Fishing near Kotzebue, AK

Kotzebue sits at the tip of a peninsula jutting into the Chukchi Sea in Northwest Alaska, at the edge of Kotzebue Sound. The area is best known for sheefish — a bucket-list species found in only a handful of watersheds worldwide — with the Kobuk River, roughly 15 miles from town, holding what many consider the top sheefish run in North America. Ice fishing on Kotzebue Sound draws anglers chasing giant sheefish through the winter, while summer opens up river fishing for Dolly Varden, Arctic grayling, and northern pike across drainages including the Noatak, Wulik, Kivalina, and Kobuk systems. Herring can also be jigged in the marine waters near Kotzebue.