- Goodnews River Fishing Report
I’m back at Alaska’s Goodnews River Lodge. As always, it’s great to be here. The internet connection, however, is dreadfully slow. I was not able to load up my email protocol last week. You can see last week’s vacation report here…
The state of Alaska has closed the Goodnews to the taking of king salmon. As the photos below show, there are some fish in the river. One of these fish was taken on a Wiggle Wort, the other on a Pixie spoon. We’re at the tail end of July, so we’re also nearing the tail end of the king salmon run.
This king salmon whacked a plug.
This 41 pound king was fooled by a Pixie spoon.
Likewise, I missed most of the sockeye run. Dimitri at the weir told me that over 25,000 fish passed through their counters there. But only 200 went through the day before we spoke.
There are chum salmon, also known as tiger salmon, everywhere right now. These fish average 10 to 12 pounds and get significantly larger. They eat small pink flies (#4 or so) readily and you can get 30 or 40 in a day, incredible fishing.
Those thousands of chums will start dropping eggs soon. Then the trout and dolly fishing will go of the charts.
There are relatively few pink salmon in the river- it’s an off year. They will be back in force next season.
The dolly varden are coming in now too. Tom Olden got one yesterday while salmon fishing that was about two feet long, a beautiful fish. He also got a 24 inch rainbow trout on a salmon fly given to me by Steve Silverio, a fly every bit of four inches long.
We saw three bears yesterday, a sow with two cubs. I’ve already equalled the total bear sightings from last year. There seems to be many more bald eagles here this year as well.
No one here has caught a silver yet but before I write another fishing report someone will. They are my favorite fish here and I look forward to their arrival!
And that, folks, is this week’s Goodnews River Fishing Report!
Life is great and I love my work!
Life is short. Get out and live!
John Kumiski
All content in this blog, including writing and photos, copyright John Kumiski 2013. All rights are reserved.
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