OK, there are all kinds of edible fish that you can catch in Southeast Alaska.
Five species of salmon, halibut, ling cod and many more. But when the smoke is all blown away-the prized catch is the King Salmon. And for good reason. They’re the undisputed King!
Yes, it’s fun to catch huge halibut. Ling cod are one of the best eating fish. But to be the Joe Cool of the fishing camp, net the biggest king and you’re the Rock Star. Period.
It doesn’t take long to figure that out either. I learned this on my first trip to Alaska 22 years ago at the Waterfall Resort Alaska, which is the same resort that we fished at last week.
On that first trip our guide Dennis Luckenbach helped us catch all kinds of big fish. I caught a record book halibut and a record book red snapper. But I picked up the underlying current of truth the first day that to be cool-you had to catch a big king.
Katy with her biggest king.
At dinner every night they announced the king of the day and gave the winner a king cap. To be in the elite class, they had to be over 50 lbs.
And after dinner everyone would go down to the dock and the guide(s) that had netted a 50+ lb. king would dive off of the top of his boat into the 50-degree ocean (gladly). That was a badge of honor.
The last day of our trip 22 years ago Dennis’s girlfriend cornered us the night before and said look, Dennis isn’t going to say anything but he’s dying to get on the 50+ lb. king board. You are the fishermen that can get him there. Then she walked off.
The next day as we were loading into the boat Dennis said 0k, first we’ll go get our halibut, then we’ll go get our silvers. Eddy looked at Dennis and said, we‘ve talked this over. You’ve busted your tail all week for us. Today we’re going to get you on the board.
He argued a minute but not too hard then pulled his cap down and said let’s hit it! I can’t remember all of the details but somewhere along the way my brother Eddy hooked up on a king and simultaneously his 12-year-old son hooked up as well.
Halfway through the fight Dennis said Eddy, Cliftons is bigger, yours has to go. After a tough fight Clifton’s was in the box.
Every 15 minutes for the rest of the day Dennis kept looking in the box, shaking his head and saying I don’t think that his is quite there. Unfortunately, at the end of the day he was only 48 lbs.
When a king is hooked it is game on and gets intense fast. Everyone reels in fast to get out of the way. It’s you, the fish and the captain now.
Suddenly the captain is priceless. They calmly coach your every move. They have you move to the back of the boat and using the small kicker motor they keep spinning and turning the boat so the stern is facing the king or else he will blast under the boat and snap your rod in half like a toothpick or run the line across the bottom of the boat and fray it in half.
A lot of times when a king hits, you might not know it is a king. You may think it is a decent halibut as it stays almost straight down for a few seconds. And it may not even fight exceptionally hard for a minute.
But there is one undisputable characteristic that will manifest itself pretty fast. Suddenly he hits the game-on button and your line starts semi slowly moving out to the deep water. In a hot second he hits turbo speed and the line stretches straight out in the blink of an eye.
Keep the line taut but don’t try to stop him cold turkey or you’ll likely rip the hook out of his lips. It is a fine line between keeping the line tight and not trying to horse him. He’s going to take a hard run no matter what you do. And even if you could reel him in, he’s too hot to handle so he needs to wear out a second.
Joe with the biggest king of our group
If the line suddenly goes slack-start reeling like a madman. He hit the end and is shooting back towards you like he was shot from a rubber band. You’ve got to reel fast to keep the slack out of the line or the hook will fall out.
Now is where it gets intense and the guide earns his money. He’s frantically maneuvering the boat to keep the stern towards the fish. Most likely the king will blast under the boat and your rod will be bent and about to snap. You’ve got to get him out fast before he snaps your rod or comes up on the other side.
It is a cat fight with an orangutan on the other end of the line. The guide suddenly becomes your life counselor and is barking new orders as the scene develops.
When you finally have the king fought down the guide will instruct you to run him alongside the boat.
You will lift your rod tip to get his head up. In one fluid motion the guide will slide the net under the king and simultaneously tell you to drop your tip. At that moment the king will dive into the net, the guide will fold him in and heave him into the boat.
The minute the big king hits the deck it is all fist bumps and belly bounces. There’s nothing like it when it all falls in place. The guide deserves as much of the glory as the fisherman on the end of the rod.
He is the coach that just sent in a series of stunning plays that won a tight Super Bowl game. It is one of the ultimate fishing adventures.
Now let’s fast forward to last week. Let me start off by telling this story. A couple of times in the first 2-3 days I called Katy my Little Fireball.
The last day our guide, John Otis Casey nonchalantly looked over at me and said, “You know, I didn’t understand at first why you kept calling Katy a fireball? She struck me as a sweet, shy girl. But after fishing with her this week, I’m not sure that “Fireball” is strong enough!
You ask why would he change his view? One king was wearing her out. John was running the kicker motor and she laid her rod over his left shoulder to get leverage and told him not to move.
Then quite a few times she’d pull her line out of the water to get him to re-bait her hooks. It was windy so her ling was flying around and John was ducking to keep from getting hooked or dinged in the eye with the one-pound weight. I told him not to worry, I’d bring him one of my 4-wheeler helmets for our next trip!
But the best of our kings was caught by my son-in-law Joe Chappell. He even got notated at dinner as having the 3rd largest king of the day one night.
If this article doesn’t make you a king fisherman, then you’ve flat lined.
Tom Claycomb is a hunting enthusiast and writes a bi-monthly column for Great Basin Sun.