A very limited Mat-Su salmon charter option

I received several phone calls this week inquiring about a salmon fishing charter. I gave each caller a similar message: With Deshka River and Little Susitna River closed to coho (silver) salmon harvest, and with high stream flows caused by recent rain events, I don’t have a good boat charter option where I am confident guests would catch any salmon they could keep.

For that matter, depending upon river conditions, they may not be able to catch any salmon at all.

I could provide a scenic tour in my guide boat in which we could stop and fish several good spots (at least during favorable water conditions).

Most callers thanked me for my honesty. With a few of them, I discussed some other fishing options they may want to consider ( possibly a Mat-Su Lake trip with another guide / or a Kenai River coho salmon trip with another guide service). One particular group, however, contacted me with 3 different phone calls, then took me up on my scenic river trip with salmon fishing at several locations. I still had my boat set up to guide fishing trips, but need to get out additional rods and reels I’d already cleaned and stored for the season.

Mat-Su Road System Boat Charter Options

With the glacial Knik River side-channel below Eklutna Tailrace high and silty (like it can be for extended periods of time), with Deshka River and Little Susitna River closed to silver salmon harvest, and with water conditions likely on the high side up the Susitna River drainage, our options were quite limited. Many of the small tributary streams up the Susitna River drainage are small enough that I dislike venturing up very far in my riverboat, so the fishing areas become quite small — and if we did not find salmon and decided to try another location it would likely be miles away either up or down the Susitna River to another tributary stream.

There are four locations closer to the Palmer -Wasilla Core Area, where I’ve caught good numbers of nice coho in the past, however, all are small enough that I would not want to run a boat charter to them, and in addition, two of them are only open on weekends. The options are quite limited whenever Deshka River or Little Susitna River are not considered part of the mix.

I’ve fished the Talkeetna River drainage a bit, but never guided a salmon charter there, and am not about to start now.

For all the above reasons, I put forward Little Susitna River as perhaps our best options for finding and catching a few salmon. Even if my guests can not keep them. At Little Su, if we do not find fish in the first four spots, there are miles of river and many fishing locations to try and explore, and plenty of those spots to fish are in considerably closer proximity to each other than new tributaries along the Susitna River drainage. Of course, depending upon river conditions, we may still not find any salmon the guest can catch, but I am very familiar with where to look for them.

As a general rule, I much prefer to harvest daily limits of salmon, rather than catching and releasing (possibly damaging) what could be a significantly larger number of fish. Fishing this late in the season, with high muddy water conditions will likely make it challenging to find and catch very many (if any) fish — and especially with artificial lures. Normally a person could still fish bait for salmon below the Parks Highway bridge on Little Su, but because of low coho numbers counted at the weir, the use of bait had been previously removed from the Little Susitna River fishery, by inseason emergency order.

Because of earlier restrictions during king salmon season, I already have plenty of artificial lures equipped with smallish single hooks, so in the event my guests manage to catch salmon, we should be able to release them easier, and with less damage. I do not expect to see many other anglers out competing for the fish -- under catch and release regulations, combined with high muddy water conditions. I believe we will much more likely see moose or duck hunters along the river, than other anglers. This will only be the second time I’ve guided at Little Susitna River, since the fishery was first restricted to artificial lures and a one coho salmon limit, before later being closed to all coho (silver) salmon harvest. I will submit this fishing column today, then run my salmon charter the following day. I still anticipate sharing the experiences and places I love so much in the Mat-Su Valley, and am excited about what we might discover on one more Mat-Su fishing trip.

Fishing On!

Andy Couch guides Mat-Su salmon fishing charters https://fish4salmon.com/ , is a member of the Matanuska Valley Fish & Game Advisory Committee, and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Fish and Wildlife Commission, however, statements / opinions in this column are his own, unless expressed otherwise.