Catch more fish by utilizing free information sources

Have you ever made a long fishing road trip to a distant river only to find the river high, chocolate brown with runoff, and carrying a literal forest of woody debris?

Have you ever made a trip to the local salmon hole, timing it at the typical peak run, only to find this year’s fish can’t tell time and either arrived early and already moved on, or have delayed their spawning run to the water you chose, for some reason know only to the salmon? Wouldn’t it be great to know about these situations before making your fishing trip minus either the fish, or water conditions conducive to catching them?

Consider the following free information sources to help plan your fishing trips to appropriate locations at the right times:

1. Alaska Department of Fish and Game website, //www.adfg.state.ak.us. Within this one website there are several pages worth noting. There’s the licensing page — simply click the licensing link near the top of the homepage.

For the past few years I’ve used this page to purchase my hunting and fishing license, and king salmon stamp online using a credit card. Advantages for using this page are that I get an immediate printable confirmation that is usable as a license until the state’s paper license arrives in the mail. When the paper license does arrive, it is printed on a much stouter paper stock than what is issued at license vendors (thus withstanding moisture better and providing a better writing surface when recording king salmon harvested).

2. ADF&G Fish Count Data, www.sf.adfg.state.ak.us/FishCounts, from this page a person can select a location where ADF&G is conducting escapement numbers in the first drop down menu.

In the Mat-Su area a popular location to look at is the Deshka River, where a person could see the latest weir count information in a timely manner and know when the Deshka fishery has lots of salmon passing upriver. These count numbers also dictate when the river will likely remain open or could face emergency restrictions. Something that should be noted when using Deshka and other upstream escapement count numbers is because this weir is located seven miles upstream from the river mouth, good to exceptional fishing can occur for several days before significant fish numbers pass through the weir. This is especially true at any time when river flow levels are low, as salmon usually move upstream more slowly under such conditions, and may simply hang out in the first couple miles of river waiting for higher water conditions.

Little Susitna River weir escapement numbers are also located on this page, but the location of this escapement count leaves much to be desired, as by the time enough salmon arrive at this location for ADF&G to see escapement trends, the Upper Cook Inlet commercial fisheries and the Little Susitna River sport fisheries are already winding down.

Since most of the harvest from both of these fisheries occurs before salmon pass through this far upstream location, this weir costs the state many thousands of dollars without providing much inseason management data for ADF&G or without providing private anglers much timely information about salmon available or not available for harvest during the fishing season.

If the weir location was switched to the former site located a few miles above the Little Susitna RIver Public Use Facility Campground and Boat Launch, it would provide much more timely and useful information for ADF&G, commercial, and sport fishermen. You might want to contact your valley legislators about this location, if you believe the state and public should get the most bang for our management buck by using the downstream location.

3. Do you ever wonder how many salmon are being harvested in the Upper Cook Inlet commercial fisheries? You can track this data on a specific ADF&G page csfish.adfg.state.ak.us/mariner/uci/ucicatchxarea.php. This provides me with a rough idea of when salmon numbers should be increasing rapidly in locations located downstream of the above mentioned weirs and before weir numbers register the trend.

So far I’ve listed a few of my personal valuable free fishing information sources, but column length dictates I wrap it up for now. I plan to describe more of these free resources in another column, so check out coming columns to learn more.

E-mail sports@frontiersman.com if you have Mat-Su fishing questions or information readers may find useful.

Andy Couch owns and operates Fishtale River Guides www.fish4salmon.com is a Mat-Su Anglers Club member www.matsuanglers.org and member of the Matanuska - Susitna Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Sportsmen’s Committee.