Whittier Questions?????

[Skagit22.5]

I am thinking of taking my boat to Whittier (It is way closer for me than Homer). How far out of harbor due you have to run to start getting into decent halibut fishing? I am more interested in numbers than size, I got a 12 year old girl and she likes to catch fish. How far due you have to go for sharks? I would like to get ointo doing some of that on the strictly grown up trips. I really appriciate any help. I dont need to know your honey hole just some general info would be good, I will do my own on scene leg work.

[Paul H]

Decent halibut fishing requires a trip to Montague 70-90 miles from port. Sharks from what I've heard are out around Latouche.

IMHO the added time it takes to deal with the tunnel and the parking in Whittier, and expense, make's it a wash compared to heading down to Seward. I've found one can get into consistant quality fishing closer to port when heading out of Seward than Whittier, so even though Seward is a longer drive, you actually get more fishing in on a day trip out of Seward than you do out of Whittier.

[Skagit22.5]

Thanks for the info

[Brian M]

For shrimp, silvers, scenery, and safer waters, Whittier is great. It is also mind-blowing for pinks if you just want to get your kids on enough fish to wear them out. For halibut, though, it is less than stellar. There are a handful of pockets that will reliably produce 2-4 halibut, but nothing that will provide all-day action without running out as far as Paul mentioned. The issue is depth. Halibut are there, but they're found in the 1,000-2,000' water that covers the majority of the Sound.

[Skagit22.5]

Well that is not what I was hoping to hear, but better to know now. Thanks

[Bullelkklr]

Biran,

Have you caught a lot of halibut in those depth ranges? Not questioning just curious...

[akfishin]

The fishing for rockfish is great though. I just drop the hook in 50 feet of water and run between four kids pitching fish back I not the water. They love it, it's all about catching.

[Paul H]

One can have some excellent fishing trips out of Whittier, but unless you wait until later in the season when the salmon are in, you'll have to head out to at least the Night Island group to get into good fishing action. And if you don't limit yourself to halibut, you can have a blast landing rockfish and lingcod.

You can certainly fish closer in, but the catching will be anything but fast and furious. You'll here about people taking halibut much closer to port, and fish are taken closer to port, but typically that is somebody sitting on anchor and soaking bait for hours to produce a couple of fish. Personally I don't care for that type of "action"

To keep a kid entertained, hand them a salmon rod with a 3-6 oz jig and drift over rockpiles. They will be hooking fish and having a great time.

[FishGod]

The Quillback looks yummy!

[Brian M]

Biran,

Have you caught a lot of halibut in those depth ranges? Not questioning just curious...

Yep. We routinely catch halibut down to and below 2,000'.

[Paul H]

Quillbacks aren't too bad, but IMHO yelloweyes are the best eating rock fish, with black bass and quilbacks tied. I've had one silver/gray and even cooked up within an hour of catching it, there was something slightly off in the flavor/texture.

I think the most fun is finding a school of black bass at 30-40 feet, handing the kids salmon rods and light jigs, and standing by with the net. It's shallow enough that you can throw the small ones back w/o harm, and the kids can do alot of catching in short order.

[dabear]

Electric reel or arms of steel?

[Brian M]

Electric reel or arms of steel?

Hydraulics.

[FishGod]

I love China's and Shortrakers

[anchskier]

Hydraulics.

We caught a good amount of halibut down at 1200'+ back in the day commercial fishing. Didn't have to get too far out to do that. Even caught a good number of sharks at the same time (feeding on the halibut that were hooked like a buffet line until they got too greedy and hooked themselves). Always thought it would be fun to go back and sport fish for them, but never got the right gear setup for that depth.