Fall / Winter 2025 Alaska Fishing Reports
Ice Fishing Trips — Late November Often Provides Adequate Ice Cover on Mat-Su Lakes We like to have a solid 6inches of ice before starting to guide ice fishing trips, and we can often have solid ice by late November. Our 4 hour ice fishing trips targets rainbow trout, Arctic char, and or landlocked salmon in the Palmer -Wasilla core area lakes located about a 45 minute to one hour drive north of Anchorage. Most of these fish run about 8 – 15 inches in length with occasional fish over 20 inches. Guest are allowed to harvest up to a 10 fish limit of these fish, however, many of our guest choose to enjoy a catch and release outing. Our trips are guiding on the open ice, so we can easily move from spot to spot around a lake, without moving a tent r shelter. We provide all the necessary ice fishing gear and instuction. Warm boots, hats, jackets, and mittens are suggested items for guest to bring. An Alaska fishing license is required.
Scroll down for our latest fishing report:
Monday November 17, 2025 — We had another snowfall last night. We’ve had a couple weeks of temperatures below freezing temperatures, and it appears we may be on schedule to get out on the ice possibly by the weekend before Thanksgiving (November 23 and 24).
December — Wow the month went quickly! My wife and I enjoyed a wonderful vacation to the Kona, Hawaii area, and I also was able to update and make our 5-hour guided salmon fishing reservation dates available through our online reservation service on this website. For 2026 we have shortened our trips by an hour, and will be offering a wider variety of trip starting times, in an effort to better meet what some of our guests have been requesting. With the new additional starting times — some of the trip reservations will need to be made through phone request — others will be live to book on the website. This system of having some trips only available through phone request allows us the option of having different start time options — while helping us keep the reservations in order so overbookings may not occur.
Friday January 2, 2026 — Happy New Year. Today I went to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game office in Palmer and renewed my guide and business aport fishing registrations for 2026 — So I am getting ready to guide some ice fishing trips — although the temperatures have recently dropped below zero. That make for cool fishing. Ice is plenty thick on Mat-Su Valley lakes, and I’ve heard some decent ice fishing reports.
New Year — New Fishing Gear! I have some new hooks I want to try for ice fishing this year, but most of our new fishing tackle will be geared toward our summer salmon fishing trips. I’ve already built about a dozen new custom fishing rods with more to be built before the season starts. I’ve also purchased a variety of new lures to try, and also intend to fish in locations where bait will be legal for salmon harvest additional days. I am still using Pautzke bait company baits, scents, and cures, and intend to experiment considerably more next summer. Some may have noticed that guest caught more sockeye salmon in particular from my personal guide boat during the summer of 2025 — I attribute some of that to Pautzke krill scent used when I was curing salmon roe and also to fishing in locations where there was a greater abundance of sockeye salmon. I suspect that I may be able to help guest boost sockeye salmon catches even further by experimenting with different hook combinations — so that is part of the game plan for next summer as well. I’ve also purchased a few new spinning reels — including a Daiwa Prorex MQ LT 3000 (which appears built stout — while also being one of the lightest weight spinning reels my guests will have ever fished with!). Guest will still have the opportunities to fish with the Daiwa Procyon 3000s and 4000s and / or also the Shimano Stradic 3000s that have worked so well for us the past few years.