Fish of the week during my brief stay... caught by Barb Adams... a 50 pounder to celebrate her 50th Anniversary to hubby Winston. (Yeah, they let me hold it up for a pic before the guide bled the colors out of it). Can you say G-I-R-T-H?



Fork length 44.5 by an astounding 31.75 around. Boggles the mind even when you see the real deal up close and personal. Any fish that fat on the Kenai would typically be about 52 inches long, give or take an inch.

holy sh!t Doc! They don't come any nicer than that. I love that purplish hue on the back of a nice king.

B E A U T I FISH!

Nice purple back.Gotta love it.Good luck,
SZ

Even a "non-Chinook fisher", thinks that is a awesome fish......amount of sea lice is something...

Have a good time....

THAT THING IS A BEAST!

I want one!!!!


Nice fish.

Fishy

Now that's a Tyee!

The lodge fished 14 rods each day I was there. Each day there was at least one fish over 40# taken.

But we sure logged a ton of rod hours for those kings. No boat ever came home with more than 3 kings... 1 or 2 was typical... with an occasional skunking.

Other species made up for the lack of king action... and all were taken on trolled gear, mainly whole herring and Apex's. The piscatorial potpourri included true cod, chicken halibut, black rocks, a mystery salmon (that I will post up later for the resident fish ID experts on the board), a sea-run dolly, and a world record pollock sporting a cataract in one eye.

After record winter snow, spring was barely limping along in Old Harbor.... just the faintest touches of green splattered the hillsides. First two days were cold and dreary, with barely a blue hole peeking thru the clouds. After a couple days of sun, the landscape was noticeably greener, but still very anemic compared to Anchorage

The big red king pictured above came to Barb mid-morning on day 1. After 4 more potential chances for the boat, I finally tagged my first salmon late on day 2, a white-jawed non-AK red king of 16#. Winston took a nearly identical cookie cutter white king an hour later. The clouds parted on day 3 and Barb was rewarded with the prettiest electric purple/blue/turquoise-hued king I've ever laid eyes on. The 20 pounder was sporting a white jaw and spotless platinum pearlescence in the tail remiscent of the URB's and summers we've taken in the Columbia. Day 4 the intense AK sunshine came out in full force, not only warming the air and water, but also illuminating our gear down to depths of 33 ft to the naked eye. Time for the SPF 70 sunblock .... and as usual, half nekkid by high noon! I tagged the mystery fish of the trip, my first salt-caught blueback salmon! Winston tagged a 6# "prince" salmon a few hours later. We ended the day with 3 jumbo black sebastes that dwarfed Win's mini-king.

Day 5, I switched to a different boat/guide for a half day trip with VISION Hooks/Tackle CEO Randy Prengel. Hooked into my first good fish of the entire trip... I called it perhaps mid-30's in the water. It peeled line out to 100 yds while we tried to mooch up a double. Slowly worked it back to the boat where the tug of war ended with the platinum pig coming unbuttoned under tension right beneath the boat. No hook-spittin' involved.... it just pulled free before w could put a net around it. And while that fish would have been a nice addition to my fish box, the lodge fishmonger had already accumulated a 50# box of groceries for me... mostly unwanted collars from other guests' salmon.

So despite the lackluster action, I came home with more than enough fish to eat, got to see and touch some pretty special kings in the absolute prime of their life, learned a whole lot about new and novel ways to rig a whole herring, and absorbed it all in a most stunning setting. More pics to come after taking care of loose ends at the office and working off some steam at the local Y.

Nice, was just thinking we were overdue to see some Kodiak hawgs, hope to see some off Prince of Wales in a month or so.

Timing is EVERYTHING. Head guide today boated 4 kings.... 62, 59, and a couple in the 40's.

Hopefully, I time it a little better in a couple years.

Awesome Piggy!

Fish Doc - Hopefully everyone on this BB fully appreciates the magnificant animal that you're holding. A very large adult Chinook salmon in it's prime and fresh from the salt is a sight that will not be forgotten. Truly a fish of a lifetime. I've never seen one "in-person" that is anything close to that fish. Well done.

Regardless of whoever caught it, thanks for sharing!

What a hawg, nice fish.

A magnum collar off that beast is about to hit the broiler in 15 minutes. Sitting on the counter seasoned with salt, MSG, fresh cracked pepper... topped with fresh minced ginger and a light brush of olive oil to give it a nice crust.

Time to enjoy a Fat Tire and a big bowl of razor clam chowder while the fish is cooking.

You know how to live!

Funny how captain Geoff Bechtol and I watched that fish come up to the downrigger ball to check out that bait. Geoff went on to explain how the big kings come up, check out the gear, sound a few feet, then come back up for a second look. Not 10 seconds later.... "FISH FISH FISH!" as peeling line made the click alarm scream in protest. Win hollered, "Barb you're up, babe!"

"What happened to all my line?" she asked....



"I can't do it, Geoff... I can't do it"
"Oh, yes you can," replied the captain.



Win to the rescue....



Almost there....



OMFG.... I see color!



Yeah, baby.... in the bag! Oh my.... what a pig!



Check out the lice....



.... and the signature fNp headshot, pre-wood-shampoo.



Chrome to the bone!

Wow, that is one hell of a specimen. Thanks again for sharing Doc.

cool image sequence!

thanks,

Does my hart good to see an older couple out on a fishing adventure like that.




Ya did yell at em didn't ya


gdmit NOOO Loww an to the Fkin LEFFFFT realrealreal

Beautiful fish!

Your "color" shot is dynamite!


Beautiful fish!

That was like being there..thanks

I love that silver bling under-the-water shot. Killer!

Very slabish!

Good Job Barb!

where are they from?

Fish like that are what has kept me coming back for 22 years now, gets in your blood.

A fidy pound King to me is WAY more impressive than a #20 Steelhead.

Day 2 finally put me on the board. Got brave and dug the good camera outta the waterproof bag during the brief sunbreaks. Old Harbor really is a stunning setting to wet a line, surrounded by majestic peaks 360 degrees... and nearly always trolling a stone's throw from shore.





Marked several fish and had several drive-by's on whole bait, then hours of nothing. Switched up and trolled thru the same water to show 'em something a little different.... PAY DIRT!









No where near as big as Barb's but after more than 24 hours since landing the last salmon, it was a well-earned fish.

It's highly possible that this fish was a CR fish perhaps headed for the Hanford Reach.

My apologies for low-holing the guy who would otherwise catch this potential URB at Buoy 10 this August... or the guy fishing upriver boots in the Reach.

That is cool to be soo close to shore. And what a shoreline!

Fish Doc - How can you tell this fish originated in the Hanford Reach?

It appears to be missing some of it's adipose fin, although it's hard to discern from the photos. But if that's the case, it's probably not from the Hanford Reach. Most of the fish produced in the Reach are wild fish.

Nice fish nonetheless! Thanks for sharing the wonderful pics.

I can't... I was just speculating. URB's are a white-jawed stock of fall chinook. The fish is too far away to be a CR summer and CR springers have dusky grey/black jaws.

The only thing I know for sure is it's NOT an Alaska fish. There are no wild stocks of white-jawed kings in Alaska.

The adipose was most assuredly intact.

I did see a 43# clipped fish taken by one of the other boats.

Wow, nice pictures and nice fish

What an amazing king! What is the mark on the side of the fish from?
Neal

NAH... unless of course you include the Kaluida Boys





And just in case anyone was wondering....

ALL hatchery fish MUST die!

Dandy fish !
Those are the images you want in your mind's eye as you anticipate the next takedown.

Resurrecting this this thread as an example of how far things can go south in a matter of only TWO chinook generations.

The BigBoy is likely a Skeena king originating from Kitsumkalum stock. Those fish are gone... gone... GONE.

This is from a report I copy/pasted from BC...

Skeena chinook in 2024 saw what may be their worst return on record. This continues an almost 15-year downward trend. It is interesting how Alaskan and northern B.C. chinook abundance has diverged from southern B.C. and the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon, which have seen improving abundance in the last couple of years. This is not unusual. We have seen this in the past. A decline in chinook abundance often begins in their southern range and moves north over a decade or more.
Recovery also usually begins in the south and gradually moves north in response to changes in their marine environment. Will chinook abundance in the north eventually improve as many southern chinook populations have? All we can do is hope, while protecting the habitat and getting as many as possible back to spawn every year.

So I went through all that wonderful thread, only to have it end with this posting ?

Well as an old Leopoldian , it’s like having someone jamming a stick in my other eye. First eye went with the Steelhead in Washington...

You won’t catch me again.

I am most of the way through Williams and Lichatowich's new book Managed Extinction. While it kinda centers on the Columbia they do venture up to at least Northen BC and down the Oregon Coast documenting how we consciously destroyed our anadromous fish stocks. Sobering reading. Among other things they talk a lot about shifting baselines and how we have cumulatively forgotten what we've lost.

I imagine you have heard this quote before.... " A curious thing happens when fish stocks decline: People who aren't aware of the old levels accept the new ones as normal. Over generations, societies adjust their expectations downward to match prevailing conditions" Kennedy Warne, Nat. Geo. April 2007.

I was lucky in my management days that I was associated with Fraser Sockeye. One of the perks was that the end of season meeting was held on one of the primary spawning grounds for that year's return. Among other things, we got to helicopter over the spawning grounds. Seeing millions of fish one the grounds doing their thing was impressive. It so happened that one of those years (mid-80s) we had a super bonanza of pinks. I was able to take my staff up in the WDF plane and look at the Skagit, especially, to see the million or more pinks. I wanted staff to see what real escapements looked like.

Even earlier, the small creek I worked on a lot hosted about 4,000 chum in a mile and a half of crik. The plowed the whole thing up. That was actually where the idea that lots of spawners benefit the ecosystem was born. We were sampling the stream regularly and the steelhead and coho in amongst the spawners were plugged with eggs and carcass remnants.

Pokin the behind side with your left hand during the pic really makes that wide body chrome pop! Nice fish from 2012.