Midnight Sun 2022 – The best pike water in the world

Overview of Midnight Sun – Midnight Sun has been around for more than 20 years fishing the portion of the Innoko River South of Holy Cross from a big houseboat.  To pike fisherman around the global this is the ultimate destination.  Portions of Europe turn out a few bigger fish but NOWHERE comes close to the average size and numbers turned out by the Innoko.  To prove the point a solid 25-35% of the customers at Midnight are from Europe.  Last Summer 2021, I had the privileged of fishing North of Holy Cross with Pike Safari’s for 2 weeks.  The numbers up there were absolutely sick!  Week 1 with bad weather we landed 126 pike over 40 inches.  Week 2 with good weather turned out a hard to comprehend 232 over 40.  Jumping to our results down South with Midnight Sun in 2022 we turned out 155 over 40 with 2 at 49 inches, 2 at 48 inches, and 7 at 47 inches.  Safe to say the fishing around Midnight Sun is just as good as the fishing North of Holy Cross.

This trip has an origin story of its own.  I had fished with a serious pike fisherman in 2019 at Echoing.  After that trip we stayed in touch and planned several different trips that COVID wiped out.  One trip that didn’t get wiped was Midnight Sun.  I learned of a mutual acquaintance that had already booked Midnight for 2022 including 4 deposits before he found four guys to go.  Joe grabbed 2 slots and after speaking with Ted I was in. This was before I had even had my amazing two weeks north of Holy in 2021.

Getting There – As citizens of the USA getting to Alaska is easier than the remote portions of Canada.  That said getting to Anchorage is only like 50% of the battle when it comes to Midnight Sun.  Fishing with MS require your group charter a flight from Anchorage to the tiny village of Holy Cross which is approximately 300 miles west of Anchorage.  As you can guess a 300-mile charter to remote Alaska is pricey.  In general, the charter adds $1000 to $1600 per man to the trip.  OUCH!

Camp life – Prior to the devastating fire in 2019 Midnight Sun fished from a big 60-foot houseboat which was anchored in the Innoko, and skiffs were used to motor miles to the lakes and sloughs where the pike live.  After losing most of their 2019 and 2020 season because of the fire MS took a different approach.  A smaller 40ft catamaran was purchased and customized to provide two bedrooms and one bath to provide their customers with a safe comfortable platform to use as a base camp.  Fishing from a mobile basecamp that allows the fishing boats to move up and down river to find the best fishing.

Fishing Techniques – Fishing in the Yukon/Innoko drainage takes a couple of different forms.  Sometimes you fish the sloughs which connect the main river channel to back lakes.  These sloughs are 20-60 feet wide and 3-10ft deep.  Here you can fish smaller 2.5-3.5-inch spoons (Cleo’s / Kroc’s / Doctors / Johnson silver minnows) or plastics.  The other place fishing occurs is back lakes.  These back lakes can be simple and small few acres or massive bodies of water all their own.  In these lakes you can fish bigger spoons, spinner baits, or plastics.

Fishing Results – Lots of guys see the huge numbers of big fish and think do you just catch big fish.  Depends on your definition of big fish.  Average size is probably mid 30s, but you have days where you catch 100 fish.  More often you roll into a lake start catching some nice fun sized fish and every 3-7 fish you get a 40.  Of the 40s you get about 1/3 of those will be 44 or above.

RISK – If you have the money and love pike why wouldn’t this be your only spot to fish.  Well, these trips are extremely expensive.  Here is a sample of the big bucks.

MS – Charter $6500

Charter flight to MS – $1200

Overnight in Anchorage way in $200

Flights to and from Anchorage $600

Misc. costs in route $200

Total Cost = $8700

Now if you spend that money what can go wrong?  A lot!  You can lose days due to flights not being able to fly over or through the Western AK mountains.  Flooding on the Yukon can be serious.  This past season saw water 13 feet above flood stage.  It caused the first few groups of the season to struggle mightily.  Like 4-5 over for the week.  Now flooding that bad hadn’t happened in 7-8 years but when it does it can really hurt the fishing.  By the time I went 8 weeks after opening it was only 3 ft high and fishing was coming back online.  THESE ARE RISKY TRIPS THAT COULD RESULT IN VERY TOUGH FISHING.

Wrap – Alaska is the place to go for massive fish with massive numbers.  If you want a pike trip of epic proportions and you are willing to take the risk, nowhere else can really compare.