Fishing Report Week Ending 7/12/15

This past week was transitional.  The king run is improving and the red salmon are starting to find their way up the river.   Overall, the fishing was okay.

I spent Tuesday and Wednesday fishing Chuck and Linda, who are from Northern Minnesota.  I loved the conversation (don'tcha know) and the bonus is I could talk about my other passion...hockey. Their son plays in the NHL and I couldn't get enough of what they've been through as parents and to listen to the stories about their son's life as an elite professional athlete.  By the way, way to go Linda for keeping the string alive for the women (she outfished Chuck in the ocean as well).

I had a couple of days off after guiding Chuck and Linda and I was told by other guides that Friday was the best day of the season to fish kings.   Good numbers and the size improved.   And of course, that little flurry disappeared by the time I had a trip on Saturday.  But the day was eventful and several firsts happened to me.   In my morning trip, I had Reed, Jeff, and Sandy out. Sandy, keeping with the ladies catch the most fish theme, had a tremendous bite, with a very positive hookset. Unfortunately, after a short minute, her line went slack.  When she reeled the line in all that was left was the planer, a swivel, and about 2 inches of the leader. A 50lb leader had just snapped on this fish. What the?????  That was a first for my boat.  I'm very particular about my gear and retie my leaders and redo my knots before every trip. The way I see it, I can't control the fish, whether they want to bite or not, but I can control my gear. If my gear fails, I failed you.  I almost wish the knot gave out and the blame would be squarely on me.  But, this was the line.  My only conclusion is that there had to be a nick at that spot and under pressure it snapped.   Maybe it was a world record king, who knows, but thanks for being understanding Sandy.   I guess stuff just happens.

So here's another first.  Saturday afternoon I fished my college buddies, Peggy and Tony Brown, their daughter Shelby, and her friend Nick.  We had a nice king bite, missed it, and later in the trip Tony lands this pink salmon.  July 10th!  A pink in non pink year.  I have caught other pink salmon in a non pink year but this, by far, was the earliest ever.  Crazy.

In other fishing related news on the Kenai, the dip net red salmon season opened on Friday.  Today, Tony, Shelby, Nick and I went out to catch a few for ourselves. Here's Tony proudly posing with the catch.  It was slow, and a they were a little on the small side, but at least we weren't skunked.

Thought I'd end the post with this little nugget.  The other morning, the dock was wet and I couldn't help but notice muddy footsteps on it.  This is not unusual.  By the end of the day the footsteps had dried. With closer inspection I soon figured out that this was not caused by a human, but by a brown bear. As you can see, next to this Kwikfish is a paw print of a very large brown bear.

I hope I'm not scaring anyone about bear issues around Beaver Creek. We have them, and always will.  But these bears are mostly nocturnal and they usually hear and see you before you see and hear them and they disappear.  It's a great relationship and I'm glad it's almost always paw prints that I see.

For the week ahead: I started my report by saying this past week was transitional. Historically, the upcoming week should be the peak of king and red salmon numbers.   High numbers do not always mean the best fishing, but it's definitely the time that the whole community (and beyond) looks forward to.   I can't wait to get out there.



Beaver Creek Cabins & Guide Service