Well, my two best friends in the world and I took the trip to Alaska finally. This trip has been on my bucket list for quite some time and I’m really sorry it took me so long to put this together. If you can figure out how to get there yourself, I highly recommend it, if only for the scenery alone. The weather was picture perfect the entire time, 65-75ish degrees everyday and the sun was shining for the whole trip. The 20 hours of daylight each day provided us with as many fishing opportunities as we wanted, and we took advantage of them as much as we could.
We arrived in Anchorage in the afternoon and immediately made our way two hours south to Seward. Stayed in Seward for two days fishing the Resurrection Bay and nearby areas for cohos and sockeye salmon, snagging and fly fishing for them. One of those days was an offshore charter to go after the cohos and bottom fish. The salmon were few and far in between but the rock fish were plenty. The best way I know to describe a rockfish is kind of like a cross between a black sea bass and a grouper type fish. Good eating bottomfish.
Over the next few days we fished several places, all rivers and streams fly fishing for salmon and trout. The numbers weren’t spectacular as we were kind of in the middle of the salmon runs. The king run was over and closed and the coho run was just starting up. If you plan to do this trip, I would do mid to late June or the end of July depending on what species you want to target.
Fishing the world famous Kenai River in Saldotna was a treat in and of itself. The Alaskan people truly have a unique fishing style of their own and it was a learning experience for me for sure. There is very little catch and release there. If you catch it and its legal, you keep it. If the fish is in any way snagged at all on certain rivers, you have to release it, even if its going to die. We saw tons of wildlife, everything from sea lions to giant otters to humpbacks to bald eagles. Didn’t see the first bear, but we were happy abo
The day we chartered offshore happened to be a non halibut day designated by their Fish & Game; we had no idea until we showed up that day. The regs there are outrageously complex. I’ll have that trip set up next year though. Apparently Seward isn’t the best place for halibut either. You can get on them there and we saw people that did, but you have to travel a lot further. Homer is the place to go for Halibut, and that just wasn’t in our schedule this time around. We did catch several pacific flounder which were pretty interesting.
This trip was about getting as many species on the fly as possible. Let me tell you something; a 10lb sockeye fights about as hard as a redfish, no lie. I never would have thought that, but the 9wt got a workout on this trip.
quote:Originally posted by Easy
What river was the first photo of, the Russian or Copper:question:
We didn’t fish either; fished several days in Resurrection Bay and the Kenai.
Wonderful photos, love the one of the two Eagles in the tree gave me goose bumps. The time spent with great friends is never long enough and it looks like ya"ll had a fine time.
Dang 23, after those pictures I’m scared to share mine. You do such a beautiful job with that camera. I was just trying to figure out the camera I had on my Alaska trip.
That’s a place I’ve never been. Don’t much like cold!