Alaska Fishing with Gone Fishin’ Lodge: Part 1

Thanks for tuning into KSL Outdoors, I’m Adam Eakle and welcome to Alaska. Hey we’ve got a big group from Utah this year, including our good buddies from Camp Chef, SPJ, Rainy’s fly and of course our winner from the International Sportsman’s Expo, congratulations. Thank you. First time to Alaska. It is. I was just walking through the airport and just decided to jump with a guys with camouflage. And now you are here. Hey we are going to go show you some amazing fishing and we are going with our good friend Ralph from the Gone Fishin Lodge. >
I’m Ralph Crystal, owner of the Gone Fishin Lodge in Soldotna, Alaska.
There’s a lot of different fishing up here because we are located on the Kenai Peninsula.
We offer river fishing, drift boats, power boats, you can bank fish. We’ve got ocean vessels on the Cook inlet where you fish for halibut and over Seward and stuff, over in the Gulf of Alaska, we are doing multiple species trips for ling cod, rock fish, salmon, halibut. So we’ve got a lot of different things to do and that’s kind of our niche is the fact that variety in the activities that we can do.
Nestled on the bank of the Kenai river in the town of Soldotna is where you’ll find the Gone Fishin Lodge. This is our home base for the next week. The lodge is run much like a bed and breakfast for fisherman, with Ralph arranging your fishing excursions each day.
The first time people come up, we like to give them a variety of the things that we have to offer. Some people like things more than others. Some people don’t like to halibut fish, some people love it. So we can customize a trip for anybody. They just need to tell us what they want to do and we’ll arrange it.
So for our first stop we are headed out Talon Air Service, we are going after hopefully some silvers and maybe some reds, my favorite fish to eat. The guys are loaded up, let’s go.
Undoubtable one of the best ways to experience Alaska is by float plane. Our flight takes us over the Cook Inlet where we saw moose and bears from the air. But the best part of the flight was this up close up look at this huge, blue glacier that feeds the valley.
Our fishing destination is Big River Lake.
Well we’ve had a lot of rain the last week, so we’ve had a lot of high water. The water is really dirty because it’s glacial runoff, there’s a lot of silt in the river. So it’s been a lot tougher to get the silvers to hit on bait or even flies, But we’ve also got sockeyes over here. We are going to try and get some sockeyes at the same time on this trip today.
Oh yeah there was one, I see them now. We are sight fishing here.
there’s a fish. Who’s got it? Me. Alright.
holy mackerel. Do you want me to net him, over here?
Can you get him up on shore? Just came off. Just came off right there.
I love sockeye, you know the best eating fish we’ve got here I think in Alaska. Some people like the kings, the silvers, I’m really partial to the sockeye and we can catch these in Utah. They are not sockeye, they are kokanee, the landlocked form of the sockeye. Oh there he goes, he’s off.
We were hooking up, but just can’t seem to stay buttoned up.
stripping some line. oh… That’s alright.
Steve finally saved the day.
There we go! Fish on! Silver! Silver!
Keep the rod tip up. Nice job, nice silver. bring her in.
Got him in there, nice job. That’s a fish, look at that! woo baby. Yeah, one red, he swiped at it and missed him, but I got him. Yeah! we’ve got the spot baby! Oh he’s taking me to my backing. Oh baby, don’t lose him!
There it is right there. That’s a silver salmon about medium size up here. Did he loose him?
The silver salmon fishing has been slow according to ralph, the fish are here, but haven’t been very willing bite. Today however, they were giving us, our conventional rods, even our 9 weight fly rods, a run for our money.
See him chasing it. Right there. Got it? Ok, it’s a Silver, Mr. Eakle Did you see that! That thing is going crazy. Woo.
Alright, nice, nice, nice. Bring his head to me. nice fish. Another beauty.
oh. Another one? Yup. Another one, oh my gosh.
Woo, he’s got a double, there we go. oh yeah, oh he’s screaming. I love it. Look at these silvers, they are so much fun. Nice fish dude. net him. (fish bump with Jessie) Dude you are on fire.
Don’t lose him, don’t. That’s a good one. Look at that thick tank. That’s a nice fish Ralph. That’s a beauty. Look at your glasses, you are all wet. I’m having fun.
Hey you were worried today, because the fishing has been off, but look at that. We actually got our limit almost. That’s pretty good. I was pretty worried because the weather has been terrible, but we eked it out and we did a great job, had a fun day. I feel like Santa Claus.

We’ll today we are over in Seward Alaska, and we are going out on a trip we call a multiple species trip. We’ve got the opportunity here to catch halibut, ling cod, black bass, yellow eye and even some silver or king salmon. should be a great trip. You never know what you are going to pull up out here. We are going to be jigging, bouncing off the bottom. Maybe drifting a little bit. So, No chumming? Weather looks good. I’m hoping not to chum. I’m not chumming. I’m loaded up on Dramamine. Captain is here, let’s go.
The small town of Seward is one of my favorite Alaska destinations. It is downright beautiful. To get to the halibut grounds we take about a 2 hour boat ride through some pretty rough water.
Once there though, it was all hands on deck.
Pick the other rod to help him, he’s got to go under that one.
he’s coming back this way. Go, go, go. Over.
it’s head shaking and pulling some line. You never know you could get ling cod up here, it could yellow eye, but it looks like a halibut.
The captain, Jersey John as he likes to be called has taken us out and found not only a school a healthy halibut, but some silvers suspended right under the boat.
Reel down one more time. then you are just going to lift him up. Lift, lift, lift. there we go! in he goes. Woo. >
there he is. Yeah we got one. You got a fish there? It is organized chaos.
guys watch out, she’s going to come underneath you. Come under kid.
I’ve caught my over halibut and I’ve caught a silver salmon as well. It’s a little crazy? Little crazy yes.
right there. Nice job.
These multi fishing days are pretty impressive anything from yelloweye, dusky, black bass and of course we are catching salmon. They guys are running around. It is awesome to watch.
come up, slowly. nice fish. Big old silver.
The Gone Fishin Lodge offer you two chances at catching halibut. Here in Seward and
another trip at Anchor Point out on the Cook Inlet.
all of our fishing trips are fully guided.
all the gear, tackle, bait, boat, experienced guides. We want people to catch fish, that’s our goal.
The boat launch is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Here, a tractor hauls the boat, the crew and passagers down the beach and launches right in the bay.
The tides can range over 30 feet. We have the second largest tides in North America. So you get two high tides a day and two low tides. You have to fish around the tide change so on a big tide you’ll have an hour and a half on each side of the tide to be able to hold bottom. We use a 4 pound sinker. We always say you are fishing when it’s touching and you are done when it’s not.
There we go!
The big tides is the reason we have such a good fishery here. It brings lots of bait, lots of food moving in and out.
I’m not built for this. bologna, you are built like an anchor.
Urgg. it’s tough.
Reeling in a halibut is akin to pulling up a barn door off the ocean floor, some two hundred feet.
I’m sweating like I just ran a marathon baby.
Fish over a hundred pounds are possible here, but today we were finding most in the twenty five to forty inch range. Here the regulations allow us to keep, one fish under twenty eight inches and another of any size.
is that big enough. Yes. welcome aboard.
we don’t catch as many of big fish as we used to but we still have a lot of 30-50 pounders and an occasional big fish. Still a great halibut fishery.
That was so fast so furious. I lost my hat. I caught a five pound fish that felt like a 100 pound fish and my arms are dead.
Well guys that was fast fishing. You enjoy it Derrick? That was awesome, incredible. Not giant fish, but hey those are the best eating. We are going to find out right Brooks. Oh yeah grill one of these up on a pellet grill. You brought a pellet grill all the way from Salt Lake. We did, let’s see what we can do.

Welcome back to KSL Outdoors, I’m Adam Eakle along with Brooks Hansen from Camp Chef. We are sitting here on the Kenai River, earlier today we were out fishing for halibut and I said Brooks, “I’ve got my pellet grill in the backyard but I’ve never cooked halibut on it.” and you said; “you what?” Why is that? Most people think halibut you’ve got to bake it or you’ve got to make like fish and chips. Sure. Batter it and fry it. A pellet grill is a convection style cooking. So it works just like an oven. So what we’ve done is we’ve thrown some halibut in here and it’s cooking it just like you would in your oven. We’ll turn the heat up a little higher to about 325 degrees and it’s going to give it a little bit of a smokey flavor because that heat source is that true hard wood. My favorite thing to cook on. Let’s take a look at them real quick. Tell people what you did here. We took some halibut fillets, we caught these in the Cook Inlet today and we sliced the open. We stuffed them full of cream cheese, a little bit of cooked shrimp and then we seasoned it with our Camp Chef Citrus Herb Seasoning, a little bit of salt and pepper and then added som lemon juice and some lime juice to flavor. Stuffed halibut on a pellet grill. It doesn’t have to be smoked but it’s cooked with that wood flavor. You guys just came out with these new seasonings? Yeah, a new line of seasonings. We’ve got a Mango Chipotle rub, an All purpose seasoning and a Savory BBQ. Use them for pork beef? Pork, beef, chicken and then obviously fish. I’m excited for this one. You know I have done everything but halibut and I’m going home and doing halibut because I love my pellet grill. I have thrown my traditional BBQ in the garbage. I don’t use it anymore. I wish I had a dollar for everytime I’ve heard somebody say that, because these are an awesome, awesome cooking tool. They really are. It made me so much better of a chef, I was terrible. Alright, I’m just going to try a sliver here. This was literally caught four hours ago. That is really good. And it’s got shrimp inside of it right? I wanted to stuff it and give it a little flavor. Halibut is a mild fish, a mild white fish and just add a little variety. Gawl they look beautiful. Dinner is served. There we go. Let’s go eat. Hey we’ve got more fishing to do later tomorrow.

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