Alaska News

Southcentral's last fishing weekend? Or the beginning of a bonanza?

Labor Day weekend is often considered the closing weekend of the sport fishing season, even though some excellent angling can be found into October. Here are some prospects for the holiday weekend.

Kenai Peninsula sockeye bounty

Red salmon continue to trickle into the Russian River, with more than 46,000 passing the weir at the outlet of Lower Russian Lake. The Kenai River count ended for the year Saturday, with more than 1.7 million sockeye passing the Kenai River weir, the most since 2006. Note, though, that the Russian River Ferry closed Thursday due to high water and damage to the landing dock after it washed away into the current.

Hike and fish

The payoff for fishing scenic Symphony Lake near Eagle River is hard to beat. One Alaska Dispatch News fishing reporter recounted "the mountain lake's mythical beauty and world-class fishing" last year. This may be the weekend to go. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game warns that grayling fishing tends to be "hit or miss depending on the weather. When the weather was nice, the fish had a tendency to be farther out in the lake. Increased cloud cover brought the fish closer to shore."

The forecast for this weekend: clouds with some rain. Remember, the bag limit is five fish, only one longer than 12 inches.

Silver lining

Seward's silver salmon derby is long over, but Fish and Game reports "fairly good catches" continuing near Caines Head and Pony Cove, with a few being picked up from shore by anglers tossing bright spinners. A few pinks are mixed in too. And anglers leaving Resurrection Bay for the North Gulf Coast have surprisingly good late-season halibut fishing.

September streams

Dolly Varden fishing should only get better during September and into October on lower Kenai Peninsula steams, with steelhead fishing peaking too, in mid-to-late September. Effective tackle includes spinners, jigs suspended under bobbers and corkies with yarn. Chilly weather and the start of the NFL season next weekend will keep many summer anglers sprawled on their couches at home, leaving much more stream bank available to anglers who prefer autumn.

Ravenous rainbows

Trout become gluttons this time of year, chowing down on an ample supply of salmon eggs, and Fish and Game pegs the fishing in Parks Highway streams as "good to excellent well into freeze-up." Flesh flies and sculpin patterns can prove deadly.

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Wily Whittier

Fish and Game reports "a good number of silvers returning and still some kings swimming around Prince William Sound … Herring or eggs under a bobber or mooched works great." Remember, snagging is illegal in the Whittier small boat harbor.

Avid Whittier angler David Lofland trolled out of Whittier on Wednesday en route to checking his shrimp pots, and he landed a king salmon of about 20 pounds. "The silver fishing is much changed from the last couple of years," he noted. "It's probably 20-25 percent of what it was five or six years ago, but still much improved from last year."

Mike Campbell

Mike Campbell was a longtime editor for Alaska Dispatch News, and before that, the Anchorage Daily News.

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