Fishing at Salmon Run

I went to the Salmon Run Fishing Lodge near Juneau Alaska in August with some friends from college. I can say without any doubt that it was the best fishing experience of my life. You can see some pictures they posted on their Instagram feed as well as some of mine in the links below.

You get your own 3-person boat and can stay as close or far from shore as you like. You can stay on the water for roughly 12 hours if you want or you can come back and forth to the lodge for lunch or come back early if you are tired.

It wasn’t cheap (see their web site for pricing) so everyone has to think about their own value proposition, but I do think it was a good value. The lodge provides all the food, gear, fish cleaning/packing, and boats. All you have to do is show-up and fish for 5 days.

Getting There

As I said, this was the best fishing experience of my life. I should also mention that it was the only fishing experience of my life. I had literally never cast a line from a fishing rod into the water before.

Just so you don’t think I’m a total idiot, one of the guys in our group is a passionate fisherman and has been fishing since he was a kid. He has fished at various places in Alaska in the past (including Salmon Run) and is convinced that this place is the best.

The main reason I went is because he and the other guys who had gone previously kept telling me how amazing it was. I figured that if a bunch of experienced angler’s thought so highly of it and were willing to bring a goofball like me along, I couldn’t turn it down.

To get to the lodge, we first had to fly to Juneau. My flight connected through Seattle and took most of the day (probably around 14 hours including the layover). After spending some time in Juneau, we flew on a Super Otter seaplane to the lodge.

It was a cozy flight with the passengers casually talking to the pilot. We picked up a few interesting tidbits like how old the plain was (more than 60 years old if I remember right) and why we generally went around the mountains and kept the plane over water (because sometimes the engines can go out and you have to crash land which is easier on water).

We arrived at the lodge on the shore of Excursion Inlet late in the afternoon. After picking out our bunks (I was in a room with three other guys but at least we had our own bathroom and shower), and a brief orientation (“if you go into the woods you might get eaten by a bear”), we had some snacks and did a little fly fishing off the dock before dinner.

First Day on the Water

We had breakfast at the lodge early in the morning and then got on the boats. I was lucky to be with an amazing fisherman (whom I’ll call “the Captain”) who taught me the basics and told me the three key rules of fishing:

1. Don’t leave fish to find better fish.
2. You can’t catch fish if your line isn’t in the water.
3. Actually I can’t remember the third rule. Maybe it was “always keep tension on the line” or something like that?

I was nursing a neck and shoulder injury which was pretty painful despite alternating advil and tylenol. Frankly I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle being on the water for almost 12 hours with a bunch of pros. To my continued astonishment, however, three of the people in our group were grandfathers who I think were close to 80 years old. I remember thinking (1) I hope I’m like that when I get older and (2) even with the injury, I can’t wimp out.

We drove our small 3 person boat out into the inlet to go Halibut fishing. Our captain gave a great explanation of how to use the gear and then promptly caught 3 or 4 fish while I kept getting my bait stripped. Eventually I got lucky and managed to pull in a small Halibut!

I’m guessing it was maybe 15 pounds. It was the first fish I ever caught in my life and I felt wonderful. The Captain looked at me and asked “Do you want to keep it?”

There is a strict 2 Halibut per person limit and I bet the Captain was thinking about the 120 pounder he had caught the year before. I looked at him to see if he was joking. “Do I want to keep it?! Of course, I want to keep it! It’s the first fish I’ve ever caught!”

He shrugged and said, “Yeah. It’s OK. It’s a decent size I suppose.” I still don’t know if he was just messing with me.

Fish On!

After we caught our limit of Halibut, we motored back closer to shore and setup the boat to go trolling for Salmon. Probably anyone reading this far already knows what that means. But just in case you don’t, it means attaching your rods to the boat and move forward slowly to drag the lines behind and get the fish to bite.

Unlike Halibut fishing which seemed pretty labor intensive (at least to someone with an injured neck and shoulder that had never fished), trolling for Salmon seemed easy.

We got our lines in the water and started moving as the Captain explained the plan. While he was talking, one of the rods started shaking around and the Captain grabbed it, yelled “Fish on!” and started reeling it in. We couldn’t find a net so the Captain just kind of flung the Salmon into the boat.

We talked about what happened and looked around for a net. As we did that, another line started shaking and the Captain yelled “Fish on!” again and explained that if we saw things moving we should yell so everyone could get organized.

I remember thinking, “Boy, the Captain is really excited about fishing. I mean you just put the lines in the water and 15 minutes later you get a bite and start pulling it up. It looks fun, but why is he so worked up about the yelling. If we miss one fish, we just wait a few minutes and get another.”

A little later, I got to yell “Fish on!” and reel one in. That made me appreciate how excited the Captain felt. We pulled in a pretty good haul that day (almost as much as when we took a picture on the rack). But over the next couple of days I realized that sometimes it can be a couple of hours before you get a bite so having a “Fish on!” really is worth yelling about.¹

Beginner’s Luck

The whole week of fishing was amazing. There was rain, seasickness, misidentifying fish, losing fish, and various other minor excitement. On the last day, I got lucky and with the help of my boat mates landed a 49 pound Halibut!

Honestly, I’m still kind of amazed that some random goofball like me is allowed to go to a place like Salmon Run.