Alaska Report #2

[Lee Haskin]

For years I have wanted to persue sheefish in Alaska, and decided that this year would be the year. After some research, my 2 buddies and I decided on the Holitna River, near Sleetmute. We expected little pressure on the river, and indeed, we saw no other fisherman in 4 days running 30 miles from the mouth.

We used Google Earth to locate several sloughs and this turned out to be a great way to discover "out of the way" areas on the river.

The sheefish were found is known "sheefish holes", and if they were on the bite, they could be easily observed busting bait. Surface bugs worked well along with standard striper patterns.

This "hole" had sheefish ranging from 10 to 20 lbs. This fish is about 17#.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b382/LeeH/sheefishslideballphaaaresize1.jpg

For some reason a 4" gray/white Slideball slider seemed to interest the larger sheefish.


http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b382/LeeH/sheefishslideballaaaweb.jpg

This picture is interesting since it caught a jumping sheefish in mid-air!
Very cool. :)
There were a dozen fish in the air all the time! Nornally, they feed during low light periods, but with overcast/rainy conditions they ate throughout the day.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b382/LeeH/sheefishjumpingfishphaa.jpg

We did well on medium size pike around 10 lbs. with a few larger.

I will try and put up some pike pictures later.

Cheers,
Lee