# Back in Alaska



## CaptainSolo (Jul 16, 2017)

Yet again, I find myself on my annual trip up to Alaska to guide for halibut, salmon, and anything else that bites in the Last Frontier.  Though I know that all of us are Georgia anglers, I figured that many of you might enjoy a report from time to time on my adventures in a location that many just dream of visiting.  Today was my first day back on the water and despite a little nasty water, we were able to find a small bay out of the slop.  With the weather in poor shape, Im not one to go trolling and fight constantly with the current and the waves, so I decided to take the group to a new spot for some bottom fish.  My strategy for fishing for rockfish, Lingcod or Halibut is to graph areas between 150-300 feet and look for a thin line of "fuzz" on the graph.  At those depths you arent looking for actual schools or individual fish, you are looking for clouds of fish that look more like distortion than you would expect.  I prefer to look for a thin line of this "fuzz" rather than a massive cloud that seems to span from the bottom to over fifty feet towards the surface.  If you see too much fuzz, it means that you are just going to catch a ton of rockfish before you will ever get a shot at a halibut or bigger rockfish.  We anchored up on an area that was just as I described and put three rods with squid, and one with salmon guts.  It didnt take long to start getting bites, and soon we started bringing up solid non-pelagic (bottom oriented rockfish) like quillback and yelloweye, which essentially look like crazy, colorful, versions of bass, and they taste amazing.  This year the limit for non pelagics is 1 per person, so we limited out in a matter of minutes, and since it was  our day off, we decided to pack it in and get an early start at a relaxing night.  It was a pretty good start to yet another season up here.  Guests arrive tomorrow, so the real test is about to begin.  Who else has caught rockfish?


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## QuackAddict (Jul 18, 2017)

Never caught a rockfish. Show us what these fish look like!  Good luck.


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## lampern (Jul 19, 2017)

Some folks call striped bass "rock fish" but by your description you mean the fish in the Pacific that come in various shades of green, orange and brown with the big eyes.

I've seen them in aquariums before but never caught one. They seem to be a big part of the fishery off Alaska and California right?


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