– Mark’s Blog –

Improvement!  After a relatively slow start to our king season on both the Kenai and the Kasilof, fishing has definitely picked up for us on the Kasilof River.  Over the past three days very good numbers of both naturally produced and hatchery king salmon have come into the river as well as a decent number of sockeye.  We have had multiple kings to the boat in the last two trips and kings are being caught daily up and down the Kasilof River.  This change seems to correspond with more favorable weather conditions, more moderate tides and rising river levels and water temperatures.  Whether this trend will continue is unknown, but for now, things seems to be improving daily...at least on the Kasilof.  Below is a sampling of the fish we have landed in the last couple trips:

The 2013 fishing season is officially underway although in many respects it seems several weeks late.  We experienced a very cold and reluctant spring with early and mid May temperatures still dipping well below the freezing mark in the morning and barely eclipsing 50 degrees during the day.  This did little to encourage king salmon in the salt water to enter the rivers as to them this is still more characteristic of late winter than the beginning of summer.  Fast forward to the last week to ten days and suddenly we are seeing one of the finest warm weather streaks I can remember in several seasons with highs now soaring up to seventy plus degrees.  Indeed Alaska weather is like riding a roller coaster,

Snow in May, really?....  Apparently my March 10 post exclaiming spring has spung was a bit premature. Here is it May 17 and it is actually snowing.  Overnight temps are still hitting the freezing mark on a daily basis and the river still has several feet of ice still firmly entrenched on its banks.  Needless to say , this has the fish thinking it is still late winter   and therefore there has been little to no salmon activity on either the Kenai or the Kasilof.