Alaska camping and RV touring

Camping and RVs

Camping puts vacationers right in the middle of gorgeous scenery.

Anchorage: 11°/17°/Partly cloudy

Fairbanks: -13°/-3°/Flurries

Juneau: 32°/37°/Rain to snow

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Fishing in Alaska

Two fishing derbies -- for king and silver salmon -- are held each summer in downtown Anchorage. Ken Scott of Phoenix fishes for silvers at the mouth of the creek as it empties into Cook Inlet.

Two fishing derbies -- for king and silver salmon -- are held each summer in downtown Anchorage. Ken Scott of Phoenix fishes for silvers at the mouth of the creek as it empties into Cook Inlet.

Plan your trip to Alaska

More on Fishing

Fishing

Two fishing derbies -- for king and silver salmon -- are held each summer in downtown Anchorage. Ken Scott of Phoenix fishes for silvers at the mouth of the creek as it empties into Cook Inlet.

Angler's are drawn not just by the size of Alaska's fish, but also the variety.

Alaska's fish species

Spawning king salmon gather in early August just below the Alaska Department of Fish and Game weir in Anchorage's Ship Creek at the Elmendorf Fish Hatchery. Bob Pence, assistant hatchery manager, says staffers have recently completed spawning about 170 female kings. Those eggs are in incubation and will be stocked into Ship Creek and other local streams next June. The fish, most of which were hatchery fish released three years ago, will spawn in the creek bed nearby.

Find out what there is to catch in Alaska.

Regional fishing

Guide Mike Vaughan works the oars on a drift boat during an April snowfall on the Situk River near Yakutat while fishing for steelhead.

Where to find the fish and how to get there.

Fishing licenses

Where to get a fishing license.

Anglers will have their hands full

Fishing in Alaska is different from fishing anywhere else in the world.

It's an angler's dream.

There are five kinds of wild Pacific salmon (king/chinook, silver/coho, red/sockeye, pink/humpback, and chum), plus halibut the size of barn doors, rainbow trout that weigh 15 pounds, and delicate arctic grayling that slash at flies.

Altogether, Alaska has 21 recognized species of sport fish in its streams, lakes and oceans.

Fishing in Alaska can be as easy as buying a license and heading for a stream or lake -- or it can be a daylong boat charter in Prince William Sound or a week's worth of fly-in remote backcountry action where anglers watch for fish and for bears.