasn’t been the rain needed to swell the streams enough for them to swim up and spawn. We found we had to fish much further from shore (6 miles) in deeper water (over 100 fathoms) to find them this July.


Harvesting Coho
In early August ADF&G closed all salmon trolling for 8 days (taking a big chunk out of our fishing season) and then reopened Kings for just 2 days on the 13th. We caught a few of these big beauties but the real money came from the Coho that were finally showing up in larger numbers closer to shore. We get significantly less per fish for Coho but we catch a lot more of them so while Kings are worth more per fish, the quantity of Coho can make up the difference in value. 


We had 4 good days of catching and it looked to be the boost we needed to our season - but then a gale came in and we had to find a sheltered anchorage to wait out the blow. We chose to stay in the “Hidey Hole” in Surge Bay on the outer coast. We were the only ones in the anchorage as all the fishermen we knew ran to town to tie up to a dock. This is a beautiful anchorage that would appear to be a good choice to shelter us from the predicted NE winds. However, the gusts were swirling around and coming at us broadside from the W/NW and in the middle of the night our anchor lost the battle and began to drag from the force of the wind. Doug had to literally “drive” the boat into the wind (while still at anchor) for 5 hours to keep us off the rocks, waiting for daylight so we could see to try to find a better place to shelter. There really wasn’t one, but we moved to deeper water as soon as we could see the rocks we needed to avoid. We ended up having to reset the anchor 4 times to get it to hold in the fierce 40 knot gusts pushing PacSon nearly over on her side. Needless to say, we slept most of the next day to try to recover and prep for the next adventure that fishing will surely send our way.
Hidey Hole AFTER the blow

Never a dull moment in the life of a SE Alaskan Troller!
40 foot tree blown to sea by the gale, standing upright!


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