01 Sep August 2017 Fishing Report
August was a strong month from start to finish for sockeye, silvers, and trout on the Kenai River. The below average water levels forced us to rethink our approach to silvers and rainbows, but we managed to formulate a productive game plan and had many good days throughout the month.
Overall we were happy with the performance of the fishing during August and enjoyed our time with old friends and meeting new ones.
Rainbow Trout
As always the first week of August fished great, we saw many nice, fat fish and several bows in the 8-10lb range. The slow trickle sockeye run kept the rainbows spread out more than usual so more work was needed to consistently stay on the fish. Less anglers were seen catching late run reds and fewer anglers were present along the banks causing a pullback in food for the hungry bows. Fortunately, we were able to find areas that had several consistent pockets of fish in short distance from each other allowing for steady action.
As August rolled on we saw the typical tough mid-month bite. We had to fish more water than usual as the smaller food supply kept trout spread out. The lower water levels definitely helped keep food in cachement areas vs. being washed down river by larger water volume helping band aid the situation.
The end of August greeted us with the king salmon spawn, once again the low water dictated which spawn beds were holding fish. This was a fairly easy crux to navigate and the end result was some great fishing and the discovery of beds we did not know of. Meanwhile, the sockeye were staging fairly strong and some spawning adding some diversity to the mix and several big bows to the net.
We highly encourage folks to check out the late July – early August trout fishery. This is a great time to target trophy bows and fill the freezer with salmon.
Red Salmon
The first week of August fished pretty well compared to the run as a whole. The steady but small numbers of Reds entering the river each day kept us working for limits, but we were successful at completing that task most days. By the end of the first week, Red fishing became fairly tough, which was a touch earlier than previous years, but a salmon run is hindsight and next to impossible to predict each year. We have no idea what next year will bring, but we are looking forward to it.
Silver salmon
The 1st run of Silvers this year was pretty fun and trickled into early September. The low water during the meat of the run (Aug 15 – 20) kept us throwing spinners and targeting pocket water. We love casting for them when applicable, seeing a silver follow and strike a spinner on the retrieve is pretty exciting. The lower water made silvers a touch more finicky and feeling the subtle bite kept anglers on their game and created a great learning experience. The above average size of the silvers was a wonderful surprise and added a nice bonus to those looking to fill up the freezer.
