Holly House Alaskan Fishing & Field Report

Our clients Mark and Sandra Sneider had three very successful days here at Holly House on the Kenai River! Sandra landed and kept a 56 pound King on the first day with Rich Hill there guide and owner of Alaska Flagg's Kenai Charters! A real beauty of the female species. Mark didn't do as well, ha ha! Zero! But he did catch and release a 20 pound King in hopes of landing something bigger. On the second day Sandra caught a forty pound King and kept it of course. Mark did real well and caught a 40 pound King and released it! Ha ha! He could not stand the thought of Sandra a 7th grade Math teacher from Jefferson City MO. getting one larger than him! So Mark ended up releasing a couple more small Kings and ended up keeping one 20 pound in order to bring back one anyway! The next morning Sandra with her limit in the freezer slept in on Friday the 11th and Mark went out with Loren Flagg former owner/operator of Flagg's Kenai Charters. By 9:00 am Loren gives me a call to pick up Mark and his 50 pound King down at Poachers Cove! After about a 20 minute fight with this male beauty Mark brings him in and says right away, I'll keep him! He wants to mount both Sandra's female and his male over there bed! Ha ha! So mark formally admits defeat to Sandra that she did out fish him! There now on a 7 day cruise ship via the inside passage of Alaska to Seattle! They both have enjoyed Alaska at its best and are planning on coming back soon! A Great couple to have around!

Well fishing is picking up across the river at Centennial Park! Yesterday out of about 24 fishermen I saw 3 Sockeye, small ones that I figure were Russian River Reds. About 6 fishermen were fishing for Kings from the bank but didn't see any success. The weather has been absolutely beautiful! It was about 80 degrees in the shade here at Holly House! It must have been close to 85 in the sun! Some clouds are forming at this movement so it will not be as hot today.

I did see 3 Kings that were brought in by guide boats yesterday at noon. One that was brought in at 6:00pm. With a total of about 24 guide boats using the park and maybe a dozen private boats.

Well the M/V Sancta Maria has landed! That's right! My Brother-in-law Roger and myself spent the night on the boat on the trailer at Homer! This was July 04. In the morning at 4:00am we launched and headed out to the "compass rose" about 20 miles out of Homer. By 4:30pm we had our limit of four nice halibut two at 30lbs each and two about 15-20 lbs! Just what we wanted! We then headed for Seldovia where we cleaned and packaged them up and put them on ice. Went up the boardwalk and ate dinner at the Mad Fish Restraunt. That's right Roger had a dinner of Salmon with some special sauce and I had Halibut, deep fried with fries and salad. Both plates were absolutely delicious! We walked around town and Roger showed me where he used to live and met all of his friends in town! Ha ha! Wow! Everyone knows Roger! Well we went back to the M/V Sancta Maria and got out our banjos and started playing right on the boat. Pretty soon some people started to gather around and had get up on the dock and play while they all danced and sang along with us! We had a GREAT TIME! All the folks did too! The next morning we headed out about 9 miles from Seldovia towards Bluff Point and anchored up. By 1:00pm we had four more chicken halibut! Just what we wanted! In Homer by 4:00 pm and back in Soldotna by 7:00pm. We filleted and skinned all the Halibut and vacuum packed and it all weighed in to 62 lbs of beautiful Halibut ready for the freezer or grill. Pretty nice 4th of July I would say!

featured photo!

F/V STELLOR!

My brother-in-law, Roger Ivar Wallin Sr. sent me this picture of his Step-father's Chignik Lagoon Seiner with a load of Red Salmon in 1982 when times were better! It is now a dying lifestyle, due to poor marketing of Alaskan caught salmon and low fish prices and the flooding of the world fish markets with poorer quality of fish from fish farming.

This is just one fishing boat in a long line of many boats that has been in Roger's family dating back to the early 1900's.

Roger's biological father died in the town of Unga on Unga Island, in the fall of 1948. Roger was 7 years old at the time. Unga is now a ghost town and is located just west of Chignik, which is on the Aleutian Peninsula (better known as the Aleutian Chain).

Stellor was Roger's Mother's name.

Thank you Roger for submitting this picture and a little Alaskan History!