The month of July is upon us at Alaska West and so are multiple species of salmon numbering in the hundreds of thousands! Kings, Chum, Sockeye, Pink and within 2 weeks, the Silver will be caught in incredible numbers over the next few weeks as they pile into the river looking for a spot to do the deed.
This week we welcomed back quite a few return guests from the past couple of seasons. Multiple father and son trips took place this week which always makes for some great times. More than half the anglers this week were “From across the pond” and a few others were from Canada so we were pretty outnumbered on July 4th, but it all worked out well, and the flags are still flying.
Hayden Fish (Great name for a guy who loves to fish) brought another group of gents from the UK. All with great attitudes, and accents, so we always enjoy having them join us. A very international crew for sure and the many stories shared spanned the ages and the places of fishing. Phil Hinton and Phil Walker stayed through for a second week and met up with a couple of their buddies in the UK. Fraser Heston and Eames Yates also joined us for what was the first of two weeks fishing with us. One week is just not enough for some people.
Joe Dudra came back again for another go and ended up catching some nice ones. No need to shake chicken bones at him to help him catch fish anymore.
The king fishing stayed quite good with many more large kings landed on the fly. We still saw a lot of jacks and smaller adult kings to keep you on your toes, along with a ton of chum and some sockeye and pinks to round it out. Nice week to be on the river with the mixed bag that is available. Most of the anglers still worked it with spey rods and most were pleasantly awarded some really nice fish this week. Trout fishing is still going well and we also started to see the first of the massive dolly run that inundates the river over the next couple of weeks. Quite a few nice bows were landed on both the Arolik and the Kanektok.
Brian Niska of Whistler Fly Fishing was our Spey Instructor for this week. Brian is extremely patient and happily spends lots of times with whoever needs a little spey casting love. Brian is well versed in many types of spey fishing and teaching techniques so it’s rare that he can’t get someone casting into Kanektok king range within a matter of minutes. He’s been known to catch a few fish now and then just so everyone see’s that he knows what he’s doing.
The weather was back and forth this week with just about everything thrown our way. Typical western Alaska though, and nobody complained. Most of the anglers would soon have to go back home to some pretty hot summer weather. Hot was not in the vocabulary this week, but it rarely ever is, unless you’re talking about the fishing!
Check out this week’s photo gallery on Facebook!
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