The Highlight of Tom’s Trip to the Alaska Seascape Lodge

We can talk all day about how great our fishing trips are. Why not hear about it from one of our recent visitors?

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We are excited to talk to another one of our great visitors today. Tom Asarch visited us with his grandson and they had a great time. There were many highlights to the trip, but we’ll let Tom tell you about those. Here’s what he had to say:

"This was my oldest grandson's 16th birthday present. We both decided we would like to go fishing in Alaska. The one on one time with him for those five days was terrific. His favorite thing about the lodge was the food. He loved the breakfast and dinners at the lodge. The fishing was exciting and fun, but he looked forward to that and had a great time.

The trip was fantastic. That was probably due to the fact we caught tons of fish. We caught yellow eye, salmon, sea bass, and lingcod. Even though there were six people on the boat, everyone caught a bunch of fish. I think I have pictures of eight or 10 whales that were there too. The scenery was beautiful, and it was a very memorable trip. All the trips were great. My favorite one happened to be Seward."

The trip was fantastic… we caught tons of fish.

Thanks so much to Tom for joining us at the Alaska Seascape Lodge. It was a pleasure to host you, and we hope you’ll come back to see us soon. If you have any questions for us or would like to book your own fishing trip, don’t hesitate to give us a call or send us an email. We look forward to hearing from you.

Tips and Tricks for Catching Kenai River Sockeye Salmon

Catching sockeye salmon isn’t hard. There’s a very simple trick to it that I want to show you.

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On the Kenai River, we have a large run of sockeye salmon that come through toward the end of June and the end of July, and everybody’s always asking me, “How do I catch them?”

It’s actually quite simple.

Sockeye salmon usually run very close to the riverbank—as close as three to four feet if the water is fast. If I’m standing on that bank, I keep an extra supply of hooks in my pocket instead of carrying them around in a tackle box or a fanny pack, because the trick to catching sockeye salmon is changing hooks often.

After casting out your line, your hook will be hitting rocks and ripping through the water quite a bit, which means it can get dull within 10 to 15 minutes. Changing hooks is a tactic I always tell my guides to help their guests with so when they do hook a sockeye salmon, there’s no chance of escape. In case you’re wondering, I use a 4/0 Eagle Claw Lazer Sharp Octopus hook.

Fishing is like anything else—you want to play like everyone else is playing.

One of the questions I always hear is, "What size weight should I use?" That ultimately depends on the current. I like to use the lightest weight possible. Typically, a good weight is a large split shot weight. This allows the hook to gently tick across the bottom of the current and prevents it from sticking. You only want to feel the hook stick on a fish. When you use too heavy of a weight, you'll feel it stick more often to the bottom and mistake it for a fish.

Another question I get asked pretty often is, “What size line should I use?” The sockeye salmon here in the Kenai River are usually only six to eight lbs, but they can really pull when they’re channeling inside an eight-knot current. This is why I usually advise a 20 to 25 lb test.

Many times, you’ll hook these fish in the back while they’re running downstream through the current, so a higher-pound test can prevent them from stringing your line out. You don’t want to fight a fish with 100 yards of line out while jumping over rocks and dodging trees every time you hook one. There are other fishermen out there, and it’s common courtesy to not interfere with their area.

If you have any more questions about how to fish on the Kenai River, feel free to give us a call or visit us online. We’d be happy to help!

How John Collis Got His Groove Back

At the Alaska Seascape Lodge, we combine luxury and adventure like no other resort. Today we brought in one of our past clients, John Collis, to tell you all about it.

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Interviewer: What was the emotional highlight of your trip to the Alaska Seascape Lodge, or Jimmie Jack’s Alaska Lodge?

John Collis: It was just a beautiful experience. I was blessed from the word ‘go.’ That was my bucket list, and my wife helped me do it. We got there at the fisherman’s lodge, and they thought it was two men, and they put us in a room with nice accommodations and everything. Then Jimmie Jack found out we were a couple, and he moved us up to the Seascape Lodge, which was gorgeous.

When they say five stars, you could probably say six. You could look out our window and see the three volcanoes, the bay, I mean, it was unbelievable. The accommodations were really good; the people there—the guides, the cooks, the people that came in to clean up—they were top notch. Everybody makes you feel like you’re at home. We just had a blessed time.

We went up there, and, just like when we were on the boat with Captain Charlie and Cooper, first mate. I looked up at him, and I say, ‘Have you ever had to open that back gate before to get a fish in?’ He looked at me like I’d lost my mind and he said, ‘Nope, just throw them over the side.’ I said ‘OK’ and it wasn’t more than two or three minutes later when the rod started bouncing. I grabbed it and went to reeling. I was losing more than I was gaining. Charlie and Cooper, they were just going crazy. I couldn’t fathom why, and all of a sudden there he is after a long fight. And I look down over the side and there was a queen-size mattress coming out of the water. They had to open the back gate, and they brought it in the boat. It was just a blessing. You know, when you’re blessed, you have to bless others. My wife said to me, ‘We’ve got 140 pounds of fillets. What are we going to do with it?’ I thought about that that night, and the next morning I said, ‘You know, we’re going to give it to a Christian food bank and go from there.’ I think that was the most blessed I ever was.

The rivers were beautiful; the Halibut fishing was great. The fly-in over to that remote river, you can see the bears. You can catch all those fish over there. You can see the glaciers. Gosh, I’d say all of it. If you’re going to go, do all of it. I would highly recommend anybody that has the opportunity to go up there, or who has a bucket list to accomplish something in their life, to go do it. The fishing was absolutely first-class. We had so much fun with the guides, the scenery was beautiful, and the fish were plentiful. As a matter of fact, when I asked my wife ‘Where do you want to go this year?’, she said, ‘Let’s go back to Alaska.’ I hope to see everybody that was there last year and maybe meet new people, too.

The Highlights of Jimmie Jack's 2016 Summer Fishing Season

This summer was a great one at Jimmie Jack's Alaska Lodges. We caught giant fish, had some wonderful guests, and purchased a 5-star property.

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We are here on the banks of the world famous Kenai river at the end of the summer fishing season of 2016. We had a great summer and did a lot of exciting things that we’d like to share with you today.

We had the privilege to be featured again on Channel 2 KTUU, one of our local channels out here. They came out on the boat with us and caught some massive silver salmon, among other fish. NFL legend Larry Csonka and his former teammate Norm Evans joined us for a trip. They had a great time out there on the water.

Looking back, we had an incredible summer and now look forward to an exciting new future here at Jimmie Jack's!

We caught a lot of Lingcod and Yelloweye Rockfish this summer, as well as the largest halibut caught out of Ninilchik. It was 345 pounds and caught by our Seascape guest John. The fight was impressive, but with the help of Captain Charlie Barberini and his deckhand, Cooper, they were able to wrangle it into the boat. Watch the exciting capture in the video above.

Outside of fishing, the biggest highlight of the season is that we acquired the Alaska Seascape Lodge, which allows our guests to experience the ruggedness of Alaska with the amenities of a 5-Star property.

The water level has been dropping, it’s getting cooler, and we are just getting in some last-minute fishing before the colder months come. If you have any questions for us or if you’re already looking ahead to plan your trip for next year, give us a call or send us an email. We look forward to hearing from you.