'Fishing' the Susitna River

Tuesday of this week my wife and I made a fishing trip to the personal use dip net area on the mainstream Susitna River downstream of its confluence with the Yentna River. We were not fishing for salmon, however, but looking for lost personal use dip nets.

Before driving to Deshka Landing I looked at the Deshka Landing weather cam and noticed that the Susitna River water level was down significantly — although not as much as when we had made this trip a couple years ago. Next I called up to the Landing and talked with one of the staff to learn if temperatures had been below freezing / would I need a 4-wheel drive to pull the boat out of the launch when we returned from our trip. I was assured it would be no problem pulling my boat with my 2-wheel drive truck.

When we reached the boat launch I could tell the river was down and it had started to clear up a bit, but we could not see very far into the water — even in the slack water at the launch where silt from the main river tends to settle out a bit. There was a couple people transporting what looked like hunting gear out in a boat, and one of the larger freight barges at the launch when we put our boat in the river.

Once we had the boat on the river, it was about a 45 minute-run downriver to the dip netting area. On the trip down we did not see any other people and only one other boat tied up near one of the cabins / houses along the river. We watched for birds and game while boating and spotted a plethora of bald eagles either perched in trees beside the river or standing on sandbars along the sides. They were the only wildlife saw.

The dip net area is rather large, but we focused our search in an area where we had observed the most people fishing, and where we had also lost a dip net earlier during the personal use season in July. While the river level was several feet lower than it was at peak height during dip netting season, water visibility was limited to less than a foot. We puttered down one bank for a couple miles, then slowly motored back along another bank. We were unable to spot any bright aluminum net handles or hoops and did not find any lost or broken netting in the entire area we searched. As many anglers know some fishing trips are more about the experience — especially when nothing is caught.

We had found one or two dip nets in this same area on previous trips and knew where we wanted to look. We did not find any nets along the shore and could not see hardly any distance into the water, because there was still too much suspended silt. Just like other fishing trips — we have fished for dip nets on other occasions without success as well. If the river drops and the water clears there may be another opportunity, however, we made this trip after the river had been dropping for over a week — and only a day or two before the weather forecast was calling for significant rain, that once again might raise and muddy the river.

As many outdoors people know, having fun in Alaska has its costs. In this case our boat, hooks, rake, and Deshka Landing pass were previously paid for, but I purchased over $150 of boat and truck gasoline. It is my intention to always bring more gas than needed, and this trip was no exception, so we can make another one or two shorter trips on what was leftover. We had hoped to find dip nets valued at approximately $150 or more when purchased new — however, even if we had found and managed to retrieve a dip net or two — usually either the netting, hoop or extended handle need to be repaired or replaced. So even though we did not find what we were looking for, I did not need to do a bunch or work repairing or replacing dip net parts.

After a hunting or fishing adventure, I like to evaluate the success and consider if I may want to do something different to better achieve my objective on the next adventure. In this case, I knew beforehand that the Susitna River had been extremely high during the July dip netting season, and fishing effort may have been less than the past couple years. When less people dipnet there is less chance for them to lose nets. As mentioned earlier the river level and clarity (while perhaps as good as they were going to be before the river starts icing up) were less than optimal. We made the choice to continue with the trip after seeing conditions at the boat launch, and we knew our trip could be mostly a boat ride. We enjoyed good weather on the trip, saw several bald eagles along the river, and enjoyed some wild and scenic country with few other people even at the landing. Both Deshka River and Anderson Creek looked like they might be worth fishing during our trip, but I purposely left the fishing gear behind, knowing that we could easily use all of our time boating to and from the personal use fishing area and searching for nets once we were there.

On the drive home from Deshka Landing we looked at and talked about fishing prospects in The Little Susitna river and some lakes along our driving route. They looked so nice and calm, and there were no other anglers in sight! Whether lakes or streams, if you are fishing for trout, lost lures, or dip nets, good luck in your next Mat-Su fishing adventure. We should have at least another weekend / week before winter arrives.

Fish On!

Andy Couch is a Mat-Su Valley fishing guide who primarily targets ocean-run salmon during summer months.