Alaska West Fishing Report: July 8 – 15

With three father and son pairs joining us during week 5 of the season it felt like family week.

Chuck and Charlie Domenici joined us again. It was great to see Charlie after a few years away and he’s still getting it done. John Russell and sons Eric and Andy also joined us again, and quickly got to work on trying to catch kings and whatever else they could. Brad Bertram brought his son Collin up for a week of chasing salmon. Collin caught a couple of fish this week that rivaled his height. Chris Purcell and Brian Novak came with the Domenici’s and so did George Brooks and Wayne Harley. Fraser and Eames hung out another week since just one week is never enough.

The fishing for kings this week is normally a bit tougher than prior weeks, but this year we were able to have pretty good king fishing during the whole week. Probably helped a lot to have the not so nice weather we did have this week. Many anglers still tried for kings with spey rods, but we also had a lot of anglers go to the dark side and break out the plug rods. Not a problem, and quite often you can do some serious damage while plugging so it’s a lot of action.

Most anglers caught really nice chrome kings this week, but we also had photos of multiple doubles on chum and pinks and great trout and grayling action. Charlie landed a sweet bow that weighed right at 9lbs on the lower Kanektok, while salmon fishing. Toad!

Brian Niska also stayed through for a second week of Spey help and fishing. He helped a lot of anglers get to a comfortable spot with casting and many of them landed fish without too much work. Thanks Brian.

The weather this week was tough; just about every picture was a bit foggy with obvious rain and clouds in the shot. Not really out of the norm for this time of year, not here anyways! We can have the rain and wind anytime. The really great part about the weather being cool and wet is that the bugs do not like it and really are not even present when its nasty. On the other hand, when it does get nice, we will pay for it!

For a gallery of pictures from the week, check out our July 8 – 15 photo gallery on Facebook.