How do you experience the grandeur of Alaska? You GO there! For several years, my sons Chris and Matt, have urged me to put together a fishing adventure to Alaska. Six months ago we made reservations and left on United from Chicago to Anchorage June 8th. We found our rental car agency, picked up a Ford Expedition, and checked into The Lakefront in Anchorage. We took a short trip downtown and ate at a restaurant on Matt’s list called Humpy’s–good food and environment. We took time at the hotel to watch the many float planes taking off and landing from client trips before heading to bed. Sunday morning found us traveling south to Soldotna. We took our time, enjoying the glacier covered mountain tops and scenic drive. We made a stop along a river for pics and discovered a dead Beluga whale resting on the shoreline. Beluga Point is a stop on the road where people go to see if they get a glimpse of a live Beluga whale during high tide. We spent our first couple days at Jimmie Jacks’ Seascape Lodge overlooking Cook Inlet. If you want a luxury place to stay with chef prepared food, you may want to check them out. Monday found us going to the Kasilov River with JJ guide, Captain Tom, to catch King Salmon. Unfortunately, we never got bit but did have a wild experience at the end of our boat ride where the boats are pulled up the steep shoreline by cable to a wooden landing where they are loaded on the boat trailers. We moved on Tuesday and spent three nights at a cabin built on the homestead of Mindy and Reuben Payne. Mindy and Reuben met over 10 years ago, got married, and now have three respectful sons. The fourty-year-old Mindy has been guiding on the Kenai River since she was 21. Reuben guides on both the Kenai and Kasilov. We met Mindy early Wednesday morning at Bing’s Landing north of Soldotna and Sterling. She took us past all the homes along the river and to a gravel spot where we got out of the boat and cast for Sockeye Salmon. We caught one but she felt the action wasn’t fast enough so we shifted gears and fished for giant Rainbow Trout! She used the Yamaha tiller to “slip” down river while we watched four rods with small crankbaits which looked like small Bombers to me. We caught over 20 fish with some giants in the mix! Mindy held each fish over her net while we took pics then she quickly released them back to the river. If you want a great Kenai River fishing experience, please contact her company, Alaskan Widespread Fishing Adventures, Inc., payne@alaska.net, or www.widespreadfishing.com. Mindy’s company had booked a Halibut fishing trip out of Homer for us on Thursday so we made the commute down very early Thursday. Our boat was one owned by Ninnilchuk Charters. Captain Garett, Ciara, and Mike welcomed aboard sixteen anglers and off we went for an hour and a half boat ride out to the ocean. The Captain had a “big” fish spot where each of us caught our “over”, a fish over 28 inches long. Then, we started back to Home and stopped at his “under” spot where we each filled out our limits! Ciara cleaned 32 Halibut on the remainder of the trip. Homer is called the Halibut Capital of the world. We used 3, 4, or 5 pound weights to get the big hook baits down around 200 feet! Pulling a fish up that far is a real workout! Our cleaned fish were delivered to Homer Fish Processing for the ride home. Thursday night we were invited to the Payne home for a family dinner celebrating Reuben’s 51st birthday–we ate Halibut and the Salmon we’d caught on Wednesday. Matt, Chris, and I all thanked them for their kindness as we checked out early Friday morning and drove back down to Homer. We had booked a Friday “combo” Halibut and King Salmon trip with Big Dan’s Fishing Charters. We shared the boat with Captain Jesse while Dan worked on a new boat they’ve purchased to provide overnight fishing excursions out of Homer. We were joined by Alaska native Rick Olson and his grandson who caught the biggest Halibut on our trip! We fished one spot and caught all our Halibut before moving to a spot to troll for King’s. We had one miss then caught one. Captain Jesse felt the fishing was too slow so he started cleaning our fish as we finished our last trolling pass. Please consider contacting them at bigdansfishing@gmail.com or check out the website, bigdansfishing.com. We took our fish to Homer Fish processing then checked into the new Aspen Suites Hotel in Homer. Chris and Matt went back down to the Homer Spit to shop a bit while I washed clothes and went to bed early. The next morning we had breakfast at Duncan’s in downtown Homer–good food at a good price. We picked up our fish packed for the flight home and took a repeat drive back to Anchorage. There was a bite going on for salmon on the Russian River and we saw many anglers along the river. More snow capped mountains, green valleys, and a curvy road led us back to Anchorage. We rested at the Holiday Inn Select and checked our baggage and fish in at the Alaska Airlines check-in. We had a quick layover in Seattle then off to Chicago for a midnight arrival. Chris had arranged for a limo to pick us up and drive to Kara and his home in Hampshire. I went to bed while they split up the fish. Monday morning, Matt and I said our goodbyes and headed west to Cedar Rapids. Matt got home safely to Ames late afternoon. Reflections? If fishing Alaska has been on YOUR “bucket list”, please consider going sooner than later. You will savor the scenery and enjoy some terrific fishing adventures! I want to thank Matt and Chris for helping me during the week for driving. We hope you enjoy looking over the pictures we took and watching some of the videos Mike is posting on our website, www.walleyewisdom.com! Are we going back? Well, there is a fly-in up to glacier lakes and the town of Seward we’d like to visit and fish from. For now, we can appreciate the memories of an Alaskan adventure well attended! Spike
