Heading to Alaska on Friday and will have evenings off to fish for trout on the Kenai river. Will be doing king and other types of fishing during the day with a guide, but was wondering if any of the trusty BFTers have fished for shore on the Kenai for trout? I don’t flyfish so egg patterns and streamers aren’t an option, but was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for a spin fisherman. I am staying right on the Kenai in Soldotna so river access will be as easy as walking out of my cabin.
I wasn’t sure if bouncing egg sacks is the way to go or if tossing spinners would be effective? And if eggs sacks is the way to go, what is the general technique used for this (i.e. bobber with a 3 foot leader and a split shot?)
I’d post on the Alaska section but that place is dead. I will post some pics when I get back. Unfortunately I heard the salmon run is terrible this year. I guess I picked the wrong year to go, but should be fun no matter what.
Wuz there Sept 06. Floated the upper and upper/middle Kenai, and then power-boated the middle/lower.
When we floated the upper/middle. since we were in a drift boat, maybe what we did doesn’t apply, BUT, all we used were egg sacks.
2 anglers per boat side, fly-casting egg sacks in unison downstream, then letting the boat catch up to the sacks. Repeat 1,000 times.
Maybe the concept is the same regardless of shoreline or mid-river: a broken-off pod of eggs tumbling down river.
However, if I recall, in Soldatna, you’ll be in the middle to lower Kenai. The river will be wide there, so you’ll have to pay attention to the tides. There, I powerboated for fish. The middle-Kenai is big and has a different personality (river topography) than the upper, where we were only using a single egg. In the mid-section, we used CLUMPS of egg sack.
However, regardless of location, all I threw were egg-sacks. And this was with two different guides. But you won’t have to guess. Since you’re going in high-season, there’ll be plenty of anglers to ask, including your guide.
I was in AK last week and caught a lot of trout on a similar river (gulkana) using black Panther Martins with a gold blade. They loved it. The salmon run may be a little slow, but don’t let that stop you from catching some. It may be relatively slow to their norm, but compared to the Utah salmon run it is going to be great [;)] There were people hauling boxes and boxes of salmon on the airplane trip home, all from the Kenai. I wasn’t even fishing for salmon much and hooked into a few.
There were some discussions about this earlier in the year that should be in the archives but you can fish with flies on you spinning gear if you want. Tons of people do it up there. Some sections of river are fly only, not specificaly fly fishing, so you just put some weight up your line a ways on your spinning outfit. If you drove over to the Russian it is a lot friendlier to wading but there are a few spots on the Kenai you can do well from shore.
I’ve fished the gulkana river for years and I absolutly love it if the water isn’t high. As far as the Kenai goes your guide will have all the stuff you need for fish but I’d use little beads in orange color for trout in all of Alaska’s rivers during the spawn which is now. For kings I don’t think they allow eggs sacks but I am not sure it’s different every other year depending on the salmon run. They use alot of kiwi fishers in silver and blue color on the Kenai that seems to be the ticket.
If the reds are running don’t even bother with trout. That’s like going to Italy on vacation and eating at mc’donalds the whole time. We have trout here in utah. Yea, there are some huge rainbows up there but you will be at arguably the best salmon fishing site in the world. If they are running, take advantage of it.
If they arent, (they have not really come in yet) I would recommend driving up to the russian river or any small tributary rivers that come in. The Kenai has tons of glacial silt so the visabilty is low, not to mention you will be battleing with fisherman everywhere. I have never been up trout fishing but I have been salmon fishing several years in Soldotna. I hear there are some awesome smaller rivers that are clear and uncrowded. Ask any of the local shops.
Like I said though.. if the reds are in, get a nice coho fly and some weight. let out about 6-10 feet of line and find a good spot and just cast up and bouce your fly across the bottom, when the line goes slack set your hook. You don’t need to move, find a good spot and the salmon come to you.