I first fished the Kenai River on May 19th, 1985. I didn’t catch a king salmon on that day, and I didn’t thirty six years later. If I’m lucky, I’ll be fishing thirty six years from now too.
I got out on the river three days this past week with Dave and Dan. We’re still waiting for our first salmon bite of the year.
“Do hooligan count?” asked Dan.
They still don’t count.
The highlight of the week was seeing an immature bald eagle on the top of the iconic Eagle Rock. I’ve seen seagulls, and arctic terns sitting on Eagle Rock, but never an eagle. To tell you how rare this is, I only know of one other photo that has captured a moment like this.
As I said earlier, eagles are rare on Eagle Rock. However, they are commonplace throughout the river. This mature bald eagle thought the bank offered a good vantage point to catch an easy meal. I never tire of seeing this.
I would have fished more this past week, but I had commitments off of the water. One, was a biannual fire inspection of the cabins. Sleep well at night guests of ours, we passed with flying colors.
Another commitment was a full day of brining, smoking, and packaging the last of the 2020 salmon.
It’s always a nice surprise to see moose on the property. While I was doing work at the cabins on Friday, three moose decided to take a midday siesta down by the dock. After a long winter, I can’t blame them. I almost wanted to join them. Almost.
For the week ahead, I’m hoping the building tides will bring more king salmon into the river. Since the sonar counter went live on May 16th, the daily numbers have been low. It’s not scary low yet because it was a late breakup, but we need the numbers to steadily improve over the next month. If not, restrictions will occur. That’s the reality of a dynamic, ever-changing fishery such as the Kenai River.
That’s it for now. See you next week for a new fishing report.
Fishing Report Week Ending 5/16/21