Quiet Fishing Holes ?

[ronnyboy007]

Just wondering if anyone else was planning to get away from the madding crowd and wet a line for Trout. I'll be doing the inside passage cruise May16 and was thinking about bringing a small spinning outfit with a couple of small spoons or Mepps. I'll be going from Ketchikan to Whittier with all the usual ports in between, then a rental SUV to Denali. So, there must be a few lazy creeks between those points. I don't want to do the deepwater excursions for Halibut but have seen all sorts of small inland water. I can just look at the map and head for what looks good but thought maybe someone knows about a "special" spot for some ultralight tackle.......Thanks

[wolfie11]

Your best bet is to take a fly-in trip out of one of the ports or Anchorage. Mid-May is too early for any salmon runs and most of the streams close to major ports either don't support many fish (all that glacial silt) or are close to civilization and get heavily fished. One of my personal favorites is a creek on the way to Denali called Sunshine Creek, but that is mostly for salmon during the runs. We have also caught many a salmon, cutthroat, dolly, and steelhead in SE Alaska, but the river we fish is a charter flight, a 10-mile drive, and a three mile hike from the nearest cruise ship port.

 

That being said, May is good time to fish for Dolly Varden and you can inquire locally to see if they are running. Remember that you have to have a fishing license and prices for non-residents are around $10 a day or $100 for the year.

 

This info is mainly for the Skagway-Juneau area. I don't know anything about Sitka and Ketchikan.

[Yukon]

For Arctic grayling in a spectacular setting, try the mouth of the very short creek at Km 41.1 of the South Klondike Highway out of Skagway (rent a car from Avis) - see a photo of the location on my guide at http://www.explorenorth.com/library/roads/sklondike-photos1.html

The railway bridge at Carcross can also be very good for grayling and small lake trout (2-3-pounders), but is often crowded.

 

Murray

[ronnyboy007]

Thanks Wolfie and Yukon,,,, Dolly Vardens and Arctic Grayling,,,,sounds interesting,,,I'll try the creek out of Skagway and Sunshine Creek on the way to Denali. Maybe I'll get lucky maybe not but it's just being there that counts, right? (of course, catching a few fish would be nice too....) :)