# Ketchikan, AK Silver King Lodge 8/17-22



## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

Just returned from the long awaited trip for the old man's 75th bday with him, my brother and his son. 
The Silver King came highly recommended and also is the most affordable 7 day place around. We are already planning the next trip, but likely as DIY now that we have a feel for how and that way we can go more often.
We just have the little 14' skiffs with 15 hp engine first day was poor not really knowing where to go or how to do it. Wednesday we went to the place my neighbor recommending the place and killed them with 5-10lb silvers with around 11 or so in the first three hours, not to mention numerous misses from net or dull hooks, etc. Afternoons were always slow, couldn't get the halibut going at all anywhere anyhow even during slack tide with anchor and without even over 300' of water.
We rented larger boats on Thursday and Saturday, both days had bad weather really ruining fishing, but we still managed a few. Killed them again on Friday with a couple just surpassing the 10lb mark. 
Food was incredible. Staff was awesome, but fishing was quite slow on average. WE hit it pretty hard from as early as they would let us go out staying out as late as they allow and caught the most of all groups there. We were a week early as the historical fish counts have been best last week of August and first week of September, but they are usually fully booked for those weeks by teh same group every year.
next time we will likely get a free flight from getting the Alaskan Air credit card and book a house through VRBO for about $2,000/week or so some including poles and all but food. Just get food from the Wal-mart and stay out all day with our cooler. Rent a boat from a resort there for around $225/day. buy our own poles and reels. That should come out to be about half of what we paid if not less with at least 4 guys splitting it up. 
We were just pulling bait all day of herring with the double hook set up on 30 lb line. For halibut we tried the herring and salmon remains ended up with nothing but flounder and lots of rockfish. Also about 6 spiny dog fish, the one that looks like a shark. Saw humpbacks every day up pretty close. 
Weather was in the upper 50's with mostly cloudy pretty much all week. Light rain a few times, big storm Friday night just made it rough in teh more open bays, but fine in the protected ones on Saturday, but sure ruined the fishing. Lots of ties to Utah there, the half of the staff is from here and the other half from distant parts of AK. Similar to Doc Warners up farther north with most staff local, being owners live in Bountiful; we saw their staff headed home on our same flight with crap loads of fish. We brought home about 160 lbs of silvers between four of us, considering they yield about 50% we averaged about 16 lbs of fish per day. Feel free to ask any questions; I wanted to get this in writing to remind of a few things as we plan the next trip. we are also looking at teh FS cabins up there, but they are mainly very remote for rivers only, not sure how you would take care of any fish yet alone bring them back on a limited weight float plane. The float plane ride in was awesome and surprisingly very smooth.


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## longbow (Mar 31, 2009)

DANG RIGHTS! Looks like you had a blast.


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## Packout (Nov 20, 2007)

Sounds like you guys made some good memories. Wish your Dad could have hooked into a halibut, but lots of salmon in the photos. The sand shark is neat too. Life experience for sure!

It is really hard to figure out the fishing in a few days-- especially now that AK doesn't allow the self guided lodges to give out gps coordinates. Having done the self-guided thing, partially guided and fully guided I think a trip to a new area should always have a guided day or two. That way you can learn the area and then go hit it on your own. You guys did well.

In ten days we will head to AK for a week. If we are lucky enough to catch some halibut I'll bring some back for you guys. Thanks for the post, it gets the blood pumping.


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## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

Packout said:


> Sounds like you guys made some good memories. Wish your Dad could have hooked into a halibut, but lots of salmon in the photos. The sand shark is neat too. Life experience for sure!
> 
> It is really hard to figure out the fishing in a few days-- especially now that AK doesn't allow the self guided lodges to give out gps coordinates. Having done the self-guided thing, partially guided and fully guided I think a trip to a new area should always have a guided day or two. That way you can learn the area and then go hit it on your own. You guys did well.
> 
> In ten days we will head to AK for a week. If we are lucky enough to catch some halibut I'll bring some back for you guys. Thanks for the post, it gets the blood pumping.


I can appreciate that that is why Longbow is hosting next time, mighty nice offer of him, so I accepted. Just kidding! we had the benefit of a neighbor who goes to this same lodge every year with pretty specific instructions and verification with teh dock guys as to what had been working the previous week as they now every story of every fish. I think we plan on hitting the exact same place, maybe just get out a little farther for halibut or take a half day with a guide for slacktide time. Kind of weird how your limit is half if you are guided, they have some odd rules. I also had a king that almost jumped in the boat, had two silvers jump right in, didnt have a tape, but it must have been at least 26.5 very possibly 28" had to let him go, very hard thing to do! It is all I can think about, maybe it will be our next UWN retreat and i can use that to offset some of my mod income to reduce my tax liability. :mrgreen: Everyone must go, won't regret it.

packout-To which part are you heading?


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## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

A few more pics for anyone who cares, should be self explanatory.
Flounder, 30 lb ling cod by other guests, lodge pets sitka blacktails, saw humpbacks pretty much daily. Had two silvers jump in the boat. Other guests had a bald eagle hit a guy in teh back of his head going for the fish he had just released hitting a pole into teh water getting wrapped in teh line, so they netted it and pinned it against teh boat to keep them from dying while untangling him, pretty wild stuff.


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## Packout (Nov 20, 2007)

Nice photos and some good stories. We will be on Admiralty Island at Pybus. The guided regs are a little tough. Our trip is both guided and self guided so we can hopefully pick up a couple each halibut some days. We will see, it was great last year. Congrats again on making it happen for you Dad.


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## Dunkem (May 8, 2012)

Wow,nice trip Huge.That is also on my bucket list.


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