10 Sep Alaska Fishing Report, Sept 8, 2014
As we head quickly toward mid-September there is a lot to share regarding Kenai Peninsula fisheries as change is definitely in the air. Beginning September first, the silver fishery began its annual conversion to the second, later arriving late run silvers but not before e closed out the first run of Kenai silvers with excellent numbers and great fishing both I the lower Kenai and the Refuge below Skilak Lake. The run was a bit later than usual and this may have something to do with the presence of pink salmon, being this is an even numbered year. Despite the enormous number of pinks, we did manage to find solid numbers of fresh silvers in isolated pockets along the shoreline preceding Skilak Lake. We enjoyed some beautiful days and other that were very windy and wet but the fishing was always good and we closed the early run with an eye on the lower Kenai and some late run fish just arriving from Cook Inlet.
Trout fishing was its typical mediocre self when the millions of pink salmon are in full spawn. Their numbers creates a literal snow storm of loose eggs for the rainbows and dollies to choose from and getting them to not only find but bite your single bead among the millions of other real ones gets mathematically challenging. Nonetheless we did make a number of efforts and were actually very successful on many dolly varden and several average sized rainbows, and even a few zombie pinks that were really hard to avoid. With the number of pinks salmon spawning and the lack of late run fresh silvers in the upper river we began fishing down river in the tidal reaches and it has been very productive with limits of very fresh, sea lice covered late run Kenai Coho. The fish have been averaging well over ten pounds and theses are hard fighting and aggressive fish just hours out of the ocean. The next month should be a great time here on the Kenai River as it continues to see good pushes of late run silver salmon as well as some great trout fishing.
There have also been reports of steelhead arriving on the lower Kenai Peninsula Rivers such as the Anchor or Deep Creek.
Please enjoy all the new pictures, more to come soon!
