Kenai River Report
Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2011 4:01 pmThe Kenai River fishing for early run King Salmon has been fantastic so far this year. The water level is still pretty low so for those of you unfamiliar with the river, use some caution. Water clarity is also good with almost 4 foot of vis in the lower river yesterday.
I have been averaging 2-3 fish a day using both plugs and cheaters with all of my bigger fish coming on the plugs. There are a lot of smaller rats starting to show now and they seem to love those cheaters and spin-n-glos.
The ADF&G early run sonar count is so far just about as reliable as ever which means almost useless, confusing, and really just a best guess. The bottom line here is that the sonar count shows the return being very high and well above average. ADF&G has however recognized the flaw with the sonar and started to report the test net data and the kreel sample data along with the sonar counts and weighting the final estimate with those other two data sets to come up with a more accurate estimate. The final estimates as of friday adjusted with the test net and kreel data shows the run to be slightly below average but more than double last years run..
I take the ADF&G reports and predictions with a bit of grain of salt and prefer the seat of my pants report and right now the seat of my pants feels like we are having a fantastic run so far. If we are catching a lot of fish generally there are a lot of fish in the river. It's not rocket science, and I can't remember it being this good this early in a long long time!
The saltwater troll fishery off of Deep Creek and Anchor Pt. has really tapered off in recent days but was much better this spring than any other in recent memory. This is good news for the future as most of these fish are feeders that will hopefully return in good numbers as adult spawners in the near future.
The first run of Sockeye are showing up in really good numbers the last few days if the amount of them I have seen flipping around the Kenai Friday and Saturday were any indication. They should be putting smiles on anglers faces up at the Russian River any day now.
Tight Lines!
I have been averaging 2-3 fish a day using both plugs and cheaters with all of my bigger fish coming on the plugs. There are a lot of smaller rats starting to show now and they seem to love those cheaters and spin-n-glos.
The ADF&G early run sonar count is so far just about as reliable as ever which means almost useless, confusing, and really just a best guess. The bottom line here is that the sonar count shows the return being very high and well above average. ADF&G has however recognized the flaw with the sonar and started to report the test net data and the kreel sample data along with the sonar counts and weighting the final estimate with those other two data sets to come up with a more accurate estimate. The final estimates as of friday adjusted with the test net and kreel data shows the run to be slightly below average but more than double last years run..
I take the ADF&G reports and predictions with a bit of grain of salt and prefer the seat of my pants report and right now the seat of my pants feels like we are having a fantastic run so far. If we are catching a lot of fish generally there are a lot of fish in the river. It's not rocket science, and I can't remember it being this good this early in a long long time!
- William Nicoll releasing a beaty chrome hen he caught with me on tuesday.
- billodl.jpg (101.39 KiB) Viewed 4503 times
The saltwater troll fishery off of Deep Creek and Anchor Pt. has really tapered off in recent days but was much better this spring than any other in recent memory. This is good news for the future as most of these fish are feeders that will hopefully return in good numbers as adult spawners in the near future.
The first run of Sockeye are showing up in really good numbers the last few days if the amount of them I have seen flipping around the Kenai Friday and Saturday were any indication. They should be putting smiles on anglers faces up at the Russian River any day now.
Tight Lines!
