# Silver Salmon in Alaska



## derekp1999 (Nov 17, 2011)

Recently spent a week in Yakutat, AK fishing for silver (coho) salmon with friends and family. Between 12 guys we ended up bringing home 785lbs of salmon fillets.

I'm posting pictures and some brief videos on my blog over the next several days... link in my signature or https://utahbiggameodds.blogspot.com/2019/10/playing-with-our-food-in-yakutat-ak-day.html


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## DallanC (Jan 13, 2009)

Holy crap thats alot of Fillets. I'll bet it was pricey shipping it home. How many days fishing?

We were in Juneau around mid August, coho weren't there in great numbers yet, but we did ok. Largest Coho was a chunky 14lb'er. Limited out on Halibut each day and got some bonus cod caught along the way. 

How are accommodations in Yakutat? I've been alot of places in Alaska but never there.


-DallanC


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## derekp1999 (Nov 17, 2011)

DallanC said:


> Holy crap thats alot of Fillets. I'll bet it was pricey shipping it home. How many days fishing?
> 
> We were in Juneau around mid August, coho weren't there in great numbers yet, but we did ok. Largest Coho was a chunky 14lb'er. Limited out on Halibut each day and got some bonus cod caught along the way.
> 
> ...


This was my first trip and apparently we stayed at a pretty decent place. My only complaint was the connectivity, WiFi was extremely spotty and I didn't have cell service to be able to communicate with my wife... but I was in Alaska for crying out loud! We arrived on a Friday morning and left the following Friday evening with an overnight layover in Seattle... so including travel it was 8 days but we really only fished 5 days because we didn't fish on Sunday, or the Friday/Saturday we left and got home.

Breakfast was included at the B&B we stayed at and we brought all the rest of our food. We all ended up checking two bags in SLC, one personal bag and one box/cooler of food. So coming home the fish just replaced the food we brought as our second checked bag. It worked out pretty well I thought. There were 3 guys that had a 3rd bag coming home, and Alaska airlines allows the 3rd bag to be up to 100lbs (they're going to charge you $100 anyway so may as well max out the weight) so that accounted for 300lbs of fish there.

We didn't do any fishing off shore... a couple of the guys had done that before and didn't have the stomach to do it again. So we ended up arranging for two fly outs to one of the non-road accessible rivers which was awesome.


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## DallanC (Jan 13, 2009)

Odd, we only took carry on's on the flight up w/ Alaska Airlines. On the return trip we had the same carry on bags, but checked 2 boxes of fish for the return flight and they charged us I think $30 per box.

Ocean for us was fantastic and smooth, I've been on Strawberry with rougher water.

Anytime to be in Alaska is a good time!


-DallanC


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## derekp1999 (Nov 17, 2011)

With the Alaska Airlines Visa we got our first bag free and our second for $40, I didn't think it wasn't too bad. 

Next time I do this trip again I will definitely do it differently with baggage. We under-utilized our carry on and allowed personal item when it came to packing our gear on the way up there but were able to consolidate several bags on the way home better utilizing our carry on bags.

We also brought way too much food, and everything that we had leftover we just left for the gal that was running the B&B.


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## johnnycake (Jul 19, 2011)

Nice! Can't wait to see the rest of the days' reports. 

When the fishing is good and you play the checked/carryon luggage game right you can cost justify the trip if you wish--but those trips tend to have a level of stress that takes out some of the fun in my opinion if you really need to justify the cost to the wife. There are basically an unlimited ways to plan an Alaska fishing adventure, and so many different unique regions to explore-Yakutat is one of the ones on my to do list someday. Glad you had a great time!

One thing about Delta sky miles members that travel on the same itinerary is that the # of free bags is cumulative. For example, as a Delta sky miles member I get 1 free bag as do everyone traveling with me. My wife has her own sky miles number and everybody with her gets a free bag. When my wife and I fly on the same itinerary, then everybody gets 2 free bags. My daughter (6yrs) now has her own account and so we now get 3 free bags each as a family when we all travel together. Alaska Airlines does not stack up the baggage the same way unfortunately, but they fly to more destinations in Alaska, so we play both the Alaska and Delta games.


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## Catherder (Aug 2, 2008)

Any games played with the airlines is much better than what we had to pay when we went on our cruise and had to have the fish shipped directly from Ketchikan. We only fished for 3 1/2 hours but it was painful when the credit card bill arrived. :shock: 

The fresh salmon fillets have been awesome though. :EAT:


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## derekp1999 (Nov 17, 2011)

I posted pics from day two earlier today...

https://utahbiggameodds.blogspot.com/2019/10/playing-with-our-food-in-yakutat-ak-day_3.html?m=1


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## DallanC (Jan 13, 2009)

Wooooo some of those Bulls are getting pretty ripe!


-DallanC


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## derekp1999 (Nov 17, 2011)

Day 3 is up on my blog: https://utahbiggameodds.blogspot.com/2019/10/playing-with-our-food-in-yakutat-ak-day_4.html

Day 3 was Sunday, we attended church and had some "interesting" conversations with the local congregation members. No fishing but we did get in some sightseeing of some of the local attractions.


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## derekp1999 (Nov 17, 2011)

I just published Day 4 on my blog (https://utahbiggameodds.blogspot.com/2019/10/playing-with-our-food-in-yakutat-ak-day_6.html). We got back to fishing in a big way on a chartered fly out to a nearby river. The flight was amazing & the fishing phenomenal. Monday, day 4, was the start of several days of epic adventure and excellent fishing.


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## derekp1999 (Nov 17, 2011)

Day 5 is published now... https://utahbiggameodds.blogspot.com/2019/10/playing-with-our-food-in-yakutat-ak-day_7.html


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## derekp1999 (Nov 17, 2011)

Here's Day 6: https://utahbiggameodds.blogspot.com/2019/10/playing-with-our-food-in-yakutat-ak-day_11.html

This was our second to last day of fishing and one of the guys that was with us finally got the drone out. Sadly, there is something wrong with the gimbal so the video is kind of choppy and we would only get 15 to 20 second clips of usable video.


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## derekp1999 (Nov 17, 2011)

And finally here's the last day: https://utahbiggameodds.blogspot.com/2019/10/playing-with-our-food-in-yakutat-ak-day_13.html

This really was an amazing adventure, especially spending the time with my dad and brother. The brother's in law were definitely nice to have there... but to spend the time with two great men that I have grown up fishing with and always dreaming about having an adventure like this was just special. It makes me look forward to when I can go and have all my boys with me.


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## Vanilla (Dec 11, 2009)

Good stuff Derek! Thanks for sharing. Alaska salmon is a bucket list item for me. Has been for 25 years. Seems like it’s about time I check that one off.


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## DallanC (Jan 13, 2009)

Vanilla said:


> Good stuff Derek! Thanks for sharing. Alaska salmon is a bucket list item for me. Has been for 25 years. Seems like it's about time I check that one off.


Do it!!! DOOOEEEEETTTTTT!!!

We made it up this summer, after a 18 year gap from our last trip. It was a blast. Sad about the halibut restrictions but it is what it is. We did 2 days of halibut / coho combos. Limited out on halibut daily and did ok on Coho. Brought back 74lbs of Saltwater coho and halibut.

-DallanC


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