2017 The Missing Years
The Missing Years are blogs we should have done but didn’t.
Hopefully you’ll find little tidbits of information to help you with your fishing.
Dry Flies on the Russian River – July 24th
Good friend Mark Huber and I decided to focus this trip on dry flies only. Dries should not be an anglers’ first choice for any trip to any river at any time of year in Alaska, but they do work under certain situations. Besides, we just wanted to have fun and enjoy casting light floating lines all day.
The Russian River is a clear water tributary to the Upper Kenai and flows approximately 12 miles out of the mountains through two lakes. Hosting two distinct runs of Sockeye salmon, the lower river, which is the most accessible, is rich with insect life from all the nutrients that those salmon bring to the system. By mid-July the 1st run of Sockeyes has passed through the river and most of the combat anglers are taking a break waiting for the 2nd run to reach the river. This quiet time between the runs is a great time hunt trout.
We took 6wt rods rigged with a floating line. (I prefer casting bugs with a 5wt, but this time of year there’s always a chance of a 20” plus fish in some fast water, so backbone was a consideration.) A couple leaders, few spools of tippet materials, and a box of our favorite floating patterns rounded out our equipment for the day. I can’t express how nice it was to be traveling light for a change.
We were blessed with beautiful day and coolish temperatures. For those of you not from here, that means we get some radiant heat when we’re in the sun but get to wear long-sleeved shirts to keep the bugs off us without a layer of Deet.
We decided to focus our efforts on the canyon area above the powerlines. It’s a bit more work to fish, but you avoid all the die-hard salmon anglers wandering through all the water in the lower stretches of the river looking for the random fresh sockeye. Fishing was a little slower than I had hoped, but not bad. We caught a few fish into the mid-teens, mostly from pocket water in the higher gradient areas. Nothing much came from the slower flats and runs.
The best part of the day came when a small Black Bear showed up to scavenge a few carcasses from under a fallen Cottonwood tree. He was on the sunshine side of the river, so I was able to get some great photos.
This trip gave us a couple of fishing tips:
Mark used a mono tippet and traditional parachute patterns. I used fluorocarbon tippet and an “oversized” Cousin It. While rigging up, Mark commented on my choice of fluorocarbon, stating that it sinks and is counter-productive to dry flies. My counter was that my fly had a foam body, and that these fish could be very spooky, and I wanted that “invisible” link to my fly to give me every advantage available.
At the end of the day I was still on my original fly while Mark had gone through a half-dozen parachutes that had drowned in the fast heavy water. And, for whatever reason, I had caught twice as many fish. That may be due to my experience on this particular stretch of the river, my fly choice, or (and this is my preference) fluorocarbon tippet material.
And lastly, always carry a zip-lock bag. It never ceases to amaze me how much trash is left on the river during the salmon “harvest”.
Upper Kenai River – August 15th
Just a quick day trip in some crappy weather, but with great company.
Ken is a longtime Alaskan friend that now lives in Arizona but has a daughter in Homer. As such I get to take him fishing occasionally. This was one of those trips.
It’s a Tuesday in the middle of August. Clouds are on the treetops and there’s an intermittent drizzle all day long. The 2nd run of Sockeye has wound down and we had the river pretty much to ourselves. Just a few other crazies like us floating around.
Fishing was slow with just a few fish scattered through the float. Since Ken does fly cast, I had rigged him with a lightweight spinning rod rigged with a fluorocarbon tippet and a weighted, bead head rusty brown Woolly Bugger (#6) with rubber legs.
As it turned out, it was the most productive fly for the day. Of course, Ken did have the advantage of being able to cast and retrieve while I handled the drift boat. But even wade fishing, he out fished me.
Of interest was the difference in the Rainbows we (Ken) caught. The two we were able to photograph show the difference. *I assume that the darker fish has been in the river all summer, whereas the bright one had probably come up from Skilak Lake following spawning salmon to feed on eggs when they spawned.
Although I didn’t do well fishing, the highlight of my day was when one of our Western Green Drakes landed on our gear and gave me an opportunity to photograph it. They hatch sporadically in July and August but I’ve only ever seen a few through the years. This one was fairly cooperative as a model.
(As a photographer, it’s frustrating when an opportunity shows up and conditions suck! However, to be clear my end, I had decided to only bring my smaller DSRL with a consumer lens based on the expected weather conditions.)
Update: This trip was before my conversion to the “Dark Side” of Alaska fly-fishing (beads). Truthfully, they probably would have worked much better than the flies we used. I’ll write about the Dark Side in an upcoming Missing Years.
