August 3rd
A few pictures from our most recent Alaska adventure. Pictured top left in background, that's me  getting dragged down river by a sockeye while my  brother Pete heads back up after releasing a fish at Jim's Landing on the upper Kenai. In front, from left to right, 15 year old Jake Aughney, 13 year old Cody Kenney, fellow UACG member Katie Gooding 17 and 13 year old Tyler Aughney are all smiles after putting limits on the bank in just a couple of hours time. Some would think that with four teenagers we would be handicapped. We weren't and "the kids" out-fished most anglers around them every day.

Jake Aughney (right) shows off the days catch of seven limits of sockeyes at Jim's. One of just several similar days we enjoyed the past two weeks.

 

My 13 year old son, Tyler (lower left) shows why our decoy spreads should include some fish and smiles. We will have to try the sockeye decoy at our Richmond Club blind this season. This is at the mouth of a small stream on the lower Kenai where widgeon and mallards out number anglers and a place we like to keep quite.

July 12th
All the salmon runs are behind schedule but we are still hopeful that the sockeye and king action on the Kenai and Kasilof rivers will pick up soon. King counts on both rivers are still under average and the fishing is slow. Guides are reporting ones and nones on the Kasilof and 0 to 4 fish per day on the Kenai.
The sockeye counts improved slightly on the Kasilof river the past two days (5k fish passed the sonar on the 11th) but are still under average on the Kenai with just 19K counted so far on the lower sonar. In 2006 the sockeye run was two weeks behind it's normal schedule and the run finally peaked in late July and early August with as many as 86,000 fish per day and an escapement of over one million by seasons end. The forecast (ADFG does a great job estimating the salmon runs) escapement estimate this year is for 1.1 million fish with the run peaking during the third to forth week of July.
Out in the salt, halibut fishing remains great. Captain Steve Smith has been reporting limits of fish averaging 25 to 60 pounds with fish to 135 pounds taken this week, On their ling combos they are getting limits of lings averaging 40 to 55 pounds and limits of halibut. Steve says they are seeing some big schools of sockeyes and pockets of silvers and he will start chasing silvers this coming week to add to their list of options.
The upper Kenai rainbow action has been great and anglers are seeing counts of 20 plus fish per outing with fish to 12 pounds. We will be back on the peninsula the last two weeks of July and will post some highlights at that time.

June 22nd
The saltwater action remains excellent but many of the king salmon runs in upper Cook Inlet rivers and on Kodiak Island are running well behind expectations.
Captain Steve Smith continues to see limits of halibut on all his trips with fish to 120 pounds taken this past week. With the bigger tides Steve has been working the shallows mainly in 100 to 180 feet of water for halibut averaging 25 to 40 pounds. They did send one boat down to the Islands and spent the day working the scampi tails with limits of both halibut to 70 pounds, rockfish to 25 and they released several lings to 60. The ling season opens on July 1st and Steve will be taking his clients down a couple of days each week.
The Kenai river is still putting out good numbers of early kings and Val Early of earlyfishing.com reports they have seen limits most days.
Our guests staying at our vacation cabin this past week spent three days fishing with Steve and three days of self guiding on the rivers and clamming. They took limits of halibut each day plus a few limits of both razor and littleneck clams. Over two days of fishing on the Russian they landed a total of 28 sockeyes and are coming home with a truck full of fish boxes. To date the Russian river sockeye counts are well behind normal but a big slug of fish moved through the lower Kenai last week and those fish should arrive at the mouth of the Russian later this week and fishing should be exceptional.

We are fresh back from the Kenai peninsula and have spent the past week fishing both the salt and the local rivers with mixed results. We fished with Captain Steve Smith on three days this past week. On the first day Saturday May 24th we had limits of halibut to 50 pounds and 25 gallons of steamer clams. The clamming was great despite the dead even (0.0) tide but it did take us longer than usual be each fill our five gallon buckets to the brim. After two hours we had enough clams to compliment our dinners for the entire week and Steve had a bunch for guests to enjoy at his lodge.
On Tuesday 5-27 we launched from Deep Creek and Steve ran us over to the other side of the Inlet where he was looking to put us into some pigs. On board were three friends who came up with me and Steve's dad, Jim owner of the Happy Hooker in Berkeley. The 25 plus mile trip was for not and we hooked just one large halibut in the 60 pound class before moving back in towards Deep Creek hitting a handful of spots looking for the "big score". Drifting in about 180 feet of water Steve got us into a wide open bite and in three short drifts we hooked over 50 halibut and kept limits of mostly 25 to 50 pound fish.  Jim and I were  both working 8" scampis (the others on bait) and there were so many fish we had trouble getting through them to the bottom. I have never seen halibut fishing this fast and furious with 4 or 5 fish on at a time. We wrapped the day up trolling for kings landing two in the 15 to 20 pound class.
On Wednesday 5-28 I stayed at the cabin completing some chores and my three buds, Kip our webmaster, Jim owner of FishPills and Declan again fished with Steve landing limits of halibut to nearly 100 pounds but the salmon fishing was slow with just a couple of fish hooked and lost.
On Thursday 5-29 Kip and Jim fished with Gary Early (www.earlyfishing.com) on the Kenai river. They did great and were off the river before noon with two kings going 28 and 30 pounds. Overall fishing has been very slow on the Kenai with most guides seeing 0 to 2 fish per day. Spring is late this year and both the Kenai and the Kasilof rivers are running very low due to the late snow melt. On the other hand with all the snow melting in the lower elevations the Anchor river, Deep Creek and the Ninilchik rivers are all high and muddy and the fishing was very slow due to the conditions on these rivers. They are on a different watershed and it will be another week or two before they clear.
Ocean salmon runs are also behind schedule due to cold water temps and the late winter. Ocean temps off Deep Creek are still in the 44 degree range which has the salmon off the bite. Over the last three days of our trip temps were very warmer with lows in the 40s and highs starting to push above 60. Fishing for kings should only get better as temps warm. We will have reports from Steve posted here throughout the summer. As for me I can't wait to go back up for our annual family trip in July.

2008 Kenai Area Preview
Looking ahead to the 2008 fishing season it appears we will  see another great run of sockeyes on the Kenai and Kasilof rivers. The AK Fish and Game predicts that over 3.1 million sockeyes will return to the Kenai river in  and over 1.3 million to the Kasilof in 2008.

2007 late run King counts on the Kenai came it right at the 20 year average while counts were up on the Kasilof.

The silver runs came in late and were spotty on the Kenai river but were very productive on the Anchor and Ninilchik rivers in 2007.

The rainbow action was exceptional with some of our guests reporting 100 plus fish days fly fishing on the Kenai. The late September Anchor river steelie counts have been above the past few seasons with individuals reporting as many as 15 fish hooked per day on the Anchor river. 

We are looking ahead to another fun packed summer so come on up and join in on the action. If you have any questions regarding our USAFishing's Kenai Peninsula CABIN or the fishing or area in general please give us a call at 707 762-9776. We will be more than happy to assist you.