Fishing and Fish Stories from Juneau with Grant Moore

Juneau Fishing Guide and lifelong Alaskan Grant Moore joins Jennie to share his insights about fishing in Alaska, the time he had Gordon Ramsey on his fishing boat, and plenty of fish stories.

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Music credits:  Largo Montebello, by Domenico Mannelli, CC.

Transcript

 Welcome to the Alaska Uncovered Podcast with me, your host, Jennie Thwing Flaming, my occasional co-host and full-time husband, Jay, and I bring you accurate, helpful, and entertaining information about Alaska Travel and life in Alaska. Before we jump in, we want to take a moment to thank our Patreon supporters for making this podcast possible.

You can join them at the link in the show notes. Enjoy the show. I.

. My guest today is Grant Moore. Grant has lived in Alaska almost his entire life. He has lived all over the place, including Tenke Springs, Juneau, Fairbanks, and now lives in Juneau where he has been. A fishing guide for the last 17 years and when Grant is not helping guests have a great time catching fish near Juneau.

He is probably working on fixing his boat for the next outing. Grant, welcome.  To Alaska Uncovered. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. It's really, it's really fun to chat with you and listeners, if you've listened to the podcast for a while.  Grant's wife, Midgi, who also owns a tour company related to food.

It's a food tour company in Juneau.  She was on the podcast two years ago,  in episode 17. So if you like food and you're going to Juneau, you gotta go back and listen to that one. Yeah. So Grant, we're talking about fishing today. Woo-hoo. 

Excellent. Yes. I love talking about fishing. 

I know. That's lucky.

Since that's your job. So before we get into fishing, can you tell everybody a little more about how you got to Alaska? 

Oh, let's see. Well, way back in the day,  my mom brought me over when I was two years old and, we arrived in the Seattle area and we were there for a little while and she climbed Mount Rainier back in the day.

And, and then, I don't know if she, we were there for six months or so. I think it was probably something like that. And we were in that area for a while and a good number of months. And then she hit the ride up on commercial fishing boat up to the southeast Alaska area and grew up in, she met a guy there, married.

So my stepdad out there and, and, became a citizen. No, I became a citizen, you know, years later.  Yeah, I've been in Alaska almost all my life. 

That's awesome. So I wasn't aware that you could bring like a toddler on when you hit your ride on a fishing boat, but that's cool that she did that.

Yeah. That's awesome. Cool. Love it. Alright,  tell everybody a little bit about how. You got into being a fishing guide in the first place. 

Well, growing up in southeast Alaska, you go do some fishing off the beaches and rivers, et cetera, in the saltwater or freshwater, whatever, and, and you go hunting, et cetera.

You have gardens, you live off the land. In that, in that setting, I just sort of was naturally in it. Then after over time I was able to, years after growing up, years later, I was able to get a job as a captain fishing charter captain out in the Elephant Cove Lodge. Worked there for a number of years, four or five years I think it was, and that was a blast out in that area.

It was really neat. And then I was able to get my first boat and, uh, for myself and work as a, my own business as a fishing charter captain. And I started out in Elephant Cove with that and, and done a lot of years now in Juneau. So.  Over time, you know, got some experience, lots of experience as a kid in canoes and boats and, and then as teenager and so on so forth.

Getting into different boats throughout my life and getting into that. Working at that lodge out there was fantastic. Learning it from friends out there too, it was pretty neat. 

Yeah. That's awesome that you got that opportunity to be in that kind of setting where you could like learn a lot before you.

Started off on your own. That's really cool. 

Yeah. Very important. Exactly. Yeah. Very important. 

Yeah, because I know phishing is one of those things that you don't just like go to school for or take a class and then know what you're doing, and it's very much a. Learn on the job kind of scenario. 

Yeah.

Hands-on learning from family and friends, people out there as a young, from starting from a young age, you know, second, you can stand up and start casting. You learn from family and friends, et cetera, to, to what kind of, uh, lure or what kind of technique works for, for those fish. And, and depends if you're in saltwater or freshwater as well.

And, um, that opportunity is very important for anybody to, to get out there And, uh, and, um. Practice and have fun with it. And then talking to people, especially when it becomes a job, it's, it's a different world, a different, different world where you, you have very, very different aspects of it. You have to entertain Yes.

PR skills, fishing techniques, um, skillset with that. So it encompasses a variety of skill sets. Then really, so years ago when I first started working at the, I worked at the swimming pool in in Hayes for many years, and that was fun. And then as a lifeguard and as a young kid and. Then after a number of years working there, I started just a couple years early.

I started teaching swim lessons and talking to people as a young kid, a little bit shy, you know, and then after a number of years I worked,  at Chilkat Guides rafting company too. And that was an excellent setup to where 

Oh yeah, get over, 

get over being shy, talking. To guess strangers every single day.

Every single trip. And that's where it really started, was learning to talk in front of people. 'cause before that I was so shy. It was funny. Yeah. But,

that's hard to imagine, but now it's like, I can talk to strangers. 

Too easy now. 

Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. Okay, so these days, um, what do you fish for? Or maybe, I mean, I do wanna ask what you fish for, but also.

What kind of type of fishing are you doing on your charters with your guests? Yes, 

so what we do is we do salmon fishing and halibut fishing. You know, there's the main two things. Um, whale watching as well. We definitely do that as well and a lot of fun. And quite often we'll do whale watching trips dedicated to that.

But quite often we're, when we do our fishing trips, we do whale watching anyway with it at the same time. Right. So that's a blast. Yeah, exactly. It's accidental, having lots of fun, do some fishing and watching whales and the beautiful scenery, of course. So salmon fishing, we do trolling with downriggers.

We troll along slow speed, one to three knots or something depending on the species. King salmon, co-host salmon, you know, slower, faster. And then the bottom fishing for halibut, rockfish, other things, Pacific cog, things like that. Ling Cog further out in the coast, um, as well. So four hours, six hours, eight hours is the typical options for the fishing.

And, um, go out there and have some fun with it and entertain and, and, and hopefully we catch some fish and, and have a blast. Uh, they can have some fish at home. They can eat it up too. The, the guests. Yeah. Um, after they catch those fish. And then they have their own stories too about what they, you know, they tell their family friends what their, how, what they, the story was that they caught it and, and then they're eating it that hopefully that dinner, whatever.

So, yes. Kind of fun. 

There's nothing better than a fish story while you're eating, said fish. 

Exactly, exactly. 

Do you have? And the cool thing is 

too is the fish processing is we have the order form cards. We bleed 'em gut and gil em on the boats, of course, keep 'em in good quality, put 'em in cold ice water and then they can fill out order form cards and for the processing company in town.

And we put the fish bag in their freezer. It doesn't freeze at all 'cause we don't want that. But later in the day, especially in the night, they come by and take their. The guest bag labeled and everything else. And, and they'd process it and later on they ship it, vacuum packet, ship it, and to the people so they get the fish that they catch.

So that works out. That's awesome. 

And by the way, I'm just gonna say listeners that like. If you're on a fishing charter and they're like, Hey, we can process and, um, clean and ship your freeze and ship your fish home for you, you absolutely wanna say yes to that. That is an amazing and a thing, so, yeah.

Very 

cool. Yeah, it's delicious. Yeah. Yeah. If they don't like it, then hey, I'll eat it for 'em. But if they Right, if they like it, then they might as well eat it at home. 

Yeah, exactly. Cool. So, um. Kind of continuing with some of those logistics and taking fish home. I wanna ask about a couple other logistical things.

So you are in Juneau, and I know that a lot of your guests are on cruise ships, correct? Yes. Like how, what percentage of your guests are on. Cruise ships. I 

don't know the exact percentage, but I bet it's something well over 80%. 

Yeah. Uh, 

it's a pretty big percentage, 80 or so percentage. 'cause there's, there's a number of people that independent travelers come in, fly into town, stay at hotels and, and be Airbnbs, uh, and et cetera, and stay for a few days or even a week or two.

And that's a fun way to do it too. So, and then the other option is cruise ships. And that is the majority. And that's a blast as well. So, because then you get to see a variety of towns, et cetera, where they might be stopping and the passageways to those places. 

Yeah. So that's also something I wanted to ask you about is just make sure that you did, and I was pretty sure that you did both independent travelers and also people on ships.

So, and I'll put, um. I'll put your website in the show notes so that people can find you if they wanna book a fishing trip for excellent folks who are on a cruise ship. Um, do you also sell your tours through the short excursion desk on the ship, or do people only book through you directly? Well, there's both.

Yeah. 

Yeah, there's both. Some people contact us directly from Cruise, especially from cruise lines that we don't have contracts with. Yep. And so they book with us online or, or with our phone calls or emails. That works out fine and great, and we pick up people with our transportation vehicles and go pick 'em up from the cruise ships or the front of the hotels, et cetera, and bring 'em to the boat harbor and then return later on.

Um, but um, we do have a few contracts with certain cruise lines and they sell, uh, trips as well for us. Yeah. And we do quite, we do a lot of cruise ship contracts as well, so we do both. Yep. 

Cool. And for folks who are on cruises, um, and I know this varies from ship to ship in different cruise lines, but do any of them let you bring your catch, like onboard the ship or is kind of your only option to have it shipped home?

It is very limited. The, the majority of 'em know they're not allowed on the ship. Yeah. Um, there is is a couple of. The, the Holland, um, has. Cook your catch. So this 

is Holland America that we're talking about. Holland America. Yep. Yep. 

Yes. I have a contract with them and they love it. Save your catch. So the people can bring, potentially bring their fish on board the cruise ship, but we have to fill out paperwork, keep it cold, et cetera.

It's very important. There's some, there's some strict uh, rules with it. 

Yeah. Make 

sure it's safe to eat. Keep it cold, et cetera. So they take it back and the next day they can potentially have it for lunch, breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Various different options of styles. You know, it could be simple as, as that's really fun.

It's a, a halibut or a salmon. They might be able to cook or even some rockfish or, or maybe a cod or something. And, and they, they really like that. It's really a lot of fun. Then I don't have a cruise ship contract with Princess, but, um, I believe they do that as well. 

Yeah, 

I think they do. And then, as far as I know.

Okay, good. And then as, as far as I know, none of the other ones do it. 

Yeah, that matches what I've heard from other, uh, folks, so yeah. That, that makes sense. Yeah. Love it. That I, I just have this mental image of like you or one of your team, like taking like a wheelbarrow down the gangway. I know it's, that's not quite how it works, but No, um, yeah, and I know that, like you were saying, you know, of course they have to very carefully manage.

And know, you know, that this fish had been properly handled the whole time. Of course. And that makes sense. 

There's paper we have to sign, the guest has to fill it out. We have to fill it. Captain or deckhand has to fill it out. Yeah. Captain has to sign it. Guests have to sign it. Yeah. It has to be kept at, at a cold temperature on ice and ice water.

Yeah. 

And uh, then they take a temperature of it at the cruise ship. Yeah. If it's not cold enough, they refuse it. So, so like that rarely happens ever. Yeah. So it's, it's 99% of the time it's great. Yeah, we have lots of ice. I have an ice machine. A few years ago, I, I installed an ice machine at my shop and, and, um, uh, we're have a shop, mechanic shop and boats, so I can work on boats and vehicles and, and I have an ice machine there.

We bring ice down to our coolers, to the, uh, every single morning. And we have a lot of ice on the, uh, accessibility to our ice machine and. Very important to have that keep a good quality. 

Yeah. Fish 

keep a new good quality, abso 

Absolutely. And then do you have a partner in Juneau that does the, like packaging and freezing and shipping for you or do you do that also?

Yeah, we don't do that. Um, we do have JC processing, uh, Jared and Cassandra, they started up a couple years ago and they are a good young couple and they've been doing, I guess it's two years. At least two years now. Nice. Uh, next, this coming summer will be three years and they've, they've done a really good job.

Um, there was a, just over, almost three years ago, there was Jerry's Meats and Seafoods. He, he's another one that does it. And, and then there, last year there was a new one, Tanya. She has, a processing company too.  on her tender boat at the harbor as well. So there's three options. Nice. That's awesome. And we do much more, majority of the time we use j JC processing.

They saved us a couple years ago. There wasn't anybody willing to do it, have a freezer at the boat Harbor and they were, so, they started up and helped us out, so it's pretty cool. 

Awesome. Love it. 

Okay. Nice to have that, uh, accessibility to, yes. To have people ship at home. It's expensive, you know.

Processing is, yeah. Not too bad a price, but the shipping is, is quite expensive, but yeah. It's worth it. It's worth it. It's totally 

worth it. Yeah. And you know, of course you have to do like. Fast shipping because it's fish. 

Yes. Yeah. If they, if somebody, like, if somebody brings their fish over to Jerry's Meats and they want it all smoked, all, like say it's salmon and they want it all smoked, then they can process that vacuum packet, uh, freeze it, ship it slower because it's smoked salmon.

Yep. 

Um, so that's cheaper to ship. But if they have a mixture of. Of frozen meat and smoked salmon, and then also other fresh frozen, then they have to ship it off fast. Right? You know, one, one day. 

So, yes, but it works out. It works out. 

I don't 

know, grant, I don't know if you remember this or this news made its way down to Juneau, but there was one, one time during the years that I was living in Fairbanks where there was like a, I think it happened in Anchorage, but there was like a fish box that got somehow wedged into the, um, into the like luggage carousel.

And it like disappeared down there for a little while. Oh no. Until it thawed and then was like, oh, there's something in the, and then they had to take the entire thing apart to like figure out what was going on. And anyway. 

Oh, yikes. That must have stak. 

Yeah, I know. This is why it's worth paying for shipping.

Oh man. Love it. Okay, so, um. How, okay, so question about fishing licenses. This is something that people ask me quite often is like, cool, I wanna go fishing, but I got, how do I figure out a fishing license or what I need? Or do I need to get that in advance? So can you talk about how you handle that a little bit?

Yeah, it's actually pretty simple. Um, to get phishing licenses. Uh, a few years ago fishing game, Alaska department fishing game was able to get fishing license to be able to be sold online and they were able to, um, get the license through the email. Uh, so you can have that on. On you in person sweet while you're fishing.

So that's pretty easy. You go on Alaska apartment fishing game, going to their store and you can select to one day or other multiple days fishing license. If you're Sam of fishing, you wanna get a king salmon stamp. You know, last year it was $15 for the license for one day non-resident, and the king stamp was $15 for one day non-resident.

So it's not too bad. Yeah, pretty, pretty good. Good. Affordable. Yeah. And so that's pretty easy. There's multiple days also, like, I think it's three days, seven days, 14 days I believe. Right. This coming year, the summer of 2025. I bet the prices will probably be either the same or quite similar. 

Yeah. So, we'll, we'll find out.

That makes 

sense. 

Yeah. And it's, it's one of those things like, it's important to have it, but it's not a huge expense. 

Exactly. Yeah. Very important to have it. Yep. Yep. Otherwise, don't wanna get tickets from the troopers. 

Yeah. 

The um, that's. You can go down online, like on your phone, if you have a smartphone, you have signal and, or you can go on from the computer when you're staying at the hotel or whatever.

Or if you have a, a internet package on the ship, et cetera. , if for some reason people cannot get their license online 'cause their signal doesn't work on a phone or computer, then we do have a backup. System on our boats where each of our captains, we have a booklet 

mm-hmm. To be 

able to sell fishing licenses and, and king salmon stamps.

Yep. 

Paper ones. Yeah. Like in person paper ones, and they can buy 'em with cash. Yeah. So that's a good little backup system. Now we, we definitely do not, I. We used to have it every single day like that, but now it's just a backup system. It's nice to have 'em online done, and then it actually made the online system, the electronic licenses really helps us, captains and crew streamline the paperwork.

The beginning of the trip, we do an introduction, safety spiel on the boat of course, and then we talk about phishing licenses and little waiver form, and then we help people if they don't already have it, then we help 'em on their phone or they might be able to use our phone to go online and get their license now.

If they have to get a paper that's cool from us, but our electronic logbook, we have to input all that information of their license. And if they have a one that they got offline online, then we can just QR code scan it. 

Oh, yeah. Into our, yeah. So it's super fast. 

Yeah. So super easy. We can queue our code it right down to our electronic license, uh, electronic logbook, and it's really easy to keep track of that throughout the day.

Oh yeah. Because we gotta have to fill that paperwork out before the end of the trip needs to be done. So. 

Yep. Cool. Alright, we are gonna take a short break and when we come back we're gonna talk more about fishing in Juneau with Grant. Excellent. 



 📍 Hi everyone. I hope you're enjoying this episode so far. Just wanted to make sure you know that you can save 10% as a podcast listener in my online shop, which has Jay's beautiful Alaska stickers, as well as all of my pre-made itineraries, my Alaska planners.  So  save 10 percent@shop.ordinaryadventures.com with the code podcast and I'll also put that in the show notes.

Alright, let's get back to the show.



Okay, we are back with Grant Moore from Juneau, and we are talking about fishing and charter fishing because a grant takes people and his team take people out fishing, uh, when they're in Juneau for the day on a ship, or, uh, if they're staying in Juneau for a longer period of time, you can also go fishing with them.

So Grant, um, we're talking about fishing, so we gotta have a fish story. Stories. Do I need to give you more of a prompt than that, or can I just be like, like, there you go. Give us a fish story. 

Oh, I'm full of fish stories. Great. Lay 'em on us. Some of 'em are true too. 

Oh, what? That's so fun. Yeah. 

You never know.

Well, the fish is this big, you know, from here to there, right? Every day. After you catch it, you tell the story. Every day you tell the story, the fish is actually bigger. You tell 'em it's bigger. Okay. It was a 10 pounder the first day. Oh, 20 pounder the next day. So on and so forth. 

Yes. Oh, that's awesome. I love, you know, this is tricky because you know, a podcast is audio and so like when we're like it was this big, you know, people have to kind of use their imagination.

Mm-hmm. 

Yeah, I normally hold my hands up and it's like, okay, it's a nice uh, 10 pound salmon. Oh wait, maybe it was a 20 pound salmon, or maybe its a 30 pound salmon. Get a nice trophy king salmon in June, Alaska. Maybe a 25 pound. That's a pretty nice one. Yeah, that's great. Or if you get a halibut, you know, uh, a nice 20 pound halibut, that's a good size.

So, you know, maybe the second day you tell the story about it, you might might accidentally say it's a 25 pounder or a 30 pounder. So go from there. Right. And then you have just fish 

inflation. 

There you go. Exactly. So I remember this one day we were out there, um, trolling for salmon and a little bit of sunshine and, and some beautiful scenery, et cetera.

And, and, um, something took the line and, and, uh, it just started screaming line out. And the fishing salmon fishing reel was in the rod holder and hooked. The line was clipped into the down rigger. The line was just starting to be peeled out and the fishing pole just bent basically, almost under the water or off to the side of the boat, down toward the, in the water.

It did. You know, about 15, 20 seconds of line just peeling off. And so we were able to get, uh, the guest to grab the fish and pole finally. And, and, uh, they sort of paused on the taking the line and we, we walked around the boat 'cause the lion was going underneath the boat. It was pretty fast. And so they walked around the boat to the other side and then the, the fish or whatever it was, started taking line again really, really fast.

So, and after a, you know, 10, 10 seconds or whatever. I told him, I was like, wait a minute. That line is going way too fast. That is not just a king salmon. Oh no. I think that might be, we never did see it, but I told him, I was like, that must be a seven foot shark. And so it took life for, I don't know, 30 more seconds.

Maybe it was 45 more seconds. And it just peeled line so fast that the minuscule amount of moisture that was on the line down deep in the rail was just. Throwing a mist cloud around the reel, the spool of the line there. 

Wow. And 

it didn't stop until the line came to the end and snapped off. So that was crazy.

And I told 'em, I was like, oh, wow, that was, that must have been a big seven foot shark. So that was pretty 

Wow. Oh yeah. They were little 

excited, disappointed we didn't get it, but also excited that it was like that happened. So, 

yeah. Yeah, you definitely know something is going on down there. 

Yeah, it's fun to have, you know, adults and kids too on the boats where they're fishing away and maybe they've fished before.

Maybe it's their first day ever fishing, and to see their smile of, you know, catching a salmon or maybe catching a halibut even, it's not a huge one. Technically, the smile that is on their face and their excitement in their voice. Is pretty much the, one of the funnest things to have is, you know, yeah.

Teach 'em how to fish. Maybe they already have been fishing some in their life and, or maybe they're brand new, like I said before. Right. But it's just fun to see their excitement and their glee on their, in their eyes, et cetera. So that's fun. 

Yeah. Is it's just such a, there's something about fishing. It's just so.

Exciting. You know, it's like nothing happens. Nothing happens, and then you're like, something's happening. Yeah. 

Yeah. Sometimes people, or especially kids will ask, it's like, okay, we, are we there yet or are they going to bite any, any second? It's like, yep. Five more minutes. I just keep saying five more minutes.

It's pretty funny. 

Like on a hike when you're like, oh, it's just around the corner we're, yeah. Five more 

minutes. Yep. 

Yeah. Oh, I love that. Yeah. What 

It's fun to go out and get into a halibut fishing spot on the, you know, find a good spot to go help fishing about 200, 300 feet deep down. And you can either anchor as one technique and fish on the bottom, or sometimes you can sort of back troll drift on those areas and, and, uh, jig on the bottom and have that hook and lead weight down there and the bait on there.

Yeah. And you know, kids or adults to have, be hold their, their halibut fishing pole. That's pretty fun is because then it's, it's fully interactive. You're holding your fishing pole in the halibut 

fishing, 

and they're, each person has their own and jigging on the bottom, and they can feel the fish bite the sand, the, the halibut or the rock fish.

Yeah. Or 

even sometimes it's a stingray or, or a, or not a stingray skate in the, in the southeast waters. And then. There's actually one of the weirdest things we've caught is, uh, well, not weirdest, but it's octopus. Sometimes we'll catch octopus and I love to Oh 

wow. 

Show that, uh, show those people that, but if they, they touch the side of the boat or inside the boat, their tentacles just stick onto the suction cups right onto it, and they, they get away and we let 'em go.

It's fun. Yeah, fun. Take a big, quick picture. It's pretty neat. 

Yeah. That's really, that's really amazing. I personally, I think halibut fishing is the most fun. It's just, it's a 

blast. 

Yeah. And maybe 'cause it's just different, you know? It's not something you can do lots of other places, but Yeah. Yeah, it's just really fun.

Yeah, it's the different techniques. Is there, the different styles of, of how the fishing, bottom fishing is, is a blast because you're working your fishing pole every second. Jigging it down the bottom. Yeah. Um, interactive. You feel the, the nibbles, the bites, whatever, or line taking all of a sudden that's fun.

Uh, and. Salmon fishing is a little bit different because you're trolling at slow speed and, and the fishing, the salmon fishing poles are in the rod holders and, and clipped to the downriggers. You got two on each side, maybe a couple flat lines as well, so you can have six of six lines out salmon or how, but yeah.

Um, might be a couple tangles sometimes, but, um, we try to keep a pretty good setup. Yeah. And it's so fun. Uh, sometimes while you're salmon fishing, it's more, a little more relaxing maybe in a way. And then it's all of a sudden something bites and takes line and you catch a nice 20 or 25 pound or 30 pound king.

Yeah. 

But that's just tons of fun too. Um, and when there's nothing biting, you can wait a while and troll and, and entertain and visit and hang out and. Tell each other stories and find out where people are from, and that's a blast as well. So couple different techniques, different styles. 

Yeah. So what I, I can't believe I'm gonna ask you this 'cause I feel like I am just asking for you to lie to me, but I would love to know what the biggest fish is that you've ever caught personally.

Oh, well, let's see. Um, I. Out in the Elephant Co I have caught 135 pound Hal myself 

round, um, is the 

biggest one I have personally reeled up. But, uh, when you were in Juneau last, uh, Juneau, Alaska, last time visiting when we met there, um. Did I? Yeah, I'm pretty sure I showed you my business card, didn't I? 

Yeah, 

yeah.

The judge, Nancy, remember that halibut? Yeah. Yeah. The two halibut on the, on the business card. Yes. And I'm laying, actually that's, that's my evil twin, you know? Yes. Um, that's me, uh, laying in between two big halibut back in the day, a long time ago when we, this one guy, Fred Wheeler, he, uh, arrested soul. He, he, um, he and his buddy and, uh, Carlos.

 Fred, Fred and his other friend, Carlos, they were, the three of 'em were on the boat and, and there was, you know, a lot of bites here and there. We cut a whole bunch of cohost salmon, we cut a whole bunch of kings, we cut a whole bunch of halibut, and two of the halibut were huge. Fred, back in the day when you were allowed, to each, any size, um, well I was laying in between those two Hal, but I had to jump outta the way two times before I got the third time was a good picture.

Um, they were started flopping around and so I had to jump outta the way. Didn't wanna get hurt. Yeah, that's, you know, one of them was 2 21 pounds and the other one was 360 pounds. Yeah. And,  you know, a lot of times since then, you know, over, over time and over history, I get to learn that, some of those big halibut,  some of 'em taste pretty good, but, but sometimes they're a little tougher, a little older and little, uh, little.

Yeah. Not as tender, et cetera. So I've, over the years, I've convinced quite a few people since then to, um, you know, let some a hundred fifty, two hundred fifty pound halibut go. Not a lot, but quite a few over the years. And, it's a little bit of fun, especially the big ones are, are, um, laying lots of eggs, millions and millions of eggs each year.

Yeah. So, 

yep. 

They keep that stock going, so that's fun. Yeah. The 20 to 20 to 80 pounders, 20 to 60, whatever that whole. Range is is pretty tender. Yummy fish. They taste so good. Yeah. Oh wow. They taste so good. 

Yeah, I know. But yeah, that, 

uh, that guy, that was funny. Um, Fred was, had a big bite, something took line, just peeling line, and then it dropped the hook.

It didn't get hooked. It just clamped on down deep. We were fishing in 308 feet of water that day. I remember that. Oh, wow.  And he was like, oh, he was a little disappointed that it didn't get hooked. And then. I was like, okay, you guys, because there's, there's a few of 'em on the boat. And, and I was like, okay, just jig a little bit.

Uh, move around. Okay, let it rest and get that centra, they taste tested it, so they're gonna come back soon. And it was a few minutes later and, and it bit on his for a second and then it bit on his friend. Um, and, um, Fred and it took wine. And it dropped it also. And again, I said, okay, wait, another, uh, you know, a couple minutes.

It should be back. Hopefully. 'cause it took quite a bit of line. 

Yeah, it just 

went off and like for. Know a, a number of seconds. 2015, maybe 10, 15 seconds. It took line and then dropped it. And I was like, okay, leave it there. Don't retrieve, don't bring it back. 'cause it brought it out ways from the boat down deep, but a ways.

And I was like, leave it there. Just jig it, Twitch it a couple times, leave it there. And it came back and bit it and it finally, it did get hooked on that time. And that was big one. That was the big one on the business card I had. I'm laying in between. 

Yeah, way back in the day. Yeah. And you know, every summer in Juneau there is a. Some large halibut caught, you know, a hundred pounders. 200 pounders. Yep. Or plus or minus. And not a lot of 'em, but a some, you know, the chances there.

A lot of day, a lot of days it's, it's the smaller ones we catch, you know, some really nice, we call it chicken HaBO. We find a yes, an area where there's some chicken halibut, 20 pounds, 10, 20, 30, 40 pounders. Around in the, in the mountaintops we try to find a, a mountaintop, a ridge top, whatever, and fish on that area.

And,  depending on the direction of the tide, there might be some bait fish, live bait fish or scrap stuff that they might be going chasing after. Yeah. They love to eat Hal, but love to eat. Herring is one of their main things actually. A lot of creatures love to eat that. Of course.  Salmon as well. Yes.

Yeah. Anyway, they're, they're going on the other side where the current's pushing it and they're trying to eat those fish live or, or scraps. And then hopefully our bait is in that area too. In the scent trail. They can smell it and come over to us. 

Yeah. 

And bite it. Pretty neat. 

Ah, that's awesome. Love it.

Okay. This is really making me wanna go fishing like right now. 

 So can you share a little bit about the boat situation? So questions that I frequently get that I'm sure you get all the time as well, are like. Are there bathrooms? Will I get seasick? Will I have phone service or wifi or whatever?  So tell us a little bit about what the experience is like on the boat.

Excellent. Yes.  The boats that we have are some pretty nice ones. We have some 28 foot North river boats, aluminum, nice cabins heaters in there.  Marine had the bathroom area is nice to have. We forgot to ask about 

that. Yeah. 

Yeah. It's good to have a heater. Yep.  You know, we don't need 'em on every, all every day, all summer long, but some days there's some cooler days and rainy days.

So we, if anybody wants the heater on, let us know. We turn it on. Sometimes I want the heater on myself. Yes. Because it's chilly out. 

Right. 

 Especially in the spring and fall.  And then the, the marine head is the bathroom on the boat and we have a, a two, you know, a wall in there and a room for that works out quite well.

And,  so nice seating bench, seating area typically. And the two catamarans. We have 30 foot fiberglass catamarans. Those are nice and stable. 

Mm. And 

really spacious. And the inside, the cabin as well as outside the cabin. Nice and comfy. So we have, uh, numerous boats. We have, let's see, how many do I have now?

I have six charter fishing boats. Crazy. Yeah.  Time flies when you're having fun, 

right? Yeah. It's like, how did this even happen? How did I get to this point? We also 

have, uh, three char, uh, three boat rentals, bare boat rental boats nowadays. Oh, nice. Is, uh, yeah, so we have three of those to rent out.

For people that have a really good skill of driving boats, and I, they have to prove to me that they have the, a good enough skill to drive boats safely in our, in our area. 

Yes. 

And a lot of paperwork. Um, insurance and skill sets are very important. So not, not, uh, not just anybody. Yes. And uh, but yeah, I've rented out in the past and now I'm gonna rent out again starting the spring of 2025.

So looking forward to that. 

Nice fun. That's awesome. We have a lot 

of captains and a lot of crew deckhands that work on the fishing boats. 

Uh, 

we have van drivers, we have, uh, dock reps. It's, and, uh, our manager that helps us, uh, keep everything organized. Stephanie does, and we have a head lead captain and, and, uh, mechanics that help me, it's, it's, uh.

Pretty big picture keeping everything going. Yeah. 

Yeah. And I try to 

make, really keep the boats in good conditions in the vehicle and good safe conditions. The boats, we have all the required US Coast Guard safety equipment on there. 

Yep. 

And I always try to enhance 'em too, a little bit to, to make it so they're just extra safe.

And like I have, uh, two. Um, VHF radios is normally on the ceiling, uh, with their own antennas and so good. It's nice to have two of those and 

yep, 

it's not required, but it's, it's nice to have extra safety of features on there. 

So definitely, 

yeah. Keep everybody safe and have lots of fun. And I always ask the captains and crew every spring, it's like, what's the priority?

What's your job number one? And, uh, some, most time they say catching fish. And I say, Nope. Safety. Safety is number one. Yes. What's your second? What's your second job? 

Yeah. Catching 

fish. Nope. Entertainment. Third job is catching fish. Yes. 

Yes. 

So have all that together and it's a fun time. Go play around. 

Yes.

Love it. Um, okay, so speaking of catching fish. I am sure you get asked this all the time. Am I gonna catch fish? What if I don't catch fish? How often do people catch fish? So, yeah, exactly. What is, um, what is the answer to that? 

Good question. Yeah. There's, uh, a lot of times people will ask me if, if, uh, catching a fish is guaranteed.

Yeah. And so I'll almost always reply. It's like, well, yeah, we're guaranteed to, to your, uh, to get your hook and bait wet. 

Yes. 

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And you gotta have that hook and the bait in the water so you can potentially catch fish. And, you know, some days are slow, sometimes there's nothing, but you never know.

We always try to go some good, good areas. Yeah. Over, over the years we get to know good areas, good timing, depending on the tide, the conditions, the bait fish, what they're biting. So over time we, we learned the, the skill sets of what is the best chance for our guests. And, um, to catch something, some, catch some halibut, catch some salmon, um, and then also have a good time together.

Yeah. Take some pictures out there. Enjoy the movie. Yes. 

Which is, I mean, let's be honest, that's a huge part of fishing. I. 

Exactly. It is a big, huge part of it. You go, you go do adventure of, of any particular kind. Being out there and doing that adventure is, is what people are enjoying. 

Yeah. 

You know, it might be on a hike, it might be something on the salt water, it might be something on in the mountains or, or whatever on land.

Yep. But, um, the activity of being with family or friends. Uh, and playing around out in the, the wilderness or exploring a state that you haven't been to or maybe you have been to it. Yeah, maybe a lot of times people will come up and to June, Alaska, or other places in Alaska and they get hooked after that first time they, they like it and then, you know, maybe another couple years they come back again.

Or maybe it's annual thing. You never know. Yeah, 

yeah. Some people move up 

here. 

Yeah. And there are absolutely people who do like a fishing trip in Alaska, you know, every year I. 

There is absolutely, definitely pvp. Do that. Yep. Yep. Of 

or another type of the trip. Yeah. 

Yep. Right on. We've had people actually come back and stay, like, move to the Juneau area and work for us too over 

Oh, perfect.

For 

the past years. Yeah. It's pretty neat. Yeah, and we, we have. Lots of, uh, captains and crew and there's quite a few crew that work on the boats,  for helping us to help the captains fishing on the fishing trips. 

Yep. 

 Good number of 'em have been the high schools here. 

Yeah. In the 

Juneau, Alaska area.

Yeah. And. Basically every year we have a few people in high school that work here, and then of course university students. Yep.  Also non-locals alike. It's like, it's really cool. People, you know, get that fishing bug and then, and then over time, sometimes they do it for work.

It's a lot of fun. Yeah. 

Yeah. That's so awesome. I have a couple 

captains that are retired. They're retired from their other main careers in their lives and, and, it's something fun for them to do. Like this one, captain, captain Levi, he, the last summer, there was a couple times I was like, Hey, you need a day off?

And, and he was like, why? This is fun. This isn't work. And I was like, I'm just out here. Captain Levi. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's so 

fun. Yeah. Yep. Love it. 

Well, what is a, what is charter fiction, captain and crew? What do they do on their day off? 

Fishing, 

go fishing. Yes, of course. With their own boat. Yes. Or from the shore, whatever they want, you know, 

sometimes.

Yeah. Yes. How do you, how do 

you know,  if a captain, a boat fishing captain is lying? 

His mouth is moving. 

That's right. His lips are moving. That's right. Now own a story. Lips are moving a big gigantic, yeah. Gigantic fishing story. 

Yes. Right. Oh, that's so funny. Yep. Love it. 

Oh my gosh. There's some sunshine out there.

Some blue skies. Woo, 

sunny. Dude. Do you know the 

snowy mountain tops are showing some it em. That's cool. 

Perfect. 

Yep. 

Okay, grant, I wanna know what your favorite seafood is to eat personally. 

Ooh. Ooh. Good question. Let's see. 

And how, 

yeah, exactly.  The, uh, halibut grilled is, is definitely one of my favorites.

Yeah. 

 Just simple, you know, salt and pepper, butter, and then maybe some,  some good seasoning on there. Somebody's favorite seasoning, of course. 

Yep. 

I have,  Conico. Conico is, is my favorite spice on that. Um, nice. You know, on salmon or halibut, grilled up.

Oh, so delicious. So years ago we had,   chef on there. Um, he came up one winter, they were doing that show, remember his show that he, he went around a few different places in the world, like five or seven countries, whatever it was. 

Yeah. 

Um, 

yep. 

And they learned from the local chefs.

Yep. 

And they would  cook some local foods with them. Yeah. And, um, that, 

like the idea is that they don't know what they're doing. Right. And that's what Yeah. And they would learn and then 

they had a little, yeah. Yeah. And then they had a little friendly competition. 

Yeah. 

 Chef Lionel, uh, chef Lionel has Red Spruce in June, Alaska at the.

The Forbidden Pinks brewery there. He has a really neat place in there and lot some really good food. So Chef Lionel,  he cooked, he was cooking with  gordon Ramsey. Gordon Ramsey. 

Oh yeah. 

Years. Years ago, a number, I don't know, five years ago, whatever it was. So a number of years ago, chef Emerald and his crew came to the June of Alaska area and their TV crew, and they were learning how to cook the local seafood and other, other local Alaska foods.

Yep. So 

Chef Lionel and Chef Gordon Ramsey, they were. He was learning from him and they were teaching each other stuff and, and then they had a friendly competition as well. They did lots of different adventures around the southeast Alaska area too. It was pretty neat. Oh, 

fun. 

And I helped with some of the TV show stuff and, and we went into Tracy Armand and to get some ice in there for some drinks and that was pretty neat.

Oh, Tracy, one of the days took the fishing arm is so pretty. Yeah. One of the days . I took Chef Gordon Ramsey and his crew on the fishing boat, and we were trolling around for salmon for over a number of hours and had some fun visiting with,  chef Gordon Ramsey, his security officer.

I was visiting with him, the director, the audio video thing. You know, we were all having fun visiting. 

Yes. And 

Josh, he lived out in the HO area and I was,  on the boat. So Josh and I took them fishing for salmon and anyway, later on they. We didn't necessarily catch a salmon that day. 'cause it was in the middle of winter.

Yeah. You know, it was slower timeframe. Yeah. But, um, his, their goal was to show the world how  chef Gordon to, uh, Gordon Ramsey to, he wanted to show the world how to cook, a king salmon. 

Yeah. 

Right on the boat. Right on the back of the boat, so, 

okay. 

The,  the king salmon, they, he showed people how to scale it and, and filet it and had the grill out.

And he had his favorites. He had some top secret spices too. It was pretty funny. He had salt and pepper, and then he had some top se, top secret spices. I don't know what they were, but, anyway, so showed us, so did he just 

have them in like an unmarked vial and he just uhhuh Yeah. Pulled him out little and was like, sorry, I can't let you see this.

Put the spices on it. Yeah, it was delicious. So he's, he, showed everybody us onboard and then of course, therefore the world,  when they showed it on, on video and tv, the,  that king salmon was so delicious. 

Yeah. 

It was phenomenal.  Josh, me awesome and the other people on the boat security guy and the camera and audio and we all had bites and taste test of it and bites of it.

And,  I was on the, on their show for like a half a second or something, maybe a couple seconds. Like your face just, it was funny, fast. 

Yeah, 

yeah, yeah. I was like, I think I went like, Ooh, yum, yum. Or something like that, but it was pretty tasty. So I learned how to, I, I learned how to cook King Salmon from Def Gordon Ramsey.

So 

yeah, that's, uh, that's pretty, I think it home 

sometimes. Similar way. I don't know what, so top Secret Spice is, but I, I use the con Rico on mine and it's pretty dang good, so 

Love it. Oh, that's such a great story. That's awesome. Okay, so. As we get towards the end here, grant,  that is kind of a nice segue to one of the two questions that I like to ask everybody who comes on the podcast, and one of them is, what's your favorite restaurant in Juneau?

I know that's a little loaded, so, oh, excellent. Um, yeah, you can, and you know, other than your Gordon Ramsey co copycat. King Salmon. Yum. Yum. Which is not available in restaurants as far as I know. 

Maybe one of his famous restaurants somewhere. Yes. And around the, although 

maybe in a Gordon Ramsey restaurant, you could get it, but there's not one in Gino.

So well there 

is in general Alaska, there is a whole bunch of good restaurants. Yeah. Like I was talking about Chef Lion just a minute ago at Red Spruce. He has some really good quality food in there, and really good, tasty, spicy. Not necessarily spicy hot, but good spices and good, good, uh, amount of it. And not too much, not too low.

There is. Um, some pretty neat places. Of course, the, the, there's famous Tracy's King, crab Shack downtown. Yep. That's fantastic to go to. 

Yep. 

And then, oh, an island pub on Douglas Island. Yes. Is really fun. Yes. The Island Pub is just so fun. There's some really good, really neat custom pizzas out there. Yes, of course.

Some go to the brewery there or the, the Not brewery, the um, island Pub bar restaurant there. It's pretty fun. 

Yeah. 

Yeah. Yeah. Some neat ones there. Yeah. 

Love it. 

And then, uh, Belka, El Lupo, um, chef there has some really neat Italian foods there too. It's fantastic. Yes. Yeah. And they, have you been to that one?

Yes. And they have that. Well, when I saw you in, you know, last time I, it was either, I think it was the day before that I had gone there, I can't remember, but Oh yeah. Um, I had the, uh, the thunderdome, which is, that was so amazing. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It was like the bread thing with the garlic butter. 

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Isn't that delicious? 

It was amazing. It was life changing. Yeah. I don't know that I've gone. For a day without thinking about it since I went there. 

Yeah. Yeah. But everything was good. There's another, there's another place too that, uh, deckhand Dave's has the Yes, the fish taco place downtown June, Alaska, and Yep.

That is so tasty. The, 

yeah, it is. A 

lot of times when I go there, I'll get the three taco sampler. One is salmon, fish taco. Yeah. One is how, but fish taco, another one is. Typically the rockfish fish taco. Yep. 

Yep. So 

those three are delicious. And depending on the mood, sometimes my favorite is the rockfish, or sometimes my favorite is the, the halibut or the salmon.

You never know which, but 

Yep. 

You know, if somebody gets the sampler, then another time they go a different day or maybe the same day, who knows? Might they might like it so much. 

Yeah, 

yeah. It's pretty tasty. Some good fish tacos there. 

Yes, definitely. 

'cause the last Alaska resident, when the season open is open in certain areas. We can, we can go kid our own catch our own dungeons crab, or we can go catch our own king crab and cook at home. And we have our favorite ways too, as well for that. And it's delicious, fresh. When it's fresh, still twitching as you cook it.

That is the best way. It's one of the best ways. 

Yeah, it is. And you know, it's funny because I, when,  I was at Inbo at Al Lupo, 

 chef Bow. Yeah, he's awesome. So when I, 

when I was there, um, with uh, somebody else who was also visiting and like, we had a reservation and we went and then,  the last time that I had been in that building was when it was still the silver bow.

Oh yeah. So, so I was like, oh yeah, this is totally different. And it was awesome. But,  we were so like overwhelmed with what to order 'cause it all looked amazing. The gals at the next table over. They were like, oh, order this, this, and this, and this. They're like, okay. 

Oh, there you go. 

Yeah. It was great.

Yeah. Oh, it was so fun. 

Awesome. 

Love it. Yep. Okay. And you know, take a Juneau food tour if you're like, wow, Juneau has a lot of amazing food. It really does. Yeah. Go on the Juneau food 

tours. 

Yeah, I know. Um. I feel like Juneau, this is not always a popular opinion, but I think that Juneau and Fairbanks have the best food in Alaska.

I think those are the two best food towns. Yeah. 

Fantastic. 

There's a lot of good food in Alaska, but I feel like especially for their size and the variety of different options there are that those two towns are my favorite for food. Mm-hmm. 

Excellent. Yeah. Yeah. 

Sitka also lots of good seafood. Good. Yeah.

Yeah. Sitka is good. 

Ketchikan, yeah. 

Yep. And Anchorage is good, but Anchorage is a city, so I would kind of expect it to have good food. You know, I kind of like. Yeah, they do have some great food, but also picking up population. Yeah, yeah. You know, they should do anyway. Yeah. Um, okay, so to finish up, grant, last question.

What is one piece of advice that you have for people visiting Alaska for the first time? 

Excellent. Yes. Um, piece of advice for visiting Alaska for the first time is to research and find out. Where you want to go. If it's on a cruise ship, excellent. If it's independent travel, excellent, whichever, but keep in mind and research where, what towns you're going to go to, if it's more than one.

Especially how to get there because transportation between towns, especially in Southeast Alaska airplanes, the Alaska Marine Highway ferries, it takes time. So you gotta plan that, you know, okay, you gotta plan a certain number of hours for this fair, certain number hours for that, uh, fair to go to one between this town and that town.

Yep. 

And just. It's really finding out what the logistics of that travel and the timeframe of that traveling is. 

Yeah. 

Um, especially if you're gonna go to more than one town. Yep. And southeast Alaska, Juneau is the capital city,  of Alaska of course. And so it's really neat hub to be at. If you go there for a while and you can branch out from there, do lots of fun things there, like go fishing with me.

Of course. Yes.  Obviously go fishing, go do some help or, or salmon fishing. Have some fun. And,  from there, you know, you can,  you can do so many different things on the water, on, in, in the woods and the, and the forest. There's, there's lots of hiking trails too. There's really beautiful views. Yeah.

Yeah. 

Yep. So anyway, learning, learning,  and getting the travel,  plans and the distance. And the timeframe of that traveling Yep.  Is quite important actually. 'cause sometimes you'll get there and it's like, oh wow, that took a long time to, you know, get from one town to another. Right. Or more than expected.

Or, or people think you can drive in and outta junior and you cannot Yeah. You do not drive on the highway with your vehicle on the pavement. It doesn't work. You, you have to put it on the ferry. 

Yes. 

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And the interior, Alaska, you can drive around a lot. It's a long ways though. Distance between towns is a long ways.

Yes. It's 

typically yes. Yes. Well, grant, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, sharing your fishing stories. Thank you. Fun sharing about,  the joy of fishing in Juneau. Really  📍 appreciate having you here. 

Thank you for having me. This was fun.