Anyone seen the river lately? Fishable yet?
Kasilof conditions
Anyone seen the river lately? Fishable yet?
Alaska: We're all here cuz we're not all "there"
still iced over at the highway bridge as of last night!
Hurry up and MELT!
USAF Active duty. GO BEARS! GO CUBS!
man seems a little late this year, guess its from all the snow……….
Downstream of pollard creek as of 1:30 today.
And upstream from there same time.
I haven't checked the lower river but suspect more of the same.
"Freedom gives you an opportunity to succeed,but, it also gives you an opportunity to fail. You do not have a right to succeed in this country you have an opportunity"
George "Buzzard" Massie
As of 5pm today still frozen at the bridge. Maybe I'll take a ride up to slack water and see what's going on up there....
I think that breakup may be a little later than normal this year. Last year there was open water on Finger Lake at the end of April and we made our first run up the Knik Glacier about the 5th of May. Don't think that will happen this year. I guess we are going to have to be patient damit... "fishon"
"Fisherman for Life" and "Phantom owner Forever"
The shelf ice along the river made for good walking until I got up to Johnson Creek. Then I headed back into the woods looking for a frozen place to cross and postholing knee deep in the snow.
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Made it up to Tustumena where the usual small area is open right at the outlet this time of year. No need to wonder about the lake until all the small lakes dotting the Kenai lowlands are ice free. Tusty will be after them.
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Doesn't it have a lot to do with the direction of the winds each year? Meaning almost the whole lake can be open but closed off with ice between Caribou Island and the mouth. But if the winds start to come out of the north for any length of time, and it's warm enough, the ice will go away sooner......no?Originally Posted by tustumena_lake
Yes, the last part of the lake to open will be between Caribou Island and the River. What I usually see happen is the edges melt first then with a little wind, not much, that huge ice floe can be shifted which then forms cracks in it. Then if you're lucky you can sneak through the cracks to open water on the other side and run the length of the lake.
Once those cracks form the last of the ice seems to go really quick.
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I remember years ago trying to get through about a foot of rotten ice where open water was only a few hundred yards away....it was still a no go.
Yeah I've always disliked not getting past the ice too. Last year it took me two trips to make it, and just barely by skirting around the ice floe along the edge on May 9th. My prop paid the price for being insistent, once again.
Looking back over Tustumena Lake from the far end up in the mountains, Caribou Island in the distance....the source of the Kasilof River.
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Nice pics TL, thanks for sharing 'em. Is that a field below the center of the ridge you took the pic from? Naturally occurring, or was that area ever cultivated by an earlier settler? I liked reading about the history of the early settlers and their camps.
That is naturally occurring. There were some people here through the centuries but most of this area is wilderness designated now in a Wildlife Refuge.
Alan Boraas, professor of anthropology says traces of human habitation along the river date back about 3,000 years. Before modern times, a handful of local natives subsisted on the lakeshore and some travelled from the saltwater areas to hunt in the mountains.
I guess it was around 1786 that Russian traders built Fort Saint George at the mouth of the Kasilof River, though this trading post was relatively short-lived its easy to imagine how some of them were the first non-natives to enter this country in search of fur.
In the American era, post-1867, and say starting around 1890 the folks that ventured here were trappers, miners, and hunters.
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I bet you know where this is Jim....lol
Yep that looks vaguely familiar. Andrew Berg built that place in 1902, or so it is written. Here's another cabin he built before that up in the Kenai mountains. Photo taken around 1898, Andrew is on the far left.
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I wonder it that is one of the cabins he had up on top, between Tusty and Skilak? If I recall he had one up there somewhere didn't he?
BTW...the ice went out on the Kasilof yesterday afternoon......
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