Location
Kodiak is a very desirable fishing destination, even for Alaskans. Kodiak Island offers great fishing nearby, which minimizes inconvenience of traveling between lodge and fishing spots.
It was recommended we get charter a flights between Anchorage and Larsen Bay (KLN); and split flight cost by coordinating flights with the group before and after us. It proved difficult to coordinate these flights. We did not finalize one charter flight until just two days before the flight. We had good experience with both charter flights from Resolve Aviation and Illiamna Air.
This beautiful wilderness location offers great scenery and ample wildlife. There is a cannery (with about 250 workers) in town and nearby small mercantile for purchase of necessities and some souvenir clothing. The WiFi at the mercantile was not accessible due to cannery workers tying it up. Also, Larsen Bay Area medical care is minimal, so don’t do anything stupid and dangerous.
Accommodations
Allen, the owner/manager takes great pride and care of the rustic log cabin resort that he helped build about 15 years ago. There are some nice rustic accent pieces fitting for Alaskan decor and comfortable sitting area inside with bar and large screen TV with satellite. It was nice standing or sitting on the front porch to take in the beautiful scenery, wildlife (bald eagles, etc.) and Larsen Bay Harbor activities. The large dining table provided ample space for us six men. The rooms have two double (or queen) size beds with nice attached 3/4 bath (sink, toilet and shower). They put us six men in three of their rooms. The beds were comfortable with clean linens and towels. There is no offered WiFi at the facilities, but it was sporadically available and easily overloaded. Jessica did an excellent job cleaning our rooms.
Meals
Just like clockwork, we had breakfast at seven, hors d’oeuvres at six, three-course dinner at seven and box lunch ready after breakfast while on the boat fishing. Chef Mike did an outstanding job preparing tasty gourmet meals for us. The main dinner course was typically fresh seafood that either we or others had caught. Jessica did a nice job serving us and describing the food we were given to eat. Also, there was more than enough good food to eat everyday.
Boat
We were taken on their catamaran fishing boat is equipped with expensive fish navigation electronics and two 300 horsepower outboard motors that did an excellent job navigating even rough waters. This enabled us to fish in areas where others could not. Jim, the captain, moved the boat to different spots after they became “too quiet”. We had a lot of action fishing averaging about a dozen spots per day. There were 8 stations on the boat for bottom fishing. Also, they have 2 down riggers and a planer board that were used when trolling for salmon.
Fishing
The captain Jim and deck hand Bobby (who is also a captain) were both very knowledgeable on fishing, excellent instructors, patient and attentive with clients and made experience an absolute joy. We did both bate fishing and jigging, while bottom fishing. We were very successful bottom fishing by frequently getting our limits on halibuts and yellow-eye rockfish. The had fun catching many 20-40 pound halibuts that we enjoy eating. The bright orange colored yellow-eye rockfish were special to catch. Bobby, the deck hand, joked “this is what happens when goldfish get flushed down the toilet”. A couple guys decided to mount their trophy 33” and 32” yellow-eye rockfish. Also, we caught some nice lingcod, a ferocious teethy looking fish with tiger-like color and pattern. There were some other species caught too. Our surface fishing was relatively slow catching ~12 salmons, due to them not running. We fished about 8 hours per day, except 1 day we caught our limit by 1:00 pm.
Crabbing
We indicated interest in catching and eating crabs, so they accommodated our request. We caught so many tanner (or snow) crabs that we hand picked 28 large crabs for a later crab feast and returned most of the crabs back into the bay.
Wildlife Sightings
While fishing, we saw a fin whale, killer whales, sea otters, bald eagles, other waterfowls, but no Kodiak bears. Also, there were some creeks near the resort where we saw some discolored and dying salmons.
Fish Preparation, Packing and Freezing
They take good care of fish at the resort to keep them fresh and tasty. Fish were filleted after arriving back at the dock in the afternoon by captains Jim and Bobby. Allen and Jessica vacuum sealed, labeled and froze the fish in about 3-4 pound bags. These fish were packed into 50 pound corrugated boxes with each of our names on a box. The mix of fish seemed representative of what we caught. The fish stayed frozen for my 17 hour travel time with two airport change-overs.
