Alaska West Fishing Report: August 6 – 13

For week 9 at Alaska West we welcomed back many longtime friends and guests.

Bruce Cook Sr and Jr brought back the usual crew of Ray Smith, Brian Silver, Tyler and Chandler Cook, Larry and Scott Ryan, Brian Buchanan and Bob Anderson. What a great group of guys with solid fishing experience. Ron Martin and Dick Stevens also came back for the umpteenth time to put the wood to some silvers. Our new guests to Alaska West were the Fischer family, which is quite the fitting family name for this trip! Stephen Sr and Jr along with Mark and Christopher made up the Fischer family along with Mark Shannon and Pat Worsham.

We did experience some tough fishing this week due to the rains bringing the water level up a bit higher than normal, but by mid week we were back to normal, though it kept on raining! Temps were between 45 and 60 the whole week with rain most days, though it was only heavy the first couple days of the week. The nice thing this week was that the winds were never an issue and neither were the bugs!

The fishing this week was pretty steady as more and more silvers came into the river. Numbers landed were not quite as high as in years past, but even an average year on the Kanektok is better than a great year on others! The best thing about silvers this week is the quality of every single fish. They are as fresh as can be and full of fight due to some being in the river for just minutes prior to being caught.

Trout fishing was consistent through the week with some really nice fished landed by the end of the week. Both Ray Smith and Brian Silver landed the largest bows of the trip on the last day, just minutes apart. That was pretty cool! Guests also put the hurt on the dolly runs with some really great catches, especially on the Arolik. The dolly’s start “clowning up” in early August so many of the larger fish landed this week were spectacular for photos, though holding one of those slimy and wiggly fish for a photo is easier said than done! All in all it was a great week and it was nice to see old friends and make some new ones.