A Day in the Life of a Novice Fisherwoman

I've never considered myself much of a fisherwoman, but catching a few halibut last year got me started thinking that, with a little practice, I could be pretty bad-ass. So it made perfect sense to grab a friend and plan a day of fishing.A quick pooling of our finances showed that getting out of town and renting a canoe as we'd originally hoped to do just wasn't going to happen.

We grumbled for a bit about the soulless gas-guzzling society we live in while lamenting the fact that we couldn't afford to guzzle our own share. Then we decided to hit a few local lakes instead.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game stocks many area lakes with trout, char, grayling and land-locked salmon. For boatless folks like us that had no urge to combat fish in the last days of the Ship Creek king salmon fishery, this was perfect. I fantasized about catching a sleek, glittery trout and cooking it up that night. I figured that an 18- to 20-incher would be about perfect...

http://www.anchoragepress.com/site/basicarticle.asp?ID=709

Tough Times For Yukon King Fishermen

FAIRBANKS — The king salmon run in the Yukon River may not be as bad as state fisheries biologists thought, but it still won’t likely be big enough to fill fish racks and smokehouses in many villages on the middle and upper part of the river, or meet Alaska’s international treaty obligations to Canada.

Thanks to a late spike of fish, biologists with the Department of Fish and Game upped their projection for this year’s chinook run past a sonar counter on the lower Yukon from 80,000 last week to as high as 120,000 this week, which is still short of the required 140,000 needed for adequate spawning numbers and a sufficient subsistence harvest.

http://newsminer.com/news/2008/jul/03/yukon-river-life-takes-hit-because-dismal-king-sal/

See also Alaska guided fishing

Unalaska Opens for Commercial Fishing

Unalaska's commercial salmon season opened over the weekend with four fishing vessels seeking pinks in Unalaska and Makushin bays.

The area has opened to commercial salmon fishing every year since the early 1980s, but Alaska Department of Fish & Game biologist Forrest Bowers says it's not always fished.

"There's been about two roughly five year periods since 1982 when we haven't had a fishery," he explains. "And that wasn't necessarily because the fishery was closed, that's just because people didn't come out to the area to fish...

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kial/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=1334094&sectionID=1

See also Fishing in Alaska

First Time Alaska Visitor Makes Big Catch

Two years in the making, George Wambold's perfect summer was topped with a whale of a Kenai king salmon.

Only a day before the July 31 end of the season on the state's most popular salmon stream, Alaska Department of Fish and Game officials say Wambold landed the biggest Kenai king registered with the state trophy fish program this year. It weighed 72 3/4 pounds.

It had a girth of 32-inches, Wambold added, about the waist-size for a pair of pants for your average American male before the obesity epidemic hit.

An angler most of his life, Wambold had never seen such a fish. "It looked the size of an alligator,'' he said...

http://www.adn.com/fishing/story/486200.html

Charter Fishermen Sue Over Halibut Limits

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) - A court hearing in Washington, D.C. will deal with the issue of halibut catch limits in southeast Alaska.
The Charter Halibut Task Force lawsuit asks for an injunction over a rule that reduces the daily catch limit for anglers on charter boats. The hearing takes place Wednesday.
The limit drops from two to one fish a day.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the newly enforced rules are needed because charter fishing has grown in Southeast Alaska, but the number of halibut has decreased.

http://www.ktuu.com/Global/story.asp?S=8430315

See also halibut fishing in Alaska

Combat Fishing Tournament

Nearly 300 soldiers from throughout the country, some with hometowns in Northern California, gathered in Seward, Alaska, last week for one of the most unique fishing tournaments ever organized.
The participants in the derby were Army, Air Force and National Guard members who had served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Many will soon be headed back for their second or third tour in the battles zones, but last Thursday, their main concern was catching the biggest halibut to win a new truck, ATV, motorcycle or other prizes in the Combat Fishing Tournament.

http://www.triplicate.com/news/story.cfm?story_no=8944

Gas Prices Hit Fishermen Too

Pat Hammers isn’t going halibut fishing this summer.
“This is the first time since I moved to Alaska (in 1993) that I’m not going halibut fishing,” Hammers, a local magistrate, told me the other day.
While that might not necessarily mean much to some folks, it speaks volumes for Hammers, who ranks halibut fishing as one of his favorite things to do.
“I love halibut fishing,” he said. “I moved to Alaska to go halibut fishing.”
But when Hammers called the halibut charter company he usually books his trips with out of Homer a couple weeks ago, the price for a charter was $285, and that didn’t include a 7 percent sales tax in Homer, which puts the price at just more than $300.

http://newsminer.com/news/2008/may/22/gas-prices-may-mean-more-hiking-and-less-fishing-s/