Great Land of Alaska

Mike and I tried an experiment--fishing from the shore on the Homer Spit. We caught some small halibut. When fishing off shore, you can't expect to catch anything over a couple pounds.

My first halibut fishing charter and I caught a couple nice halibut. They're not trophy sized, but halibut around this size have the best quality meat.

I caught this King Salmon in a small man-made lagoon on the Homer Spit. Although this fish had turned black, the meat quality was still quite good.

Mike, Kevin, and I tried some shore fishing off the Homer Spit in early spring. Not much luck though, the only catch was a sea anemone that Mike accidentally snagged.

I took a fishing charter out of Seward in June 2003 and did very well. The large halibut beside me (first picture) is mine, 140 pounds (64 kg) halibut and the largest one caught on that trip. The small one beside it is mine as well. There were three other guys and we all caught our limit.

A spring fishing trip to Homer. We didn't keep anything but did catch several fish including several chicken halibut that Mike caught (pictures 2-5), my cod (picture 6) and my Arctic Sculpin (picture 7).

Mike, his sister Christine, and I go clam digging for Razor Clams at Clam Gulch. They're pretty good eating, but you have to be careful when you stick your hand into the mud to retrieve one--there's a reason they're called "Razor" Clams. The odd-looking device is a clam gun--it's designed to suck up a chunk of sand or mud that hopefully contains a clam.

Mike and I went on a halibut charter in July 2004. We didn't do quite as well as we'd hoped, although we did each get some halibut and salmon. Some of the other guys on the charter (pictures 5 & 6) caught some nice halibut and rockfish. My salmon (picture 7) is almost bigger than the small halibut that I caught.

Another Homer Spit fishing expedition. Once again, we caught (and released) several fish including sculpins (pictures 4-6) and Starry Flounder (pictures 7 & 8).

My cousin Daniel and I did some combat fishing at the Fishing Hole (picture 1) and went on a halibut charter the next day. I caught a nice ugly sculpin (and released it) as well as some nice halibut. Daniel caught a nice halibut that was larger than mine.

I went on another halibut charter out of Seward in July 2006. The middle picture shows the entire boat's catch (there was six of us). The small Lingcod (leftmost fish in middle picture) is mine, as well as a couple average-sized halibut and none of the salmon. Only two of us passengers were Alaskans, everybody else was from the States. The guys from the States are probably bragging about how they bested the two Alaskan fishermen. The charter that came in after us had a Salmon Shark (last picture) that somebody caught.

Another halibut charter in August of 2008. This time I tried a different plance andwent from Ninilchik. I shared the charter with several younger guys and girls who were down from Fairbanks. The halibut were just the right size where there was enough meat and it was of good quality. I wanted to get a picture of my fish but my camera's batteries died and my spare batteries were dead as well.

A decent collection of halibut from the waters of Cook Inlet. The two halibut to my left are the ones I caught.