The Goodnews River Fishing Report from Spotted Tail 7/24/11

Forty two degrees this morning and raining. Perfect salmon fishing weather! I fished Nick and John today, from Tampa, Florida. But I get ahead of myself…

The chum salmon are coming into the river in super high numbers. You can literally catch fish after fish as long as you can keep casting. My fishermen have been using the Alaskoid Clouser, made with a synthetic wing and a Puff- like head out of chenille or ice chenille in orange, chartreuse, hot pink, and cerise, in various color combinations, tied on #2 hooks with a heavy lead eye. The fact is they’ll hit almost any brightly colored fly so KISS. No need to get fancy.

Nick C. and John C. with a double on chum salmon from the Goodnews River, Alaska

Chums are digging redds and are getting ready to drop eggs. The rainbows and the Dolly varden are eagerly awaiting that event. We’ve been catching some nice Dollies up to about 30 inches. Yesterday Jamie and Jimmy Owsley, from Colorado, fished Dollies with me on the middle fork of the Goodnews. We got a dozen or so by skating orange gurglers across the stream, awesome fun. When using gurglers your numbers go way down but the fun factor skyrockets!

There are only a relatively few pinks salmon around, as it’s the off year. We’ve been picking one up now and again.

Sockeyes are still coming in good numbers, although the run has peaked. Anglers have been “flossing” them with decent regularity.

I taught 14 year old Jared Jay to flycast. Then we went fly fishing for chum salmon. In minutes he had his first fish on fly, a fat chum of 12 pounds or so.

Jared went fly fishing for the first time and caught this nice chum salmon.

But the king salmon are going off in a big way. Most of my day with Nick and John today was spent fly fishing for chums, the Goodnews River tiger salmon. But we spent a couple hours plugging for kings, and got five. Three were modestly sized, but John got a red buck that was 40 inches long with a 22 inch girth, and Nick got a chrome hen that was 40 inches long with a 26 inch girth, a fish pushing 35 pounds. An awesome day in spite of the nasty weather.

Nick Colantonio with a big king salmon from the Goodnews River, Alaska

A couple of silvers have been caught but they haven’t really begun their run yet. Another week and they should be going off in a big way.

Embrace simplicity.

Life is great and I love my work!

Life is short- go fishing!

John Kumiski
http://www.spottedtail.com/

All content in this blog, including writing and photos, copyright John Kumiski 2011. All rights are reserved.