Options for catching high water salmon

In the past couple weeks, river water levels have been at or near flood stage on both the Deshka and Little Susitna rivers for multiple days. Our most recent rains are once again raising water levels and turning the water dark with sediment. Such fishing conditions can prove challenging. Many anglers simply head to their favorite holes and give it a go. Others have driven all the way out to the Little Susitna River (over a road that feels like a mine field) looked at the river and driven away without even wetting a line.

Here are ideas I use to catch high water salmon.

1. Look for slower water. When the river comes way up, current speed through some of my favorite holes is so fast my charter guests catch extremely few or no salmon in some of those “hot” spots. There are slower places in the river, however, some of which we fish only when the water is high or extremely high that can be quite productive. When water levels get crazy high most of my fishing may be done in a very few spots. Sloughs and back eddies can provide an opportunity for salmon to rest out of the main current and away from debris that is often carried down river by high water.

2. Use bait or large brightly colored lures to provide extra attraction in muddy-colored water. Bait, of course, provides a scent trail the salmon can follow to your offering — even if it is difficult for them to see more than a foot away in the water. Larger, brightly colored lures provide more flash in the muddy water and often sink better to get down in faster than normal currents.

3. Present your lure or bait in a slow manner. Since the fish can only see your lure or bait for a very short distance, it pays great dividends to slow your presentation down and give fish an opportunity to grab your offering before it once again disappears into the murky water. Where bait is legal, this can mean stationary fishing by anchoring with a heavy weight. With lures, anglers also sometimes anchor a boat above a hole and let their lures work in the current below the boat in a somewhat stationary manner. Back trolling in a slow manner is also worth a try. When casting lures, either from a boat or from the bank, I’ve found that casting straight out or slightly down river — and then reeling only fast enough to keep the lure working — usually works best.

4. My bonus tip for those who have read this far is to target clear water areas when possible. Most of the time this would be tributary streams of even a very small nature that might create a clearer water pool where they join larger, higher and muddier waters. During periods of high water, salmon sometimes pack into these little pockets, and if the fish don’t become spooked by fishing pressure, an entire group’s limit of fish may be taken from one very small clear-water pocket.

Mat-Su and Cook Inlet coho management challenges

For any who may not have heard, the Little Susitna River from the Parks Highway down to its mouth has been restricted to fishing with artificial lures only in an effort by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) to attain sufficient coho salmon spawning escapement numbers. In an earlier phone conversation I had with ADF&G manager Sam Ivey, he mentioned the possibilities of either reopening the Little Susitna River to bait fishing if enough coho salmon showed up or extending restrictions to other Knik Arm and/or Susitna River tributary streams if coho numbers continued to be low.

According to an email I received from Ivey Aug. 17, all of the department’s measurements of coho salmon both in Northern Cook Inlet and the broader entire Upper Cook Inlet continue to indicate low numbers of coho salmon. In addition, Ivey mentioned his hesitancy to use the Little Susitna River weir (located above the Parks Highway) as a reliable coho abundance indicator until sometime around Aug. 25. To once again open the Little Su to bait fishing at that time, Ivey indicated he would want to see approximately 4,000 or more coho through the weir. Even if such numbers of coho were to make it past the weir by Aug. 25, that would leave extremely little fishing opportunity for anglers to successfully fish bait in the lower river, where most of the coho fishing effort occurs. The coho run in the lower river usually starts tapering off rapidly by late August, and from my experience, even on years of great abundance, it becomes difficult to catch bright ocean-fresh coho after Sept. 10. In both 2009 and 2010, we ran out of catchable numbers of coho in the lower Little Susitna River in late August.

Will we see additional coho restrictions on other Mat-Su streams? When the manager mentions that all of ADF&G Upper Cook Inlet coho abundance indicators show low numbers of fish, it causes some anglers to wonder when coho restrictions will occur on streams in addition to the Little Susinta River. The bait restriction on the Little Susitna undoubtedly has caused some anglers to shift their efforts to streams where bait fishing remains open. If coho abundances are low on these other streams, shouldn’t it be expected, on the more heavily fished streams, that extra fishing effort could decrease already lower than optimal numbers of coho spawning escapements to these streams as well?

Bottom line, if you are considering taking additional opportunities to catch coho (silver) salmon in 2011, I would suggest fishing sooner rather than later, for the simple reasons that the run may drop off later and anglers who wait could also see additional fishing restrictions later in the season.

Andy Couch owns and operates Fishtale River Guides (fish4salmon.com), is a Mat-Su Anglers Club member (matsuanglers.org) and member of the Mat-Su Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Sportsmen’s Committee. Email this column at sports@frontiersman.com if you have Mat-Su fishing questions or information readers may find useful.