catspaw
Well-known member
Buddies and I are off to Alaska to fish for two weeks two different rivers. Photos to follow.
I'm jealous! Best of luck with the fishing and having a great time unwinding.I'm off too in 3 days to Yakitak for Silvers. I'm for some good R & R, tight lines, noisy drags, good whiskey, good jokes and meeting old and new friends.
From what I understand they aren't setting any records down there. The water is high and colored making the silver fishing very slow and the sockeye are getting a pass because they are hard to see making the Kenai Flip difficult at best.I can only imagine the pressure on the Kenai if that is the refuge from your rain. Hopefully a few species of salmon runs will prosper from this.
I was hopeful for the spawn and not the fishing if I wasn't clear, since the damage is done to this years fishing already. Just looking for a silver lining, pun intended. One thing I never asked you Ard was your catch ranking by salmon species and this is as good a place as any. Over the years, fish per hour targeting them, how has it played out on the fly. I know that would be a complex stat to accurately track and gross QTY of fish wouldn't really be an accurate answer since I'm pretty sure you don't put equal effort or time into targeting each species. I know the number of fish per species run is nowhere near equal but I don't know if different species are easier to catch on the fly than others. I am guessing you have a good idea. I type too much so hopefully that wasn't too confusing.From what I understand they aren't setting any records down there. The water is high and colored making the silver fishing very slow and the sockeye are getting a pass because they are hard to see making the Kenai Flip difficult at best.
Here the silvers have eluded most guide (meat) boats with less than 40% success ratio among the anglers. There will however be a greater kill once the escapement number reaches 10,100 and bait is allowed. The good news is that by the time bait is allowed 2 things will have occurred. One is that the fish will be scattered over 100 miles of river 40 of which is closed to salmon fishing. Two is that if we reach 10,100 by Monday most of the summer sports who ride the meat boats will be back home and the boats will be hauling only one or 2 clients a couple days per week.
Locals will kill some fish but with them spread out and many already above the safety line the harvest will be light. On several rivers the return is surprising in that 4 years ago we had one of the worst return numbers ever. The season was closed. The return has surpassed the numbers of 4 years ago in three fisheries here meaning that the survival rate among progeny was really outstanding.
Silvers are a 4 year fish so what happened 4 seasons ago matters when planning a trip. If there was a medium return and high harvest number then fishing may be poor. In this case the numbers although low are still surprising. So far I have caught only 7 silver salmon and attribute the number to both high water and tight lipped fish.