Open-water fishing off to late start in the Valley

Last year, I took my guide boat out searching for king salmon for the first time on May 7. This year, my first king salmon charter is scheduled for May 15 — more than a week later — and I am wondering if the rivers will be ice free enough and there will be a boat launch open for me to run the fishing trip. With a late breakup, many Mat-Su anglers may be catching up on yard work rather than getting out and hitting the open water as soon as we would like.

Talkeetna River

On Tuesday, I talked with Rhett Ellis, owner of Phantom Salmon Charters and in the process of purchasing Tri River Charters in Talkeetna. The Talkeetna River is known as one of the earliest open-water fishing opportunities in the Mat-Su area, but Rhett had not yet been able to get a boat in the river. According to Ellis, he could possibly get his boat down the channel coming out of the boat launch to the main river, but after reaching the main river he could not travel very far before his upriver route would be blocked by river ice. Going down river simply is not a good option this time of year, because if ice breaks loose upstream you may be blocked in and unable to return to the boat launch. Anyway, Rhett is hoping to get out and start guiding trout fishermen on the Talkeetna River just as soon as conditions improve. You can learn more about his trout charters and the latest fishing conditions by calling at 733-2400.

Susitna Lanidng

A little further downstream along the Susitna River, Jeff Boatright, operator of Susitna Landing, told me this week that the first open water leads were starting to appear in the river at that location, but there was hardly any water to fish and he had not had any anglers using the state facility for open water fishing yet this year.

Willow Creek

From the folks over at 3 Rivers Fly and Tackle in Wasilla, I heard of an individual snowshoeing into the mouth of Willow Creek only to find that all the water was frozen over at that location. Conditions will hopefully improve quickly now that we are getting some warmer weather; however, there is plenty of snow and ice that needs to either melt or wash away with a higher flow of runoff coming down the streams. Once we get a longer enough spell of above freezing temperatures to get the melt going, it seems highly likely anglers could be in for a spell of higher water, as the cool month of April and recent snows have left a considerable amount of snow to melt and come down the streams a bit later than usual. I had heard of open water further up some of the Susitna River tributary streams where they cross the Parks Highway, but native species like trout and grayling migrate up into these streams after spending the winter in the Susitna River or near tributary confluence areas, so until the ice is gone in those locations there are usually few fish to be had upstream.

Deshka Landing

The pictures and description on the Deshka Landing website show plenty of snow and ice and hardly any water. May 11 is the annual business meeting in Willow for those who own membership shares in Deshka Landing. This is often an opportunity for shareholders to take their boats to the landing and even go out on the river before or after the meeting; however, I have my doubts as to anyone getting out on the river in a boat this coming weekend.

Little Susitna River

I’ve been watching the USGS flow charts for the Little Su the past couple days, and while the water level is starting to come up it is still far below normal levels for this time of year. Like the other locations, it should be a while before Little Su has enough water to attract some salmon out of saltwater.

Mat-Su Valley Lakes

All of the lakes I know of are still iced over. In fact, I heard of some individuals ice fishing recently on one of them —but with warmer weather, even relatively thick ice can get rotten to where it has little strength. To me, the possibility of taking an ice water swim is not worth the opportunity to fish one more time for small fish through the ice.

Eklutna Tailrace

I’ve been driving to the tailrace a bit just to go check out some of the new fishing rods and reels I purchased this past winter. At least it provides an opportunity to cast and retrieve in open water.

Don’t expect much in the way of fish, though, as when I went to the tailrace today there was no or extremely little water flow coming out of the power plant. This is an annual event where the plant is shut down for maintenance. When that happens there is not enough water flowing down the river channel for fish of any size to make it to the tailrace. The water also becomes stagnant with moss along the bottom — conditions that may not be very appealing to fish. Once the power plant starts running water, I’m thinking the tailrace may provide an earlier opportunity to catch some jack king salmon this year.

With the state’s new fish hatchery coming online with salmon smolt production last year, 150,000 larger king salmon smolt were stocked at Eklutna Tailrace last year, so I figure some of the early maturing small males should show up at the tailrace this season. Since these jacks are smaller and need less water to swim up to the tailrace than larger king salmon, I suspect they could be some of the first salmon to reach the tailrace. More larger king salmon above jack size should start to show up in 2014.

Roundup

Ice deteriorating on the lakes and snow and ice still along the rivers — what is a Mat-Su Valley fishermen to do? I’ve talked to some making trips for saltwater fishing down off the Kenai Peninsula. Myself, I’m hoping to catch up with some of my chores so I can get out on the lakes and rivers when they do open up. For those who have not read fishing regulations, this weekend may provide that opportunity as well. Note: there have been several emergency king salmon regulations that the Department of Fish and Game did not print in the regulation book. For more information, contact the Alaska Department of Fish and Game office in Palmer at 746-6300.

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