Week 2 at Alaska West welcomed back a bunch of return anglers and a whole bunch of fresh king salmon. Guys like Mike Opitz, Tony Robins and his son JM, Marty Herman, Will Smart and Dave Victor have been fishing with us for years and we were proud to have them back again this year. Guys like Erich Bittmann, Mike Kuhnert, Brian Thielicke, Hal Leavell and Lou Ofstein are making a name for themselves, sometimes not a good name, but that’s alright, its fishing camp!
The king fishing this week proved to be great as usual. We did not see any huge numbers this week, but we did see some huge fish and more than enough action to keep you on your toes! Mike Opitz, Hal Leavell, Tony and JM Robins and many more landed giants this week. And they all were caught with hanging sea lice and dripping chrome and as mean as they get. Kuhnert and Bittmann put on a show by bringing up the flat bill flashy hats and sunglasses with rhinestones all over them. They made for some great photo ops, fish in hand or not!
Through the week the fishing was pretty consistent with everyone hooking fish daily. Lots of chum started to show this week as well, though no one really wanted to target them when the king fishing was so good. Unfortunately, the chum get the short end of the stick this week with most anglers passing them up for a chance at a king or two, or ten! That’s alright, the chum get love later on in the season.
We also welcomed back Charles St. Pierre to offer some of his Spey Casting Clinics to anyone in need of some help. Charles has been coming up for years and is a huge part of why we have so many return anglers in this week, and many others. Charles has a vast amount of knowledge and he has the patience to convey it to just about anyone, man, woman or child. He has taught a ton of our anglers the ways of the spey and we hope he keeps it up for many years to come!
The weather this week was pretty tolerable with some rain, some wind, a bit of sun, and no bugs! Temps were between 40 and 60 the whole time and since we had just a bit of rain the river kept dropping through the week. River clarity was perfect with emerald green waters, but the water temps pretty much stayed the same the whole time.
For a gallery of pictures from this week, check out our June 17 – 24, 2011 gallery on Facebook!
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