Back in 1995, I spent a bit of time in Alaska (Sand Point and Dutch Harbor, to be exact) on the commercial end of the fishing spectrum. Winter on the Aleutian chain is no picnic, but I found it to be a rewarding experience nonetheless. I promised myself to return some day to enjoy the riches of these beautiful Alaskan waters as a sportfisherman — that is, any time except winter — and looked forward to battling the ultimate oceanic Alaskan adversary… big-brute Pacific halibut.
After some consideration, I decided to go "pro" this year and start entering some tournaments. I contacted Steve Carson and, on his advice, signed up for the 4th annual Penn Reels Alaska Grand Slam tournament, hosted by Kingfisher Lodge in Sitka, and conducted by him and Ron Kovach. I also managed to talk my husband Jeff into joining me, having so admirably weathered the unexpected 8-10 foot Sea of Cortez during our East Cape trip last November. To fill our boat for each of the three days of the tournament, we teamed up with a father and son combo from Southern California, who came recommended by a friend.
Jeff and I flew into Sitka on a Thursday, a couple of days in advance of the tournament, to tour the town and visit some of the local tackle shops. A couple months earlier, I had hooked up with a new tackle manufacturer, Emperor Tackle, and they supplied me with some of their gold-plated, stainless steel hooks to use in the tournament. So I was eager to show them off. I was rather impressed by the shops I visited: Murray Pacific, a huge store that supplies both sport and commercial gear; Fly Away Fly Shop, who cater to the fly fisherman’s every needs; Russell’s (Harbor Drive), a large sporting goods store with a nice array of gear and knowledgeable staff (including the Alaskan Amber sweatshirt I had been looking for); and Orion Sporting Goods (Halibut Point Road). We even stopped in at Orion after our very last day of fishing to present Bert with one of my gold-plated 17/0 circle hooks that had just seen a whole lotta action.
During our time in Sitka, we found we really didn’t need a car to get around, as the weather was great and we needed to walk off the excellent cuisine (yes, I can actually use the word cuisine!) offered up by many of the restaurants in the downtown area. For you coffee lovers out there don’t miss the Mojo Café on Lincoln, and if you’re planning on going to Ludvig’s Bistro over on Katlian Street, reservations would be worth checking into. A night of dancing to live music at Ernie’s Old Time Tavern was yet another way to burn some calories and meet a few of the more colorful locals, such as Charlie the "reefer" man. Charlie handles most of the refrigeration in town and mentioned he had just been out to check on the system at Kingfisher. He assured us that our catch would be in top notch condition.
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Dave Marcin and his son Adam with a lunker lingcod,
photo by Bev Seltzer
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Saturday evening we transplanted ourselves from the Sitka Hotel to the Kingfisher Lodge, moving from quaint to plush! I’ve stayed at a lot of places all over the world, and these guys are definitely dialed in to providing the ultimate fishing experience. Kingfisher is a pleasant marriage of style and efficiency, staffed with friendly, talented and enthusiastic people. I have to admit, if I had found mints on the pillow it would’ve been a little too much! On arrival, Jeff and I met up with our boat mates, Dave Marcin and his son Adam, who turned out to be wonderful companions on our fishing excursions. During the first of our sumptuous dinners — prime rib that night — Steve Carson and Ron Kovach explained the rules of the event to the 44 anxious anglers. Not experiencing the jet lag that most had to contend with, I promptly sniffed out the poker game in the condo next door. Introductions went around the table… Rocky, Gary… and although I can’t remember everybody’s name I do remember that most of the names ended with the letter y. I also found out that a Tady reel bag will hold a lot of nickels, dimes and quarters. Luck was a lady tonight… hope it stays with me.
Shortly after breakfast, about 6 am Sunday morning (I would have said "the crack of dawn" if the late spring Alaskan sun hadn't been up a couple hours already), we piled into vans and shuttled to our boats awaiting us at the harbor. For the first day of the tournament we drew Captain Casey Gould and the vessel Nautilus. By the rules, each day we would go out on a different boat, which gave us a great opportunity to engage the talents of these fine skippers.
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Underwater
photo by Bev Seltzer
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As would be the custom every morning, the boat first ran to the salmon spot where we intended to put our limit of four fish (one per angler) in the box. I opened a fresh bottle of John Beath’s super scent and started to juice the hootchies. Within a short span of time, the smell of salmon was wafting over the deck igniting the competition. Standard trolling gear for the salmon consisted of light to medium action rods on downriggers with flashers and hootchies. Over the three days, we found our salmon at depths between 90 and 140 feet.
With all of our requisite salmon on board, we headed out to a deep spot over 500 feet and tossed the anchor down. Medium to heavy outfits loaded with Spectra and baited with salmon innards liberally goobered with scent started off our "soak" interval. (Now is your chance to eat lunch.) Halibut have a way of finding you once you send out the invitation to stop by for a snack. But more than two hours went by and we still hadn't gotten an RSVP. About the time you start to think you may have parked over the Sahara desert, rods start to go tap-tap-tap. But leave them be for a moment. Then they go major league bendo! Now it's time to put that 60-80 lb. Spectra to work and haul up these heavy brutes. Our guests continued to arrive at the party for a couple more hours, much to our delight.
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Captain Paul Ipolk & Bev,
photo by Jeff Seltzer
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While I did boat a nice 90 pound Pacific halibut and an eight pound yelloweye rockfish that first day, I failed to produce a lingcod needed to score a grand slam. Jeff landed both a lingcod and a yelloweye, lucky newbie that he is, and proceeded to one-up-me by getting his slam. In fact, he slammed all three days — I guess I taught him too much! Adam (at thirteen, the youngest entrant in this tournament's history) put a 103 pound flattie into the boat. Way to go, Adam!
Returning to the lodge, we made a quick detour into the one-stop shopping center where some hit the ATM, others bought tackle, and we bought booze — some wine for dinner and plenty of Alaskan Amber beer for the boat, the condo and a secret mission. I was thrilled to find Asti Spumante as well as a vast selection of ports at the liquor shop next to Orion Sporting Goods. Jeff & I picked out a nice tawny to enjoy at the hot tub at Kingfisher later that night. Oh, and the secret mission? Back at the ranch the cutting crew was busy filleting and packaging the day’s bounty. I bartered a few bottles of beer in exchange for some lingcod skins to use the next day. I moseyed upstairs and noticed that Jeff was beginning to fade. Oh well, I moved in front of the window where I could see the poker gang next door assembled and the cards flying. I held up my bag o’ change and waved. They signaled me to come over. Jeff followed for a few hands before retreating. The rest of us night owls played on.
Monday was a day for sunscreen and flat ocean aboard the boat Pinnacle with Captain Paul Ipolk. After getting our quota of salmon, we went jigging for a couple of hours on a known lingcod spot and totally hammered them. Between the ling skins and the "juice," the fish didn’t have a chance! We had to release most of our lingcod, which exceeded the slot limit we were allowed to take. I had one that taped out at 41" and weighed between 28 - 30 pounds. Jeff nailed a 44" ling, and Dave scored one that must have weighed at least 50 pounds. Jeff also brought in a 13 pound yelloweye. Paul then ran us out to one of his secret honey holes. I boated two halibut at 103 and 127½ pounds, my personal best to date; one fish on a Tiburon SST-8 and the other on a Penn 15 KG. I had brought both of these reels with me along with two of my favorite short sticks. As flawlessly as these outfits performed, I really didn’t need to have them because the tackle supplied on the boats was more than adequate. Everyone on our boat scored a grand slam that day, and we were worthy of the soreness that comes after a good fight.
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Jeff Seltzer with a large, vibrant yelloweye rockfish,
photo by Bev Seltzer
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Day three found us with Heath Bone on the Intrepid. We got right down to business on the salmon troll with a pair of back-to-back double hook ups. We had our limits of salmon in 15 minutes! Over the course of the event, the salmon averaged 12 – 20 pounds. But Dave surprised us all by landing a 30 pound class fish that day. It was a good thing we didn’t have to devote a lot of time to salmon, because our calm weather was rapidly deteriorating. So we promptly departed for the halibut grounds, leaving virtually all the other tourney boats behind.
We anchored up for halibut and proceeded to bounce it out on what most others would call rough waters. We found a number of butts there, plus some yelloweye, but alas no lingcod. Almost out of time, we made for the inside to drop on some pinnacles where the lings and rockfish tend to congregate. With the wind increasing, the drift was fast and hard to fish. I ducked to avoid being beaned by a large B-2 squid that flew from an aborted cast and landed in a rocket launcher above my head. (The natives were getting reckless as well as restless.) We only managed to kick back a few very large black rockfish that hit our jigs on the retrieve. Trying hard not to come apart at the seams, I rummaged through my Albakore tackle bag with a vengeance, groping for something to entice a ling. (I think I was actually rather eloquent describing my demeanor at the time.) Jeff, Dave and Adam all kept well clear of my path during those final desperate drifts. But wouldn't you know it... Jeff, that lucky b------, hooked up the one and only ling in the final 10 minutes to hit his slam. I'm going to have some serious thoughts about bringing him along next time... just kidding!
At our last dinner together, Steve and Ronnie presented awards to the top anglers. By the way, if you have an inkling that you might get some kind of award, you might want to pace yourself on the libations if you want to appear coherent on the video. I was so surprised when my name was called out that I think I blushed. (Not that anyone would’ve noticed it through the amount of sun I got that day!) The overall points in the tournament comprised one point per pound for the heaviest of each of the four species, plus 50 points per grand slam. The top winners were:
Ken Frisk: 641 points (continuing his reign from the prior year)
Bob Brown: 596
Bill Pisarra: 481
Beverly Seltzer: 462
I also managed to take second place in the halibut division (total of heaviest fish over 3 days). Jeff took 8th in the overall tournament and second in the yelloweye competition. Dave won the honors for best in salmon.
The poker game never materialized that night, so Gary and I sat watching the filleting and discussed the finer points of rock bands and horses for a few hours until the cold settled in and it finally got dark. Will I go back again next year? Is the Pope Catholic?
