The kings are running in the Goodnews River, but to this point the run has been inconsistent. Some days have been good, followed by tough days in which a few boats went king-less. Some boats have been running plugs, others have been tossing flies on fast sinking lines. The fish of the week in my boat was caught by Chuck Trover, who got a 36 inch king, using a cerise bunny leech on a 500 grain line.
Chuck Trover was real happy with this fish.
The salmon slack has been taken up by chums and sockeyes, with an occasional pink for good measure. Today we caught two sockeyes fairly, one on an articulated bunny streamer and one on a synthetic silver salmon Clouser Minnow. Chums aren’t usually very fussy and pink flies will produce a lot. Gary Vasques and Gordon LaFortune got four salmon species on fly today, all of the Pacific salmon except for silvers.
Chum Salmon, courtesy of Gary Vasques.
Trout and grayling fishing has been consistently good, with catches in the double digits for fly casters who know the drill. Grayling have been taking dry flies, rainbows black streamer flies.
Fish Story of the Week- one of Drew Rosema’s fishermen, while fighting a king salmon, had their spool fall off the fly reel into the water. Drew grabbed the line and started pulling. After he pulled all the backing off the spool (piling it in the bottom of the boat) the runaway spool was recovered. Drew started coiling the backing back on the reel by hand. A huge wad of it came up, too complicated to untangle while the guy was still fighting the fish.
Double hookup, Goodnews River. Drew is winding line like crazy.
Then his second angler hooked up on the spinning rod. Drew was too tied up with angler number one to help him. He lost the fish when it got around the anchor line and broke off. In the meantime Drew had cut the tangle out of the line, tied the ends back together, and wound the rest of the backing back onto the spool.
When he put the spool on the reel they quickly realized Drew had wound it on the wrong way. It all had to come off and be wound on properly.
Happy ending- the angler caught the fish, a king salmon of 10 pounds or so.
Drew is happy, his angler caught the king salmon.
That is this week’s Goodnews River, Alaska Fishing Report. All my reports until mid-September will be from the Goodnews River.
Life is great and I love my work!
Life is short- go fishing!
John Kumiski
http://www.spottedtail.com/
All content in this blog, including writing and photos, copyright John Kumiski 2012. All rights are reserved.
John; I was checking out your fishing report, and scrolled down the page to find some beautiful photos. When I kept going, I found that you had written a short note about Linda’s and my experience last season, and was pleasantly surprised. We are coming back this season on Aug. 11, and bringing Linda’s 86 yo father. He’s in great condition, and looking forward to the trip as much as we are. I appreciate your patience with my fly fishing, and hope to gain a little more experience this year. Looking forward to your reports, and can’t wait to get back where it’s nice and cool.
Phil Shimerda