Why You Should Book an Alaska Guided Fishing Trip on the Kenai Peninsula

By Jeremy Anderson

Girdwood local and co-owner of Alaska Silvertip Lodge and Cabins, Jeremy Anderson, spends his summers as a fishing guide based in Soldotna. Here he shares his advice on booking a guided Alaska fishing trip on the Kenai Peninsula.

As you start to plan your Alaska fishing trip it’s important to connect yourself with a reputable guided fishing service so you can have the best fishing trip possible.

I look at it like this: if I was spending money to go somewhere I would want to have the best experience possible. Hiring a fishing guide if you want to go fishing is the way to do it. We recently went to Costa Rica for a family vacation. We hired a guide for the day and it allowed us to have a safe, worry free, & productive time on the water. A local showed us his backyard, which is exactly what you will experience when you hire a guide on your next Alaska fishing trip.

The Kenai Peninsula has some of the best sportfishing in the world, and it offers some of the most cost-effective, easy to get to, and productive fishing experiences available in Alaska!

• You can fish small streams & big rivers like the Kenai or Kasilof River for salmon and rainbow trout.
• Ocean fishing is available out of Deep Creek and the halibut capital of the world Homer. Seward also offers ocean fishing but we tend to send people to the other 2 locations for a variety of reasons. You can also fish for rockfish, ling cod, and salmon out of Homer!
• Fly-out fishing for salmon with the option to view bears as well is available most of the summer.

Because of the proximity of all these fishing trips to our lodge it makes it easy to get a variety of fishing trips while being centrally located in our home base of Soldotna. Check our all our Fishing Trips to learn more about each type of fishing trip we offer on the Kenai Peninsula!

When you book a guided fishing trip you are getting the local knowledge as you go through the process of deciding which trips are best for the group you are traveling with. Typically it’s an easy process as the Alaska fishing guide you select helps you coordinate your logistics so you can have an easy path with the booking process. In the end if you feel like the process has been smooth and you find. You can have the choice to book seats on a boat OR book a private boat. One thing we suggest is the private boat option with our guests so people have flexibility on their trip and a get a higher level of instruction from the guide, which are both benefits to the angler.

As you start to plan your guided fishing trip in Alaska you need to start by finding a guide service that is going to treat you right and get you into fish. There are a few things to look out for when helping you find a reputable Alaska fishing guide service including:

Things to look for:

• Know their story (read ours) so you know more about the guide!
• Making sure that when you talk to someone on the phone they are helping answer all the questions and being honest with fishing conditions (see salmon run #’s). Hopefully you have a friendly down to earth conversation and you feel good throughout the call.
• A deposit with a cancellation policy is normal. This means that the guide service most likely has a well operating business that you have to put skin in the game to get on a trip with them. It will help ensure that the trip you booked will happen.
• Research the guide companies reviews. In this day and age reviews can help you learn more about the guide company. Here is an example of Silvertip Reviews from Trip Advisor and on Google.
• Ask the guide service about their boats, gear, years of experience. You will find that the best guides to go with have good boats and gear in good working order and have been guiding for at least 5+ years. The best situation is the 15+ year guides who are still young enough to have passion but been around long enough to know what they are doing.

Things to avoid when booking Alaska Guided Fishing Trips:

• If you are talking to someone on the phone and they pressure you to book this is a red flag. It probably means you don’t all the correct info to make an informed decision. The booking representative should be patient, help you answer questions, and bring up the questions you aren’t asking.
• If a guide service can’t be found anywhere online or on social media you may want to consider looking elsewhere. In this day and age it is very easy to showcase who you are online.
• Ask if your guide fishes the same zones daily. When a guide moves from one river to the next daily OR goes from river to ocean weekly that’s a concern with them being spread too thin to be dialed with one zone appropriately.

When setting up your Alaska fishing experience most people need a place to stay as well so Silvertip Lodge and Cabins or something similar is a great way to package everything together so you can simplify your trip. Whether you are fishing one day with free days, fishing every day you are in Alaska, or you are adding in guided adventures / sightseeing trips it is very easy and clean to set it up with someone like us. If you trust the lodge then you can feel safe that all their partners and amenities fit within your parameters for your trips goals.

In the end you want to go back home feeling like you were treated well, your guide was professional, and you got to experience the fishing Alaska really has to offer. The Kenai Peninsula has some of Alaska’s best guided fishing opportunities in the world that you can drive to! If you pick the right company to work with you will be in the boat that is having the most fun and success.