I simply invested the recently in Alaska, fly fishing my method from the Kenai Peninsula as much as the interior. That’s a dream journey for a great deal of anglers, which was definitely the case for my friend, Lander Scoundrel, and I. The journey came together last-minute, however we had lodging lined up, and ought to’ve been on the Kenai at the tail end of the sockeye run. In theory, we ‘d still have the ability to capture a limitation of salmon every day, then invest the rest of our time searching for rainbow trout and dolly varden.
Couple of strategies make it through very first contact with the opponent, nevertheless, and when we showed up in Soldotna on a Sunday night, we appeared to an almost-empty river. Couple of anglers lined the banks, the car park were mainly empty, and the river felt lacking life. I hooked– and lost– 2 sockeye that night, which didn’t impart much self-confidence.
A peek at the fish count amounts to on the Alaska Fish & Video game site revealed we were fishing to just 30,000 fresh fish daily, a far cry from the 80,000+ fish daily the week in the past.
So, as Alaska typically requires you to do, we called an audible, headed upriver earlier than anticipated, and fished the Russian River sanctuary for the very first time.
I have actually fished the Kenai in the past, however never ever at the Sanctuary, and it’s up here that the well-known shoulder-t0-shoulder battle fishing is on complete display screen. It’s the Wild West of fishing, with individuals basing on the bank all set to take your area if you even appearance anywhere besides the river. I dislike fishing around a great deal of individuals, and under typical scenarios, I would’ve balked at standing beside a lot of individuals I do not understand.
However that’s sockeye fishing for you, and I was happily shocked at how good everybody was. Even when I had a couple of fish kick my butt and run downstream on me, other anglers cheered, provided high-fives, and informed me to “stop letting that fish kick your ass.”
It was among the most distinct fishing experiences I have actually ever had. It was likewise the very best fishing I ‘d have on the whole journey.
On our 2nd day on the Kenai, it began to rain. It didn’t pick up 5 days, and it drizzled a lot that much of the rivers we fished for rainbows, dolly varden, and grayling, were overruning their banks. We drove north, deep into the interior, wishing to get away the rain. However it simply kept coming, and while we eked out a couple of fish every day, it was far from the quick and furious fishing a lot of anglers envision when they consider Alaska.
A few of our reliable grayling streams were almost difficult to fish thanks to the rain, and the one river that was running clear was more congested than the Kenai.
It’s difficult to state that all of it failed on this journey (it didn’t) however this journey definitely wasn’t what Lander nor I anticipated. Do not get me incorrect, I more than happy I went. However I needed to roll with more punches on this journey than in all my other Alaskan experiences integrated.
It might’ve been even worse, however. I might’ve not addressed all.
