Early July on the Upper Kenai is not necessarily known as peak season for anything but let me tell you, it has been some excellent fishing! Rainbow trout and Dolly Varden have been thriving in the copious amounts of clean water. Water temperatures have been hovering in the low 50’s most of the week and that has got the insect life moving. The week after the Fourth of July was some of the best beadhead nymph fishing I’ve experienced for several years. Anything hanging a couple feet below a bobber was getting annihilated. Good dead drifts were required but once they saw it how they wanted it it was game on. There is still a pretty good bite going on with the beadheads but as of the last few days(14-19) the fish have been rising to emergers and surface critters. I’ve seen some fat mayflies and all types of terrestrials being taken. Dark Hendrickson and the other classic parachute Adam’s have been all we have needed to get the job done. Dark when its cloudy and light when it’s sunny is a good general rule I think in any fishery. Sparkly beadheads in the sun and black in the clouds. Keep it simple! Steamers, beads and all the rest of the fly box was working as well but the ease of drifting a beadhead or dry fly ten feet off the rod tips had me and the fish hooked. I expect the good rainbow and Dolly fishing to continue and it will most likely only improve as more sockeye Salmon enter the Upper Kenai and bring fish with them. The gravy train has arrived and the trout and Dolly’s are greedy!
Red salmon have been coming up from the lower river inn steady pushes this past week and that will also continue to improve. I have been seeing schools of bright red Sockeye with some very nice chrome fish sprinkled in with them. Many different tributaries are receiving their runs right now so it’s hit or miss on whether you’re going to get in front of some big and mean Quartz Creek burners or some silver bullets headed for the Russian River. Afternoon’s have been good for salmon swimming upstream but those numbers will increase and it will be all day migration before we know it.
Use caution if you are fishing near or using Jim’s Landing boat ramp. There has been a very active brown bear in the area that has unfortunately become skilled and accustomed to taking peoples fish. I haven’t heard of it becoming aggressive but it is a wild animal and apex predator and deserves to be treated with respect. We are the ones in its space. Hopefully as more salmon are every day the bear will find success fishing a little further away from the boat ramp. We watched it work the gravel bars several hundred yards upstream from the ramp for quite a while but eventually it ended up back at the ramp right next to the folks fishing. Use caution everywhere when the salmon are in. Make lots of noise and most of the encounters won’t happen. Hopefully the coming weeks will have you whooping and hollering with success! Good luck! See you out there!
