2009 Seasonal Report. Another great Alaska fishing year. Bill Coulson hooked and landed a 27″ rainbow on the first official cast of the season at 6am on June 11. During those first 3 days, our guests landed many rainbows, including 5 between 30 and 32”. The Kenai River water was clear, not the normal silted green. This made for an interesting change, with fish being visible and sight fishing typical. The water remained clear for most of the season and made it easy to target fish, but techniques had to be altered and a little more stealth employed at times.
The Upper Kenai was covered in Sockeye right from the start. The limit was increased to 6 by June 17th. With a little instruction, our guests were landing their limits in as little as an hour’s time. Some anglers went on to catch and release 20 or 30 more, before we managed to finish filleting the keepers. The clear water and large numbers of holding fish in the Kenai made for an epic Sockeye fishery. The epic sockeye fishery created lots of food for trout and bears.
The bears were fun to watch this season. We witnessed thirteen during one day of fishing in early July. Who needs to fly to Brooks? Despite regular bear traffic, we never encountered any problem bears and I did not hear of one major confrontational incident that went badly for a bear or human.
Our late run of Sockeye was just about right from an escapement perspective, though a little lower than we, as sportfishers, would like to see. The fish spurted through providing some great days and some slower ones. The lower Kenai saw a surge of high water that seemed to hold the fish down low for awhile, but created great fishing for chrome fish well into August.
Despite a low return of late run Kings, plenty of fish appeared in the Upper Kenai to spawn in early August. Correspondingly, the trout and Dolly Varden fishing got hot. Doubles, triples and even quad hookups were common on certain drifts, as were smiles and whooping anglers.
Many of our guests love silver salmon and others are surprised when they were only thinking about trout. There are times when the trout fishing is so good, that we don't pursue salmon, but it is great to have the variety of great rainbows, dollies and a few big salmon in the mix.
Fishing through the sockeye spawn was excellent, with only a short window of heavy egg volume in early September. Trout fishing was strong throughout September in many portions of the river. If only September was three months long! As the spawn tapered off after mid month, the flesh bite kicked into gear and many fat rainbows pounced on well tied flesh flies. Water levels dropped steadily and after the salmon died off, the fishing got a little more challenging. Then suddenly, the river began to bounce and color up to its normal Kenai green. Rising water stirred up eggs and flesh and the bite was great through most of October. On my last guided trip October 18, we experienced an epic day with many big silvers, a surprising number of dollies and plenty of rainbows. The caper was a 32” Grande landed by Scott Kolstad.
Weather was generally good all season. June was cool until the last week when we actually got hot with temps pushing the 80s until mid July. Then it cooled back to our normal mid 60s. Precipitation was moderate and I don't recall a single day of full on continuous rain. The mountains got white in late September, but a very mild weather system moved in and we saw temps pushing 60 in early October.
I can now say that I have been guiding for over 20 years, as this was my 21st season as a Kenai River Guide. I still find daily thrills sharing this wonderful river with so many great people. A sincere thanks to everyone who joined us this past season. Alaska tourism was down, but with your help, I still managed an 86 day straight guiding run starting in mid July. I don't think I will be keeping that pace up forever, but I plan to remain on the Mystic Waters for years to come.
