14 Jun Alaska Fishing Report: June 14, 2013
More Kings on the Kasilof, More Options on the Kenai.
As we move into the middle of June, fishing remains steady on the Kasilof River for king salmon as well as sockeye and a few remaining down river steelhead. Our boats have been finding reasonable success on both wild (naturally-produced) and hatchery king salmon as we move into the seasonal peak for this early run king salmon fishery. Most of the kings are still bright chrome and covered in sea-lice indicating there are still a number of fresh fish entering the river daily. We are also seeing and catching a fair number of sockeye salmon on the Kasilof and this run should only continue to build and improve well into late June and early July.
On the Kenai River, king fishing remain slow as fish counts continue to be far below normal levels. In the salt water an emergency order was released a few days ago prohibiting any fishing and/or retention of king salmon in an effort to allow all the early run Kenai kings safe passage into the river. Unless we see a dramatic spike in king numbers entering the Kenai River in the next 3-4 days it seem inevitable that this fishery will be closed for the remainder of June. On a more positive note, the Kenai did open to trout fishing on June 10 and this has revealed an abundant and healthy trout population holding in the waters below Skilak Lake and in the vicinity of the upper and lower Kiley Rivers. Fishing is very good for these wild, resident fish and while this is an entirely catch and release fishery, it is well worth a look for the great action and incredible scenery. Along with the great trout fishing, we have also had very good luck fishing for Russian River bound sockeye salmon and the action has been good enough to produce limit catches of these ocean bright salmon. Hopefully this run will continue build into late June as this has provided an awesome alternative to the slow king fishing.
Fly Out Fishing on the west side of Cook Inlet remains excellent with a big push of sockeye salmon moving into Big River. We have been getting nice limits of these big bright sockeye and this run should just continue to get better over the next several weeks.
Finally, I will end this report with a comment on the incredible weather we have seen over the past week to ten days. We have had back to back days of blue bird skies and remarkably warm weather for Alaska. Daytime highs have been well above seventy degrees and this beautiful weather if forecast to continue for another week!