09/01/2009
I went hunting with Greg Acord out along the Little Susitna River yesterday, but we also were looking for fresh silver salmon in the lower river. I saw a couple salmon roll within a mile or two of the landing, but nothing down in the zone where my guided groups have been catching most of their chrome silver salmon.
On my last charter on August 30, the group caught 5 silver salmon, and one of them was a really nice chrome fish of about 9 pounds, while there were two additional chrome silvers they were quite small. In addition the group had caught a couple darker silver salmon as well. The group ended up keeping only one silver salmon.
I`m definitely thinking about wrapping up my open water salmon fishing for the season before long.
09/02/2009
Greg Acord and I hunted downstream of the Little Susitna River Public Use Facility again today, and also spent time fishing one of the best producing holes for me in the lower river. We did not see or hook any silver salmon. After spending the morning on the lower river Greg took his family on a short salmon fishing trip upstream from the landing. They fished places where they could see silver salmon milling in the clear water, but most of the salmon are getting dark and not responding well to lures. One of Greg`s daughters hooked a salmon, but the whole group did not land any fish.
While there are older salmon available only a short distance upstream from the Little Susitna River Public Use Facility boat launch, most of those fish are reluctant to strike both lures and bait, in addition most of those fish are maturing toward the spawning process to the point where I would not recommend keeping them to eat, and finally, while Little Susitna River has had catchable numbers of silver salmon since early August, as noted in these fishing reports, it is my belief that the silver salmon run may be smaller than average this year. For all of these reasons I prefer not to guide primarily catch and release silver salmon fishing trips for dark salmon preparing to spawn. I would prefer to see these fish spawn with the greatest possible success. So, after guiding one or two additional trips which people called to reserved earlier — I will be done guiding open water salmon fishing trips on the Little Susitna River for the 2009 season.
I plan to continue posting updates on our 2009 fishing reports — however expect less frequent reporting now that our guided open water salmon fishing is almost over.
It has been another enjoyable season guiding Alaska salmon fishing trips, and we would like to thank all of the guests who fished with us this season.
Some of our long time guests have already started reserving their trips for the 2010 king salmon and silver salmon seasons. If you are interested in reserving one or more of our best 2010 fishing dates at this time, please feel welcome to give us a call at 907-746-2199.