Fished from 4:00 am to 10:00 am. Really slow. Fished at the
confluence between crooked creek and Kasilof River. During the
period I hooked 2 steelhead and 2 King Salmon. Landed only 1
steelhead. Small maybe 5 lbs. Broke off both Kings because I was
using 8 lbs. line. Gear: Lilcorky (char.) and eggs.
Fished from 4:00pm to 8:00pm. Really slow. Fished the confluence
of crooked creek. Hooked two steelhead, landed one (24 inches).
Used lilcorky (chart.) and eggs. No Kings.
Finally landed the first King of the Year on the Kasilof. Used a
yarn fly on a 12 ft. Noodle rod. The King was fairly small but
typical of a Kasilof King (about 20lbs).
"Landed" a nice male King on the Kenai River. About
40lbs. Released it because the seasonal limit on the Kenai River
is two Kings per year. Need to save the tags for a trophy over
75lbs!. Used a 9 foot Quantum Rod with a 320gti Penn reel. 30lbs
trilene XT and a 3/4 oz magnum chart/chrome hot shot. Pictures as
soon as I develop them.
Fishing was good at first light, almost every boat had one fish on. Most of the fish were small, about 25 lbs. The action died off right away and the rest of the morning was pretty spotty. A few fish being hooked though throughout the morning. A good start for this early in the season.
Fished the Kasilof on Saturday from 4:00 am to noon. Fishing was
really slow. I hooked up twice and turned a few more fish, but
ended up landing and releasing one small King of about 15 pounds.
On Sunday and Monday, the action was a little better, but a
lot of people on the river as well. Both Kurt and I had numerous
strikes and eventually ended up landing 6 kings in the two days
between the two of us. Here's one we kept
(25K). The fishing was slow, but if you worked hard, you
would eventually hook up. Almost all of the fish were relatively
small, none bigger than 30lbs. Almost all were in the 20lbs to 25
lbs range.
All of the fish were very bright silver with no hint of being in
the river for very long. The roe in the fish was all very
immature. The fish were all in excellent quality. Because they
have not been in the river very long, these fish fought extremely
hard for their size.
Other streams ion the peninsula reported similar results. Although both the Anchor River and Ninilchik Rivers were "fishable" the action was relatively slow. The cold weather may have had some effect. The King salmon streams on the Kenai Peninsula will no doubt improve over the next several weeks. I didn't fish the Kenai due to the relatively muddy waters caused by the rains. As soon as the river clears up, I will definitely be on the Kenai river again!.
Fished Saturday on the Kasilof River. The fishing was slow.
However, as soon as it got dark. I must have seen 50 fish go
right by my leg on their way up crooked creek. The number of
salmon appeared to be fairly good, but they were not biting.
Almost all of the fish I saw during Saturday were snagged or
"lined" (evidenced by the hook on the outside of the
mouth). The fish continue to run small, no more than 25 lbs. I
did see a few fish pushing 35 pounds this week. All of the fish
were still very bright chrome colored fish. All I could manage
was pair of 15 lbs fish that I released. The largest fish I had
in my hands on Saturday was a fish that swam right up onto shore
by my feet after breaking off of someone's line. A beautiful
25lbs fish. Here's a 13K JPEG. I
thought about tagging it but eventually I released it. Better to
earn your own fish!
Sunday was interesting as I headed off to Ninilchik. The bad news was I shattered my 12ft noodle rod on a nice fish. It will be the last time I use the new spectra lines in the dark.. As the fish ran toward me, some slack developed in my line. The new lines definitely have problem with tangling at the rod tip...well the rest is history...for my rod. Once again there appeared to be more fish than were being caught. The fish in the Ninilchik appeared to be smaller as well. All of the fish were still very bright in the Ninilchik. I'll have to try again...Here's a picture of Ninilchik Harbor at dawn. (15K)
The fishing was definitely beginning to pick up on the Kasilof
River. I was fortunate enough to land probably 6 or 7 fish over
the weekend. Here's one of the fish I got.
(25K)The fish were still on the small side although more of
the 25 to 30 pound fish were beginning to show. Dad caught and
kept a nice 25-30 lbs hen, his first king of the year for him.
Although the fishing wasn't "hot", the action is
starting to pick up. With the action comes the crowd. I avoid
them by fishing very early or very late.
For mid June the fishing on the Kasilof was as slow as I have
seen it in the past several years. However, with a little luck
and patience, my father and I managed to hook a few kings
managing to land only two fish of about 20 lbs a piece. I also
had a red salmon (sockeye) hit my yarn fly. Kurt-san patiently
fished on and ultimately hooked and landed a nice Kasilof king
that could have pushed 40lbs.
We had apparently missed an ultra hot bite of small kings that
took place on the lower Kenai River on Saturday. Many guides had
limited out (3-4 fish per boat) in under 3 hours but the largest
King checked in at Eagle Rock was only 40 lbs or so.
The gods of fishing smiled on us with great weather but unfortunatley the fishing had cooled off from Saturday. 5 hours into the trip Kurt-san hooked and landed a bright 50 lbs hen. There's apicture of it on Kurts hot list page located right here.The patience and perserverance pays off and there was much rejoicing! Next trip we are going for a 80 pound plus fish! Only have a few tags left for Kings in our group. All of us are saving it for the BIG ONE!
One of my favorite small streams in the area. Had the stream
pretty much to myself. Hooked a few reds and kept one for the
table. The fishing wasn't hot but the reds are starting to move
in. I am definitely going to look into fishing the main stream on
the lower Kenai. I would tell you which stream I was at but you
can't give away all of your fishing secrets.
If you are willing to hike or experiment a little, there are still a few uncrowded waters on the peninsula. To take maximum advantage, start early or fish late. With the sun up almost 20 hours per day you can fish almost around the clock.
The word for the weekend was...SLOW!!. Kurt-san and I fish both
days for 5 to 6 hours and we saw only 5 or 6 fish landed all day.
After speaking with Fish & Game counters, I was told that on
Saturday when we were out, they counted 200 boats and saw only 20
fish. Since each boat averages about 3 rods, you could say it was
slow. Unbelievably, Sunday was even slower. Several factors, I
believe contributed to the slow days. Extreme tides, lower water
clarity due to rain, in-between first & second run......
I however did not go fish less. After living in Kenai for most of my life, I fished the Moose river area in Sterling for the first time thanks to Kurt-san. A lot of reds milling in Moose River, none down stream. If you are looking for reds, you may have to go to Russian River or at least the upper part of the Kenai River next weekend. We hit 4 reds in about two hours. Amazingly enough, we only snagged one fish ( of course turning it loose) out of the four. For reds, that's a good fair hookup ratio.
My first King fishing trip North of Anchorage...EVER! Hard to
believe since I have been fishing for Kings in Alaska since the
early 70's. I guess it is somewhat excusable since I lived very
close to the Kenai & Kasilof River.
Well my first north of Anchorage outing was succesful. Landed a nice hen of about 30lbs about 1 hour before the end of the season. Earlier I had broken off a similar sized fish. I was using beads and chart. yarn on a 17 lbs leader on a lightweight 10'6" Fenwick. The fish were fairly dark so I opted to release the fish and save the tag for BIG Kenai Kings.
Well I am finally back from a week long adventure on the Kenai
River. Well three of us fished hard all week for Kings and I
would have to say that the trip was successful. Between the three
of us, we probably hooked up to more than a dozen nice Kings over
the week long fishing trip. The largest was 65 pounds caught by
Bob Shaw. here's a picture . And one
more here ! ) All of the fish were
caught on Spin-n-Glo with eggs. Although flourescent colors are
usually the color of choice, the metallic finishes outfished the
chartreuse and flo. red by a wide margin on this trip. Although
we didn't catch any monster fish, almost all of the fish we
caught were nice and bright and made for some pretty good smoked
salmon. I'd say the average fished we hooked ran at right about
40 pounds. Not bad anywhere else in the world, but I am still a
little bummed about not catching a 80 pound plus fish. I guess
I'll have to wait till next year!
When the action for Kings slowed down, we had no problem hitting a bunch of Red salmon. These sockeyes averaged about 7 pounds and fought extremely hard in the strong current. We were actually breaking them off of our King gear in some cases. Of course its a completely different game when you fish from the shore.
Here are a few more of the fish we caught on the Kenai River
during this trip.
Susan's 40 pounder.
Susan with two Red (sockeye) Salmon
Me with a near 40 pounder
We also got in some fishing at some other streams on the
Peninsula. Here are a few pictures from a few trips to a small
stream.
Bob and I with a few Silvers
Susan with a mixed bag of Silvers and Reds
Bob with a few silvers
Another one of my small stream favorites. THE SILVERS ARE IN!! Had the most incredible one hour of fishing I have ver had in my 20 years of fishing in Alaska. 15 casts, 15 fish. The tally was 12 Silvers and 3 trout! Even by Alaska standards, that has to be considered good. In the next hour, I only caught 4 fish...god I'm spoiled living here in Alaska!
ONLY IN ALASKA.!!! Sitting on the famous but crowded Kenai River, my grandmother, father and I were silver fishing. We were anchored about 10 feet from shore at the hole we cal the "pillars". I turned around to look upstream and saw what I thought were two black bears playing the water. That's pretty unusual in such a popular fishing area. Unfortunately, my mistake! They were not two black bears but two brown bear cubs!!! CUBS=MAMA BEAR NEARBY! Sure enough, as the two cubs began drifting down a bit with the current, the mother realizing how close her cubs were to us, decided to charge. Snorting and growling, all I saw was a blur of brown come flying through the forest. As I screamed to my father to start the engine, I managed to lift a 20 pound anchor out of the water with one heave! The engine firing up must of scared the mother since after I got my wits together to look up, the bears had vanished. The mother had to have been within 20 feet of our boat and had it not been for our faithful Evinrude firing up on the first pull, she would have been on top of us in a matter of seconds. It is hard to say if the charge was a bluff or not. Thank God we didn't stick around to find out.
The fishing was slow and after that incident my grandmother had enough excitement and we decided to call it quits. I hope the one picture I took of the cubs turns out. After the incident, I found my disposable camera in a pool of water in the boat. It could have been worse...a lot worse!
Another excellent day on this small clear water stream. Although it took awhile to find the fish, as soon as I did, it was a fish every fifth cast or so. Not huge silvers, but one may have pushed 12 pounds. The fish are still bright and full of energy. Lots of fun on light tackle. I have landed several fish in excess of 8 pounds on 4 pound line already this year. All of the fish were taken with roe on a 1/0 gamakatsu hook. I hate to see folks who bring their King gear down to fish the smaller salmon. They are great eating, but have some fun while your fishing too!
Another great day of silver fishing. In two day over a 4 hour stretch, my father an I must have hooked over 40 fish..all on the road system stream on the Kenai Peninsula. In those two days we saw maybe a total of 10 other folks fishing. Although the most popular streams such as the Kenai can get crowded, with a little work and a good alarm clock, you can have many of the other smaller streams almost to yourselves.
There is one negative about the smaller streams. We eat a lot of salmon and there is no doubt in my mind that there is a correlation between the size of the stream and the "tastiness" and "firmness" of a fish. The most dramatic example is the Yukon River Kings that travel thousands of mile to their spawning grounds. These fish are almost too oily for western palates but loved by the Japanese for their high oil content. The Kenai River Kings and second run Silvers are much better fish than the kings from the HOMER enhancement lagoon or the silvers from the smaller streams.
Ever hear of Murphy's Law? The river has been slow for the past several days by all accounts. it was definitley slow for us when we went. Four lines in the water for a total of 8 hours per rod and we caught only 3 fish total! Even the best of us strike out now and then.
The bummer was the one of the fish we did catch pulled down our hand scales at 16 pounds plus! Of course mom, who caught the fish, did not have a Silver Salmon Derby ticket. Oh well, she's afraid to look in the paper. May have been worth upto $5,000!!! Pictures of this nice fish as soon as we develop the film.
WOW back from taking a few weeks off from fishing. Had my wisdom teeth yanked, and then was out of town. Well, the fishing has slowed considerably. I took my mom and grandmother out fishing on the Kenai river. Fished four hours and only had one strike. Fortunately for me, it was a bright 15 pound buck. The second run of silvers in the Kenai is always a little slow. But nice big fish like this are the rule as opposed to the exception in the late season.
Tried a new rigging that seemed to at least work for this fish. Instead of using a small bright spin-n-glo floater as an attractor, I placed a large black spin-n-glo without the wings about 6 inches up from my bait, roe. the idea was to float the bait, but be more subtle. The technique appears to be catching on with a few succesful fishermen on the river. I will experiment further with this. Seems like a clear casting bobber may work better for something like this. hmmmmmm.
The Kenai is well into the second run of silvers. The fishing is slowing down, but the fish appear much larger. Should be able to catch silvers somewhere on the Kenai ntil it freezes up. Also the trout fshing should get good as the salmon began to spawn.
Good luck & good fishing!
