Lakes stocked full of fish

My nephew, Paul Warta, called me Monday, all excited about trout fishing. It seems while Paul’s mother was driving him and his brother, Nathaniel, home, they spotted the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s stocking truck offloading fish at Loberg (Junction) Lake. This lake is located just across the Parks Highway and little toward Anchorage from Mat-Su Regional Medical Center. After arriving home, Paul’s mother agreed to drive him and Nathaniel back to the lake if Paul would dig out fishing gear for everyone.

As the 3 of them were driving back toward Loberg Lake, they spotted the hatchery truck once again, this time offloading catchable-sized rainbow trout into Kepler-Bradley Lakes. With no need to drive the extra couple miles, they made a quick turn into Kepler-Bradley Lakes Park and got ready to catch some trout.

Department employees told Paul they were offloading 2,500 fish right near where they were fishing. Unfortunately, none of the 5-to-12 inch stockers seemed to want anything to do with the spinners Paul had on each of the fishing rods. I asked him how salmon eggs worked, but he told me they had been in such a hurry to get back over and catch some fish that he did not take the time to bring any of their salmon eggs. Paul talked with the hatchery truck workers and learned that the truck was transporting fish to a total of five Mat-Su Lakes that day, but neither Paul, Nathaniel, or his mother caught even a single fish on a spinner that day.

Only a short while later my wife and I were driving toward Wasilla and saw several vehicles in the Kepler-Bradley Lakes parking area, but not a single vehicle near Loberg Lake. On our return trip, we saw two angler vehicles at Loberg Lake, and several vehicles once again as we were passing Kepler-Bradley Lakes. It obviously did not take fishermen long to spread the word and get in on the action.

A couple other folks I know told me of fishing another stocked lake in the Meadow Lakes Area, one known for growing large rainbow trout. They caught a few fish, but I seriously doubt the hatchery had visited that lake yet this year — it’s off the beaten path a bit, and the higher-use lakes are usually the first to be stocked with fish when the ice melts each spring.

Fish and Game has information about their fish stocking program on their website, and at the Palmer office (call 746-6300).

Stream fishing

Most streams in the Palmer-Wasilla core area are closed to fishing at this time. While streams north of Willow are open to fishing, there is no harvest allowed for rainbow trout until mid-June. These regulations are to provide some protection to wild spawning rainbow trout, so if you are interested in stream fishing, be sure and consult the latest fishing regulations concerning the stream you intend to fish before your first trip.

Jeff Boatright at Susitna Landing told me the river finally opened up and people have been doing well the last 3 days catching rainbow trout and grayling, with one individual catching the only Dolly Varden so far. Jeff said the water is low and clear, providing excellent opportunities for fly fishermen to walk up and downstream in shallow water, or on gravel bars as they fish various spots.

Mike Hudson at 3 Rivers Fly and Tackle said people had reported catching some fish at most of the steams crossing the Parks Highway north of Willow. However, Mike said people had caught rather modest amounts of fish, and with low water throughout the drainages, most of the fish were coming from the confluence of tributary streams with the Susitna River.

Rhett Nealis of Phantom Tri-River Charters in Talkeetna reported the Talkeetna Boat Launch is still so short of water that it is impossible to launch a boat there at this time. A few individuals have found other means to get a boat to the river. Rhett reports that anglers fishing most of the day have been catching somewhere around a dozen fish, some of which have been very nice rainbow trout and Dolly Varden. The largest rainbow Rhett knew about so far was 27 inches. Rhett also mentioned that the water has been rising slowly with the warmer weather, but remains good and clear.

Lower Sustina River

Alaska Department of Fish and Game Biologist Sam Ivey was down on the Susitna River from Deshka Landing to Alexander Creek from Sunday through Tuesday of this week. He said water conditions are low and there was a considerable amount of ice when they were getting started on Sunday, but by Tuesday they were not seeing much ice come down the river. Sam did not see any king salmon, but reported hooligan present in the Susitna River below its confluence with the Yentna River. That’s a good distance to run for hooligan, but I’m sure the numbers are only going up as the week progresses. It has been my experience that anytime a person is seeing hooligan along the Susitna River, the catching is usually quite good. Often it is very easy to catch all one wants to process in a very short amount of time. When boating along the Susitna River, seagull activity down along the river’s edge is often an indicator of good places to try for hooligan. Even in the silty water one can sometimes see a ribbon-like band of the small schooling fish tight against the shoreline.

I’ve been out prospecting for king salmon a couple times with my guide boat in the past week, but so far all we’ve managed to catch has been a few scrappy rainbow trout. Again, water levels are quite low and I’ve scraped bottom several times with my shallow-running jet boat already. Waters are low enough that I’ve been spending most of my fishing opportunities casting spinners toward the deeper holes. Unless we get a much higher amount of rain than normal this summer, it looks like my guests and I could spend most of the summer casting spinners and other lures instead of using the high-water techniques I often use when fishing for king salmon. So far I have not seen or heard of any Mat-Su king salmon showing up, but it likely won’t be long now before someone catches the first one. Good luck if you are one of the people putting in an extra early effort.

Andy Couch owns and operates Fishtale River Guides fish4salmon.com and is a member of the Mat-Su Borough Fish and Wildlife Commission.