23 Jan Kenai River Fishing Report: 2024 Year in Review
Kenai River Sockeye Fishing: 468,000 fish in three days!
With the 2024 fishing season officially behind us, it’s finally time to look back and recap another blockbuster season for us at Alaska Fishing. Cindy and I are profoundly grateful for all the amazing customers, both new and old, and also for our incredible help as without them it would all be impossible. The countless hours we all put in to make it happen each and every day seem like a blur as we look back over the past five months. Time definitely flies when you are catching fish.
We started the season in May, down on the Kasilof River chasing chrome bright kings. The hatchery return to the Kasilof began in mid-May and steadily built up to its seasonal peak in the first week to ten days of June. It was a strong showing of kings with boats averaging a number of chances daily. Big kings in tidal water can do some crazy stuff and landing one is a very rewarding experience. We have come to appreciate each and every fish during this short-lived return. This fishery really represents the only viable king salmon opportunity we will have for the foreseeable future as Kenai early and late run and Kasilof late run king runs recover and rebuild.
Along with lots of fresh kings, the early season on the Kasilof also saw a good number of sockeye salmon taken while fishing for kings. Not normally known for biting, we had plenty of them beg to differ and it seemed each boat was catching multiple sockeye daily. Once the king salmon bite began to wane in the third week of June, we began targeting sockeye salmon exclusively on both the Kenai and the Kasilof. The Kenai return of Russian river sockeye is always strong for a select window in mid June as it passes though the lower section of the Kenai. We split our time between both the Kenai and the Kasilof for sockeye before fishing primarily the Kasilof up until the second week of July. Fishing was excellent on both rivers with limits being the rule on most trips.
New for 2024 was the permanent 6 fishing limit for late run Kenai Sockeye and while it did take a bit longer on some days, we were able to find our limits on most trips. The late run of Kenai sockeye this season arrived like a freight train. On July 4 the sonar counter tallied just over 13,000 fish and in the next several days counts would increase to over 30,000 fish arriving daily. This steady stream of sockeye continued before we saw an incredible surge beginning July 17 when a whopping 191,000 sockeye entered in just one day! The onslaught continued with more than 275,000 fish passing the sonar in the following two days making for a remarkable three-day total of 468,000 sockeye. Needless to say the fishing was outstanding and catching the six fish limit per person was all but certain. As the sockeye season continued into late July and early August it remained consistent and limits remained the rule. With the extreme number of fish that all arrived at once we knew the run would not likely last much longer than mid-August and this was certainly the case.
By the third week of August, we had completely transitioned to silver fishing and although it was not red hot it was consistent enough to see regular limits for a week to ten days. On Aug 21 the Alaska Department of Fish and Game issued an emergency order reducing the silver salmon limit on the Kenai and the Kasilof from two fish to one. Similar restrictions would follow for September and unfortunately the silver salmon season never really fully materialized. There were enough fish to catch some and have some great fun on many days and I think the final spawning escapement was enough to keep the runs viable, but make no mistake, 2024 was not the best season for silvers here on the Kenai Peninsula.
2024 was a pink salmon year and although this run was not nearly as large as some of the pink returns in the past, it was a strong return and when they began to spawn in mid to late August the trout fishing river wide began to really pick up. The pink spawn along with the sockeye spawn continued well into late September in the section of the Kenai below Skilak Lake and there was a good number of large trout present for most of the fall months. Each day afforded a handful of opportunities at what I consider the “one” that special wild Kenai Rainbow flirting with the thirty-inch mark. We finished the season chasing trophy rainbows and steelhead on the Kasilof and both of these fisheries produced some epic days.
Our 2024 fly out fishing trips were as always, amazing! We had far less weather cancelations due to rain and the fishing was very good at most of not all the locations. Bear viewing to Big River Lake was incredible this season with days seeing well over a dozen bears! Silver returns, much like the rest of Cook Inlet were not record setting but we did see very good silver fishing for several weeks in August.
Halibut fishing in Cook Inlet, Seward and Homer was all very consistent this summer with lots of very nice fish available. There were not a large number of cancellations due to rough seas and that is always welcome news.
Thanks to everyone that fished with us in 2024 and if you have not made pans for 2025 yet, we would be honored to take you fishing next summer!
