24 Aug Alaska Fishing Report: August 24, 2013
Spectacular Silvers, World Class Trout and lots of Wildlife!
August can be an unbelievable time to visit the Kenai River and this year is shaping up to be one of the best I can recall in many seasons. The early run of Kenai Silvers continue to produce limit catches and tons of action. We have primarily been fishing the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge below Skilak Lake but reports from the entire river indicate good numbers of silver salmon are present throughout the entire system. This third week in August is normally when we start to see the early run taper off and even though the numbers have slowed just slightly there are still more than enough fresh silvers coming in daily to easily catch limits. Recent rains have keep the river off color just slightly and still relatively high and this has made the silvers very aggressive . Blue Fox Vibrax spinners and sardine wrapped Kwik Fish have been the lures of choice.
As we come to the end of our fly out fishing season on the West Side of Cook Inlet, both Big River Lake and the Kustatan continue to see fresh pushes of big bright silver salmon entering both systems. This is definitely getting very late to be seeing fresh fish in either of these locations but again this speaks to the remarkably abundance of silvers in all the rivers feeding Cook Inlet and South Central Alaska. We are now beginning to transition to Crescent Lake as this run of silvers is later in timing and should start to get very good in the next week to ten days.
Trout fishing on the Kenai is also continuing in epic fashion as king salmon spawning reaches its peak and triggers a migration of rainbows and dolly varden to feed on loose eggs drifting from the spawning beds. Sockeye salmon are also beginning to spawn in huge numbers and this multitude of spawning salmon will only act to fatten the already well fed trout population and trout fishing should only get better and better in the next several weeks. This has already been one of the most prolific trout fishing summers we can remember and the chance at a true work class trophy trout is presently better than ever.
Salt water fishing on Cook Inlet is winding down as many of the halibut begin their seasonal migration back to the Gulf of Alaska. We wish to send a special thank you out to Keyo’s Guide Service for the awesome job they did once again this year in making sure all of our halibut anglers were well taken care of. This is a truly special Alaska family and we are very proud to use them as an important arm of our business.
Finally, this is also one of the best summers I can remember for seeing wildlife. We have been seeing bears and moose almost every day on the river below Skilak and this makes for a very special experience for our guests.
As we move toward September here on the Kenai River, we do so with great anticipation of an equally strong and robust late run of silver salmon and more incredible trophy trout fishing. Only time will tell but if the early runs of silver salmon are any indication of what’s to come in the next month, we have some very great fishing headed our way! Hope you can join us.
