About the Author:
Matt is a native born Alaskan and third generation fishing guide and flyfishing instructor raised within the industry. He has fished all over the globe from the Indochina Seas to the Atlantic and has been a professional competition flyfisherman in Montana and Wyoming. Currently he is one of the founders of The Alaska Surfcasting Team, the only such club currently in the state, trying to promote halibut and large game fishing from the beach as a viable alternative to traditional methods. Matt now lives with his wife and teenage daughter in Homer, Alaska the “Halibut Capitol of The World” where he fishes daily or whenever frostbite is not a danger.. And even then sometimes.
Matt and his fishin buddy with an upper average "butt" from the beach.
Surfcasting Alaska Part 1- The Lowdown
In this
short part one I will be breaking down the state of the sport of saltwater surfcasting in Alaska and what you should expect when heading up north with a “long rod” in tow.
Surfcasting in Alaska is, for all intents, non-existent as a popular sport. The only real casting done in the surf up here since the dawn of sportfishing has been by those who had no other choice. Because of a lack of any other means of transportation most Alaskans either own a boat, a plane or have ready access to these. Being the most “roadless” state in the union means that if you want to get where your going, you have to travel by water or by air, period. So up until the last few years the only R&D that has been done for beach fishing the salt has been done by those who are visiting Alaska or by those without any other means.
There are two main problems with this for development of the sport in our neck of the woods. 1) There is an inherent negative bias against anyone who casts from the shore, because they either "don’t know any better" (fishing in the salt is pointless without a boat) or they are poor boat-less tourists too cheap to hire a charter.
2) The folks who do actually go ahead and surmount this bias and cast from shore are probably “tourists” (not a bad word up here) and any methods and means they use are brought with them from other locations that probably will NOT be adequate or appropriate for the fishery. Or, if they are in fact Alaskans they do not have access to a boat and could be assumed to be new to the sport and therefore are unlikely to stumble across all of the variables that have to fall into place to make it work in a state with such a vast coastline and rich, varied biomass. Don’t get me wrong I’m not leaning a negative connotation towards either of these described individuals. We love tourists and everyone who moves here has to be a “greenhorn” at some point, but it is a simple state of fact that these are not the most reliable sources for reporting back on the success of fishing from any given shore location.
So what does this mean for you the visiting fisherperson who wants to buck the trend and toss a line from shore? It’s simple. The sky is the limit and this is really still one of the last frontiers for our sport.
This is a double edged sword of course, I can give you some general guidelines in following articles for gear, location, methods, bait and what works for us. The rest is entirely up to you. Beyond these generalities your on your own, you may have the most fabulous super duper rig in your bag right now and not even know it. By our count there are perhaps 10 people serious about surfcasting up here (6 of which are members of our club) and we can only try so many different rigs while we are still celebrating the fact that we can consistently catch halibut from the shore let alone do it on a “Super Swimming Wonderbug with a sliding trace rig”. Put simply, there is far more that we still DON’T know about surfcasting Alaska than we have found out to date.
While we as Alaskans have historically welcomed pioneers there is a prevailing “don’t screw with what works” mentality. This is especially true with tackle shops and charter businesses/guides. You as a surfcaster have two obstacles to overcome with this. First you have to be willing to ignore “advice” given you by these aforementioned folks, this will almost always be negative. Be it because they just don’t know any better (the usual reason) or they are trying to protect their business by getting you to purchase a charter, they will almost always tell you not to bother. Plug your ears and start singing, they are full of it.
The second obstacle has to do with the availability of gear and tackle. To date there are NO surfcasting specific shops in Alaska and any surfcasting tackle or rods you may find are usually purely a “novelty” within the store. Tackle shops up here move very slowly adapting to new ideas and surfcasting is far too new for them to pay any attention to it at all. For example.. When I was a child the number one selling lure in Alaska was the Bluefox Pixie and then came the Vibrax. Today, 30 some odd years later they are STILL the number one and two lures. You can find them for sale in any grocery store outside of Anchorage. Sure they work, but you can’t tell anyone up here there is anything better.
So, what this means is… If you need it and it’s a surfcasting specific bit of gear and you don’t bring it with you, you won’t get it here. Yes we have braided line, hooks galore and most terminal tackle you can think of but if you need a Breakaway casting shield or a replacement 12 foot surf rod because you broke your last one on a fish or in the car door, forget it. It is just recently that we started seeing 8oz. and better bank sinkers start to show up in the shops, previously we had to mold our own. To sum up, if it is a critical piece of your arsenal bring two or you could be stuck with none.
In the articles to follow I will attempt to get specific about species, habitat, travel and gear. I welcome any questions or comments for inclusion and would be happy to elaborate in future posts about anything on which I may have been to vague. Feel free to drop me a PM, email or post anytime. These are summations and parts of articles I have written for other boards, but I will try and bring them together here for some consistancy, but please let me know if there is anything I should include.
Why am I spouting off like a board member of the tourism committee rather than protecting the secret? Well, any glance of a map of the state will tell you that we have no shortage of coastline and the state of our fishery is more than healthy. So, the chances of you getting in my way or crossing my line are pretty low and probably closer to lottery winning odds. Besides I’m in a sense serving myself by simply adding bodies to the research and development team. Which in the end means I could increase my own and our member’s success rates when you stumble across the super method or beach we missed.
Coming Part 2 – The Nature of The Beast or “What’s tuggin on my line?” Alaska’s saltwater species.
Note: This next will be a long one so I hope you'll be patient with me as I bang it out.