Area Sport Fishing Reports
Yakutat

Archived Sport Fishing Report

April 16, 2021

* Just a reminder to all our anglers, please do your part to help slow the spread of Covid-19 by following and reviewing the current State of Alaska Health Mandates in effect. This includes practicing social distancing while sport and personal use fishing and wearing a face covering when fishing and if you are needing fishing supplies from your local store as indicated in Health Alert 010.

Freshwaters

Steelhead Trout

Talk about going from one end of the spectrum to the other... I'm not sure I've ever seen a ten-day forecast for Southeast Alaska that had ten sun icons on it. Spring has finally arrived in Yakutat. It might even skip over spring and go straight to summer with how warm the temps are forecasted over the next 10 days. Highs in the upper-forties to fifties daily with lows in the mid-thirties. Snowmelt has been full-speed since Monday. Not many more days of this type of weather would be needed to knock the snow back significantly.

Water conditions on the Situk River have improved some. The water level rose to a respectable ~350cfs. With the warm weather ahead of us it should remain higher than average due to the snowpack still left. Water temperatures still remain below average for this time of year, and will most likely stay low until most of the snow melts. The snowpack along the river continues to make it difficult to access the river at traditional access points. Reports of a few more fish entering the river have been relayed, with more fish coming in daily on the tides. Fishing has been slow relative to normal conditions this time of year, but it is improving slowly.

With the warmer conditions and higher water levels, it is expected that fishing will be improving from this point forward especially as water temps slowly warm up.

Saltwaters

King Salmon

Sportfishing for king salmon is open in Yakutat area marine waters. Reports of fishing out in Yakutat Bay continue to be slow, however. No fish being caught have been reported for many anglers over the past week. Also of note is that not much, if any bait has been seen in the bay. Most anglers are trolling spoons or herring behind a flasher.

Halibut

Halibut fishing is slow. Constant storms make getting out to fishing grounds difficult.

Lingcod

Lingcod fishing is closed until May 16th.

Rockfish

Fishing for rockfish should be excellent in the Yakutat area.

For further information, please contact the Yakutat Area Sport Fish management biologist Jason Pawluk at (907) 784-3222.

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