Big Halibut Option For the 2024 season, Angling Unlimited offers your group the opportunity to keep a large halibut through the Guided Angler Fish (GAF) program. Your GAF-landed halibut can be any size and it does not count toward your daily bag limit of one per person per day. As a bonus, you can keep a GAF halibut on closed Fridays, which begin July 19 and run through the end of the season. How It Works: AU leases commercial quotas through an individual quota shareholder or through a broker. The cost of the lease is approximately $400 per GAF permit, which is good for one halibut of any ..read more

8 Reasons to Fish in May and June Hook It and Cook It – This is your last chance to experience Ludger Szamania, executive chef and fish cook extraordinaire. Come for the great May king fishing, gourmet dining, and detailed instruction on how to prepare meals that will dazzle your family and friends with your take-home catch. Wilderness experience – The waters around Sitka are a saltwater wilderness all season, but the lighter fishing pressure in May along with excellent catch rates make this a special time to enjoy a bit more solitude while catching abundant kings, halibut, rockfish ..read more

Jack Mc Take the Helm Our long-term clients may remember Jack McNamee as a baby, as a kid on the dock, as a precocious deckhand (starting at age 14), and as a full-time, full-grown deckhand. The son ofAngling Unlimited’s owners Chuck and Jenny McNamee is beyond ready to take the next step in 2024 as a full-time captain. Anyone who has been aboard with Jack knows he’s more than prepared in every way for the task. He brings a lifetime of experience on Sitka waters, during which he clearly paid attention to every detail and then figured out some more details of his own. He’s bright, fun, focu ..read more

Happy Holidays from the AU Crew to You The Angling Unlimited family wishes you all a fulfilling holiday season. Whatever your tradition, whether you celebrate under a Christmas tree, a palm tree or no tree at all – we hope the season gifts you the best of times with friends and family. The Gift that Keeps on Giving Amidst the fun, you might share memories of fun times fishing in Sitka. Perhaps you’ll cook a meal from fish that you caught in Sitka and brought back. Your trip on the saltwater wilderness of Southeast Alaska continues well beyond the flight home. For those who aren’t ye ..read more

New Addition to AU family They met on the job at AU and Spencer flew all the way from Sitka to Minnesota for their first date. On October 4, Captain Spencer Chute and wife Alli (former AUhostess) welcomed Nora Rose Chute into the world. Born in Sitka, she’s their second, joining sister Lauren. Nora weighed 7 pounds – 7 ounces and was 20.5 inches long at birth. Mother and baby are healthy and happy. The proud dad reports that “We are enjoying the beautiful Sitka fall weather and new baby Nora has already been on the boat to see whales and hear the ocean sounds.” How could Nora have a be ..read more

Farewell 2023 Fishing Season The ’23 season began on a sunny, nearly hot, May 18 with Hook It and Cook It. It ended on a rainy breezy September 11. So much happened in between those dates that a full write-up could take on the proportions of a Russian novel. We’ll spare you the heavy reading – the thrill of victory, the occasional agony of defeat (the big one that got away). What follows can’t possibly capture the fun, the beauty, the excitement, the friends and family bonding that comes with your fishing trip with Angling Unlimited. In a nutshell – 2023 was a very good year. Grades for ..read more

We hope everyone enjoyed their Labor Day. Only a week remains in our 2023 season. The past 7 days provided excellent silver action with lots of them over 10 pounds plus enough kings to nicely spice the action. Halibut continue to please in the same area where we find the silvers. The weather provided a challenge for the first three days of September. The ocean was what we call doable but rough on most days, except September 2 when most of our fleet headed inland and found coho in decent numbers plus halibut, rockfish, and some pacific cod. A few of our boats continued fishing inland on Se ..read more

As we enter the home stretch of the 2023 season, our guests have enjoyed some special weather and excellent fishing. We’re talking calm seas (for the most part) and solid action for ever bigger silvers, halibut, and scattering of late-season kings. This hasn’t been the lights out, limits in an hour type of silver show. It’s more a fish here, fish there, with an occasional fast flurry that adds up over the course of a day to limits or near limits. Halibut have been fast in the same area as the silvers with a shot at some bigger flatties farther offshore. The deep-deep fishing for halibut and ..read more

The Maui fires may seem a long way away, but not to the AU family. Aleta McGrath, her husband Garrett, and their two children lost their home and have had their lives totally disrupted by the wildfires in Lahaina. Aleta, an AU hostess turned office manager, provided an ever-smiling helpful presence at AU from 2005-2014. We encourage anyone who remembers her fondly to consider a Go Fund Me donation to help her and her family get back on their feet after this unimaginable trauma and loss. Donate Now The post This Time It’s Personal appeared first on Angling Unlimited ..read more

The weather doldrums settled on us for the second half of July with almost no wind, a flat calm ocean, and mild temperatures. The fishing has been anything but calm with big schools of silvers showing up, ample numbers of kings mixed in, a scattering of chums, and way too many pinks. Our guests can hardly put a bait down that doesn’t get bit. It’s just a matter of whether it’s the right kind of salmon. Catches of silvers have ranged from fast limits to all-day grinds that eventually add up to a good result. With the king limit at one per day and one per season, we haven’t had to target beca ..read more