Kenai slow

[Paul H]

I went down yesterday after seing the count had picked up on Sunday. I figured with the weak forecast, and rumors of the fishery closing, it was worth a shot.

Well we started fishing a bit after 1, and it must have taken me nearly 3 hours to get my first 2 fish. I was almost ready to pack it up, but then it started to pick up a bit and I ended up with 11 after over 4 hours of floating. Most of the fish were on the smaller side.

Enough fish to make the trip worthwhile, but man am I sore!

 

[AKCheese]

Ditto

Ditto

That jives with what I saw looking down from Beluga RV park

3 days (Sunday - Tuesday) never showed me enough activity to warrantly putting my gear in the water.

I heard a few people who dipped from boats did a little better

I went King fishing instead and that was pretty good (3 out of 4 of us tagged kings and we let a 4th one go )!!

I guess every cloud has a silver lining and the lack of reds will keep the commercial gear out of the water except during the regular 2 day openers....

That in turn will let more kings and silvers make it into the river!!

Personally as I stated in a different link........ I wouldn't get my net wet unless there are at LEAST 30K reds coming into the river that day

Hopefully there are some blockbuster days coming ........ otherwise it's going to be pretty sketchy as far as them making their minimum escapement

Actually since I have another King trip planned for this coming Tuesday it wouldn't break my heart to see things stay slow red wise til after that......

 

[OneRound]

Kenai Netting on Tuesday

Kenai Netting on Tuesday

We went down on Tuesday morning (2:30am) and made it in the water by 6:00am. It was extremely slow (near dead) until a very small wave of reds came in after the 11am high tide. The best time was around 12 noon to 1230pm. It still was very slow, but at least some fish showed up. We bailed around 1:30pm because it was so bad. We planned on going back down if the numbers came up a little, but the news about the expected personal use closure on Friday night put a round in that one.

Here's hoping the bigger numbers come in soon. They say fishermen are optimists....

I forgot to mention that although the reds were dead, we saw 8 to 10 kings netted on Tuesday. They were from 25 to the 60s#. Pretty neat. I've seen nothing like that in past years, at least not that many.