Next best thing to fishing and catching.....

is fishing and not catching.  The July King salmon opener has come and gone with a huge dose of disappointment for all of us fish bums. As it rained last weekend my friend Dan France ominously predicted it " it's going to blow out on us". Well the water was awful chaulky on Tuesday so at first we attributed the poor fishing to that. As the week went on and the water cleared the reality began to sink in....there's just not many Kings in yet, but its awful early and it has to build.

That's Jim holding his 'virtual' king salmon on Tuesday . I guess it's the musician in me but when I imagine a fish I imagine  HUGE one, not a measly 25 pounder like ol Jim's got there. I'm blessed to be surrounded by the best people, thanks to everyone that came along this week. Here's my Tuesday group of Mike and Jim anchored by my old friend Ty Tobias in the middle. Ty there has caught them all, big and small, he's sat through rain and wind and hot fishing right down to brutal slow fishing like this week....but he loves it, what's a little slow fishing to a cancer survivor eh?

So by Thursday the word was out and the river took on a stillness like I've never seen. The locals stay home, I guess they rely on folks like us to let them know when the fishery turns on. The problem with that is they'll miss that first good day. And the way I look at it is this - we know this is a dynamic fishery, and when it goes 'off' we're going to be there. Anyway, by Saturday there were only 20 or 30 boats on the entire river, it was eerie quiet. I took this pic of the Minnow at 5 am the other morning. The ol Kenai was just gorgeous as the day started with a little fog on the water and the promise of sun and 70 degrees.

And of course without the normal four jillion boats racing around the wildlife and all the other parts of the experience stand out. This guy here swam the river in front of us and for him it was most likely the first time he's done that without causing a traffic jam.

And of course the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game are always around, I guess they look at it like  part of the job is entertainment. Here's a pic of their weir sitting high and dry, all set to herd moose, seagulls, people , beavers, coyotes, you know all the things they're concerned about. It'll herd them all over to that far bank so they can count them with their Didson fased array sonar...Good work boys.

 

You know what they say ' if you fail to plan, you plan to fail '. So I've been busy in the garage tying trout flys. And from what I see today I think we're off to an early and huge red salmon run. So, if the Kings are slow we'll most likely give them an hour or two or three and then run above Soldotna and catch beautiful Rainbows and Dollies or even flip for sockeyes. Below is a pic of the yarn flys I've found work the best. A lot of the guides use just a bead to look like a washed out salmon egg but I've found they like the meat of decomposing salmon. So I tie an assortment of flesh colored yarn flys with my favorite being that fake shrimp looking deal with a little egg looking red head. It seems like the hardness of the bead makes the trout spit as soon as they feel it and the softness of the yarn makes them hold on a bit...and walla, hooked right in the old side of he jaw.

And the results are gorgeous trout like the one I'm holding with old Dwight from a few years back...and that King salmon on the left, well we ain't done with you guys yet either, it's early, early, early in the run so it WILL get better.

And speaking of planning, well that's something I do well. I adhere to the five P's principal....proper planning prevents poor performance so I just had to jump on the Airline deal I was alerted to by a Mazatlán forum. Using my companion fare I got me and MP on the jet November 28th for only a thousand bucks round trip, the cheapest ever....almost free as we say in Mexico.  So for all our friends from the southern clime who read this blog....we're headed your way, neither sleet or famine...or even a little slow fishing for that matter will keep us away. Maybe some of you ought to look into the tickets, there seem to be some screaming deals out there.