Posted on 17 July 2010.
Mat-Su Valley Silver Salmon
On Friday of last week, one of my charter guests caught the first silver salmon on my guide boat. Since that time, my guests have been catching a few silver salmon on most trips. Yesterday I guided two trips to the Deshka River, and the morning group caught three silver salmon, while the afternoon group caught one silver salmon. At one hole in particular during the later trip we saw several silver salmon rolling, however, by that time it was a warm and sunny afternoon, and my guests could only convince one of the silvers to bite hard and long enough to where a guest managed to hook and then land it. The rest of the time my guests were simply practicing their best salmon roe drifting presentations or retrieving spinners with no silver reward.
To me that definitely qualifies as slow silver salmon fishing as measured by past Mat-Su Valley success, however, it is early in the season, and the fish are just starting to run, so from that point it is encouraging. For those wondering, I also boated up to the various mouths of Willow Creek and Little Willow Creek during my Thursday afternoon trip. At these locations we saw so few fish in the clear water just upstream from the Susitna River, that we did not even bother to fish. At the second mouth of Willow Creek I saw only a couple king salmon, and four smaller salmon. Of the smaller salmon two looked to possibly be pink salmon, and the other two may, by their size and lack of red color, may have been either silvers or chums. At the third and fourth mouth of Willow Creek, at the slough month of Little Willow, mouth of Little Willow, and upper slough of Little Willow I saw absolutely no salmon of any type. There were bank anglers fishing at the first mouth of Willow so I avoided driving over and did not look for fish in that spot. My thought is I’d likely wait a few days at the very least before realistically hoping to catch many salmon at these locations, although decent sized schools of various salmon species could arrive at any time.
Of the three silver salmon my guest caught on Thursday morning’s charter to the Deshka River two were net marked and the third was so small it could have likely swam through a commercial gill net unscathed. I’ve been noticing good commercial catches of silver salmon in Cook Inlet, so we should have a good silver season this year — if ADF&G’s commercial managers allow enough silver salmon to swim through that fishery and into the Northern streams.
Increasing Mat-Su Salmon Numbers By Dipping Kenai Sockeye
For my part I’m planning to travel to the Kenai Peninsula over the weekend and dip net as many Kenai sockeye as the personal use fishery will allow. This will provide some recreation, while at the same time reduce the number of Kenai River sockeye salmon swimming past the sonar counter. This is about the only way I know of where the average public person can enjoy catching excellent eating salmon, while at the same time helping reducing ADF&G’s “Need,” to harvest as many salmon as possible from the center of Cook Inlet with the commercial fleet, before many salmon have an opportunity to reach the streams of the Mat-Su Valley. The Kenai River may become a bit crowded, but I hope you take the opportunity to do this same, “Public Service,” before the end of July. The personal use dip net fishery is open to all Alaskan residents.
Fishing Educational Opportunities
There is still space for more participants in the Mat-Su Anglers Club’s Kids Casting Clinic to be held on Monday July 19 at 1-4 p.m. at the Menard Sports Center — contact Julie Busch to sign up at 892-7543. For those who can not attend the clinic, but would like some of the information provided check out the website, www.takemefishing.org
In addition, ADF&G biologist Samantha Oslund will be giving her presentation on Fishing 101 at the Mat-Su Anglers Club monthly meeting on August 12 at 7 p.m. at the Mat-Su Resort. The public is invited. Call Julie Busch at the number above for more information.
E-mail this column at sports@frontiersman.com if you have Mat-Su fishing questions or information readers may find useful.
Andy Couch owns and operates Fishtale River Guides www.fish4salmon.com is a Mat-Su Anglers Club member www.matsuanglers.org and member of the Matanuska – Susitna Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Sportsmen’s Committee.