Halibut Fishing in Deep Creek, Alaska

I’m a lucky girl. My parents live in Ninilchik, Alaska which resides on the famous Kenai Peninsula. Being a major sports fishing area, I get to go fishing every time I visit. And, even during the years I can’t visit my parents keep my freeze filled with more halibut than a girl can eat.

During my trip to Alaska this summer we got to go halibut fishing twice. We caught enough halibut (24) to fill both my freezer and my sister’s. Captain Jack wanted to try out a new spot and boy was it a good one. He even entered it in his GPS as “Cook’s Hole” in honor of our success there. We didn’t catch any monsters on either trip, but with halibut if you “limit” (two per person) it’s a good day of fishing. The largest was maybe 45 pounds (caught by me of course) and the rest were probably in the range of 25-35 pounds.

Nanette and IFishing

The first trip was Captain Jack, his wife Carolyn, my parents, my sister, and me. The day started out a bit slow but as soon as slack tide hit, the fishing picked up in a huge way. We caught a halibut nearly every time our bait hit the bottom. As soon as slack tide ended it was obvious; the fishing slowed to a trickle and it took a while to catch our last fish.

Day 1 CatchThe second trip was Captain Jack, my dad, one of my nephews and his girlfriend, the girlfriend of one of my other nephews (he didn’t go because him, boats, and the sea do not agree), and me. It was basically a repeat of the previous trip. We ventured to “Cook’s Hole” again. As soon as slack tide hit the fish were biting and as soon as slack tide was over the fish were done.

Day 2 CatchSlack water, which used to be known as ‘the stand of the tide’, is a short period in a body of tidal water when the water is completely unstressed, and therefore no movement either way in the tidal stream, and which occurs before the direction of the tidal stream reverses.

Halibut Meal
We found a ton of these guys in the bellies of the halibut we caught.

Launching

The most interesting thing about fishing out of Deep Creek, is how they launch the boats. Large tractors are used. They hook on to a boat trailer and back it out into the Inlet. When boats are ready to come back in, they radio the launch crew and give them the number they were assigned when launched. The crew gets the trailer and the captain has to navigate the surf to gracefully trailer the boat.

Here is a video that I put together of both the launch and trailering.  Keep in mind I’m a beginning at shooting and editing video.  I’m looking forward to do more of this in my travels.

After the Fishing

But, the work isn’t complete once the fish are caught.  My next post will be about me learning how to filet halibut, but here are photos of some of the “after work”.

Allison and Me
Allison and me packaging the fish.
Nanette and Mom
My sister and mom doing the final clean-up work on the filets.

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