Kodiak and Alaska Peninsula/Aleutian Islands Management Area
Fishing Information - Dutch Harbor

Unalaska Island is located on the Aleutian Island chain. The island is remote, located over 790 air miles from Anchorage, and can be reached only by air or boat. Dutch Harbor and Unalaska are the island's major population centers. Despite its remoteness, Dutch Harbor is the largest commercial fishing port in the Pacific. Drainages flowing into Unalaska Bay produce pink, chum, sockeye, and coho salmon, which are harvested in commercial, subsistence, and sport fisheries. The majority of the sockeye salmon harvest is taken in the subsistence fishery occuring in Reese Bay, which is approximately 5 miles west of Unalaska Bay. The majority of the coho salmon subsistence fishery harvest harvest comes from the vicinity of the Nateekin River and Broad Bay, both of which are located within Unalaska Bay.

Salmon

Coho and sockeye are the two salmon species most frequently targeted in Unalaska Island's freshwater and saltwater sport fisheries. Although salmon returns to streams near the major population centers are relatively small, large returns do occur on other more remote areas which are accessible only by boat or by floatplane. One of the more well-known of these areas is Volcano Lake, which typically provides exceptional angling opportunity for sockeye salmon during June and July and then again for coho during August. The Makushin and Nateekin rivers, both of which drain into Unalaska Bay, are also popular with anglers targeting coho salmon, although fishing opportunity in each of these drainages normally peaks during September.

Marine Bottom Fish Fisheries

A small charter boat fleet in Unalaska provides non-local anglers access to the area's best known sport fishery targeting halibut. Both the current 459 lb. world record sport caught halibut and the most recent previous record at 457 lb. were taken from Unalaska Island waters. Halibut can also be taken all along the Alaska Peninsula on both in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska. Fishing is usually most productive during July and August, although fish can also be taken in deeper waters from late spring through June. Rockfish are also abundant in the Aleutians, with black and dusky rockfish comprising the two most predominant species caught nearshore. Lingcod are absent from the Aleutian Islands and rare along the southern portion of the Alaska Peninsula.