“The river has dropped,” Chitina charter operator Mark Hem said on his hotline (823-2200) Tuesday afternoon. “All charter customers who went out this morning at 5 or 6 a.m. were back with their fish by 1 p.m.
“Provided the river stays stable, the word is fish on,” Hem continued. “Let the carnage begin.”
Those are the words
dip-netters have been waiting to hear after a flood of fish passed the Miles Lake sonar counter two to three weeks ago.
Approximately 250,000 fish passed the sonar, located 70 miles downstream of Chitina, between July 6 and July 17. Biologists estimate it takes the fish about three weeks to reach Chitina. Based on fishing success this week, the front of the wall of fish is beginning to hit Chitina.
As luck would have it for dip-netters, the surge of fish coincides with a supplemental period that allows dip-netters to catch 10 extra fish above their bag limit —15 for individuals and 30 for households. Another supplemental period has been declared for next week, as well, and dip netting should remain good into early next week, biologist Mark Somerville with the Department of Fish and Game in Glennallen said.
“Fish are going to blast through at least for a few days,” he said on Tuesday. “We should be seeing that big bunch of fish coming through now and next week.”
• • •
Nine-year-old Bobby Ives of Salcha reeled in a 23.5-pound yellow-eye rockfish in Valdez last weekend.
The Ives family was fishing a shelf 260 feet deep, about 30 miles out of Valdez, on Saturday when Bobby hooked the biggest fish of his young fishing career. The family frequents Valdez often, so Bobby knows the drill, his father said.
“He baits his own hooks, lets the line down, sets the hook and reels them in,” Robert said of his son in an e-mail.
This time, though, was different.
“The fish he hooked was fighting harder than any he had caught,” his father wrote.
With mom and dad urging him to “pull up, don't give him any slack, don't stop, keep reeling,” Bobby persevered.
“After almost 15 minutes of struggle there it was — the biggest live yellow-eye any of us had ever laid eyes on,” Robert Ives said, “and he landed it solely and flawlessly.”
• • •
The Chena River was closed to all king salmon fishing on Wednesday because of a weak return but the Salcha River remains open and anglers are still reporting decent success picking up kings at the mouth of the river and below the Richardson Highway bridge, Fairbanks area biologist Audra Brase said.
• • •
King salmon fishing in the Klutina River is rumored to be good, but red salmon fishing is “dead,” according to Somerville. The Klutina River will be open for king fishing through Aug. 10.
• • •
With what appears to be a big return of Gulkana Hatchery fish, there should be good red salmon fishing in the Gulkana River by next week, Somerville said.
“Give the Gulkana another week and there should be fish there,” he said.
• • •
Connie Ballow of Valdez caught a 16.80-pound silver salmon on Sunday to take the early lead in the Valdez Silver Salmon Derby, but she doesn’t have any illusion of winning the $15,000 top prize in the derby, which runs through Sept. 5.
“This year they are going to be big to win the derby,” Ballow told derby officials. “I bet it’s going to weigh 22 pounds.”
Ballow said she caught her large fish trolling about 35 feet deep in an area just past Valdez Narrows. It will be another week or two before any silvers show up at Allison Point. Most anglers have been going out beyond the Narrows to catch silvers.
• • •
Mark it on your calendar, ladies. The Valdez Women’s Silver Salmon Derby is scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 14.
• • •
Anglers in Valdez are still catching bucket loads of pink salmon at Allison Point.
• • •
No changes to report in the Valdez Halibut Derby. Mark Sams of Valdez is still leading the derby with the 254-pound halibut he caught July 16th. David Nelson of Willow Springs, Mo. caught the biggest fish of the week last week with a 159.8-pound halibut he caught July 21 aboard the Halibut Grove.
• • •
The Seward Silver Salmon Derby begins on Aug. 14.
• • •
More silver salmon are showing up in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley and state fisheries biologists said it looks like an “average to good coho run,” Sam Ivey at the Department of Fish and Game in Palmer.
The silver count through a weir on the Deshka River was up to almost 4,100 through Tuesday and more than 500 fish were counted through the weir on Monday and Tuesday.
Catch rates on the Little Susitna River were averaging a little more than one fish per angler, Ivey said. Fishermen also were catching silvers “fairly consistently” at the mouth of Willow Creek on the Parks Highway. Silver fishing in other Parks Highway streams should begin picking up as fish make their way north.
• • •
There are enough red salmon in the Kenai River that the Department of Fish and Game doubled the bag limit for reds in the river from three to six per day last week, biologist Jason Pawluk in Soldotna said.
Reds are just beginning to hit the upper Kenai and the Russian River. Weir counts on the Russian River jumped Tuesday and Wednesday, a sign that the fish might be getting there in force any day now.
So far, fishing on the upper Kenai and Russian hasn’t been good, Pawluk said.
“It should pick up this weekend,” he said.
Judging from catches in test nets, there could be another small push of reds making their way to the Kenai and Kasilof rivers in the next few days, Pawluk said.
Personal-use dip netting for reds at the mouth of the Kenai River will close on Saturday but remains open at the mouth of the Kasilof River through Aug. 7.
King salmon fishing closes in the Kasilof and Kenai rivers at midnight on Saturday and fishing in both rivers has been slow as of late.
— Compiled by News-Miner outdoors editor Tim Mowry
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