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During our cruise to Alaska, we found that we didn’t need to spend a lot of money on a guide to enjoy some exciting fishing.  I caught all of my fish on a cheap telescopic pole and a few simple lures, fishing from public docks or from the shore.. The southern ports, Ketchikan and Sitka, have rocky terrain that provides excellent cover for a variety of rockfish. I was able to catch small rockfish on silver krockodiles from the shore. The end of the largest jetty in Ketchikan was a particularly productive spot.  It rained on us most of the time, but this didn’t seem to bother the fish at all.  

As we traveled further north through Juneau and Haines, we entered a land that is continuously frozen, and the rocks are crushed into fine glacial silt by great rivers of ice. The flat, sandy bottom provided ideal habitat for flatfish.  I caught an ocean run dolly varden (above), numerous sand sole (right), a starry flounder (below) and several miscellaneous bottom fish (not shown). I tried fishing from the rocks surrounding the town of Haines, but I had my best luck fishing directly from the ferry dock in front of the cruise ship.  The density of flat fish was amazing.  I fished a small area by vertical jigging, and I pulled one fish after another from directly beneath the dock. Every fish I caught was a new species to add to my records.

I used a tandem rig, with a krockodile tied 18 inches below a dropper loop attached to a small plastic jig. Smaller fish tend to strike the jig, and their frantic fighting pulls the Krockodile behind them, triggering strikes from larger, more wary fish.  Two dolly varden came as part of a double hook up using this technique.  I often use tandem rigs to search new areas for fish, when I don’t know what type or what size fish to expect.