Rainbows, Dolly Varden dominate local fishing

With the third week of May just ahead, native and Alaska Department of Fish and Game-stocked freshwater species are the only fish I’ve heard of being caught in the Mat-Su Valley so far this year.

Bob Meals of Tri River Charters told me of transporting two anglers twice within the past week up the Talkeetna River and near its confluence with Clear Creek, where they then fished and rafted their way back to the town of Talkeetna. On both occasions, Bob said together these anglers caught about 50 fish in combination of Dolly Varden and rainbow trout.

According to Bob, conditions on the Talkeetna consist of clear, but cold, water, with the fish striking rather tentatively, perhaps partially because of lower water temperatures. Bob also mentioned that Dolly Varden are definitely the dominant species being caught at this time, with a few fish running up to 24 inches. Flies and tiny lures that imitate salmon fry are hot items for drawing strikes. Good trout and char fishing should continue on the Talkeetna River for most of the month of May or until hot weather/heavy rain clouds the currently clear, cold water with muddy runoff.

King salmon coming soon

As of May 12, I have yet to hear of even a single angler catching a Mat-Su Valley king salmon in 2011, but I’m betting that will change over the next week, and possibly even this weekend. Rest assured, king salmon fishing on local Mat-Su rivers at this time could easily be compared to searching for an extremely few and very small needles in a very large haystack.

For every king salmon anglers manage to hook up in mid-May there are huge stretches of rivers with no other kings present. Early season conditions can make that fishing even more challenging. For example: Tuesday, I launched my guide boat from Deshka Landing near Willow and motored down the Sustina River to fish several miles of the Deshka River. Deshka Landing only became ice-free enough for people to launch boats within the last week, and there were still some large ice chunks along the route down the Susitna River to the Deshka River confluence. Water levels on the Susitna River are usually quite low this time of year, and such was the case on Tuesday.

When we arrived at the mouth of the Deshka, since high waters in the Susitna River had not yet backed up the incoming Deshka flow, it appeared that the water volume on Deshka River might be down as well.

Not.

This is only an illusion. The Deshka is merely not backed up near its confluence with the Susitna. Rather than the slow lake-like current many anglers are familiar with later in the season, the Deshka was moving so quickly that I wondered if my anchor would even hold bottom. Fortunately, it did, while we rigged up first with spinning rods to cast spinners and spoons, and later with heavy levelwind outfits to back troll large Kwikfish plugs.

I was fishing with a friend, my niece and my nephew. During the little time we spent casting, the swift current was quickly sweeping our lures downstream and up away from the bottom where big salmon would likely be holding in a relatively fast current. At the very least, conditions for casting near the Deshka River mouth were far from optimal, and as quickly as I could rig up all the back trolling outfits we switched from casting to back trolling for the remainder of our trip.

For those who have not seen my guide boat, it is rigged with 10.5-foot drift boat oars that allow me a very considerable amount of boat control while back trolling. Conditions on Tuesday were plenty challenging for even this fishing method, as there was a heavy wind blowing crosswise to the river current, which I needed to constantly counter, while the current was strong enough that I could barely hold the boat to a slow enough down-river pace. Additional challenges were that the Deshka was muddier than usual with high run off, and upriver the water was high enough it was carrying a load of grass and debris from off of the banks. Grass and other downstream floating debris was all we managed to catch on the trip — aside from each other’s lines that is — as the debris building up on the lures and lines would off balance our setups and cause tangles with the adjoining person’s gear.

I only made part of one very long back trolling pass with the oars before switching back to using my 90-horsepower Suzuki outboard jet motor. Not how I usually fish the Deshka River, but what seemed the only practical method for the day. Over the course of our trip we worked upstream for several miles, all the way to the pool below where the ADF&G Deshka River salmon counting weir is situated later in the season — when water levels have dropped enough to allow the Department of Fish and Game to install it.

I’m sure to some people this description of my first attempt to catch king salmon from my boat in 2011 may, up to this point, sound like too much effort for too little chance of reward. We did, however, enjoy a beautiful, sunny May day and saw lots of bald eagles overhead, along with a pair of moose wandering down along the river. We enjoyed good company, and because we knew in advance conditions would likely be difficult for catching a king salmon, our pre-trip expectations were met — all, that is, except for managing to hook or land our first king salmon of the season.

Why might Deshka kings be caught this weekend?

Although Deshka water levels are often higher in May than nearly all other Mat-Su streams, the volume of runoff can start dropping much earlier than other valley streams as well.

Often by mid-May much of the volume of debris carried downriver disappears, and especially in the most popular fishing area near the river mouth. In addition, the Deshka RIver king salmon fishing will open to bait fishing on Sunday. Finally, Deshka Landing will be holding its annual membership meeting and officially opening the boat landing for the season on Saturday May 14. The meeting will be at the Willow Community Center starting at 2 p.m. The meeting and official opening of the landing for the season should draw enough of a crowd, combined with the use of bait on the lower Deshka River, that at least a few lucky someone’s should come away with a prized early season Mat-Su Valley king salmon.

For those wanting better odds of personally catching a fish, there is always the trout and Dolly Varden fishing on the Talkeetna River and several Mat-Su Valley stocked lakes.

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.