We booked a full day charter and a 2nd 6-hour charter with Mike over July 4th weekend. We had an absolute blast of a time and Mike is a phenomenal guide. We would highly recommend him to friends, family, and other customers. I think though people just need to have the right expectations when going out.
Thing we learned
1) Don't have your whole group go buy king salmon tags. We caught over a dozen or more king salmon but they were all too small (must be 28"+ only) to keep. This seems to be an issue in the area that King salmon are finicky to catch and of course you have to get a "valid" one. Luckily we were able to get one 35". And of course we caught quite a few coho salmon we could all keep. At least at the time we went, King salmon were a bit harder to come by
2) We caught our limit of halibut for both days but we caught so many more fish that we couldn't keep such as ratfish and a dusky and so many too-small king salmon. You also may have no bites at all for an hour or two and then 3 to 4 bites all within 15 mins.
3) Mike is super great at help planning your day. We didn't realize how much time of your charter is spent cruising on the boat to just get to the fishing spots. Each place may be better suited for a certain type of fish and these places are not necessarily near each other.