It was a fun week of fishing the Gary Blinn crew. Week 1 is done. There are 2 more weeks to go. This was our pattern every day. Head out fishing at 5:30am and set up on anchor targeting silver salmon. When the silver bite slowed down mid morning, move to the islands and cast spinner baits to catch whatever might be there. …
Fishing Report Week Ending 8/11/24
Usually, the transition from red salmon fishing to pink and silver salmon fishing is seamless. Not this year. It’s been a struggle to find good numbers of salmon all week. Rising and dirty water doesn’t help either. I’ll start out the blog post with the first silver caught this year from the boat. I think Dennis …
Fishing Report Week Ending 8/4/24
It was a fun week fishing the Kenai River. I was able to spend quality time with long time friends, and make a few new ones too. The catching was pretty good also… Sunday morning Todd, Renee, and Ray kept me on my toes netting fish. Sunday afternoon was spent dipnetting with Steve Dan, and Joe (not …
Fishing Report Week Ending 7/28/24
There were a lot of fish in the river this past week, except for Monday. I have no idea why so few came in that day, but that’s just the way it goes. On Sunday, it wasn’t fast fishing, but boy was it steady. Here are Greg, Rick, Hunter, Tanner, and Quinton with their haul. I have no fish photos for Monday. Instead, I’ll …
Fishing Report Week Ending 7/21/24
It was a fun week of fishing. Great people and a strengthening run…what’s not to like about that? The week began with a trip with my son Mac, and his friends Hellen and Vern. What cracked me up about this trip is a fellow boater yelled at us and said, “hey, if you guys don’t settle down, Fish and Game is going to cite you …
Fishing Report Week Ending 7/14/24
Kenai River insiders believe when 20,000 reds cross the sonar counter the river is “fishable”. Every day last week, the daily sonar counted much more than 20,000 fish a day. The largest count came on Monday when 56,130 reds came in. It’s definitely “fishable”. Is everybody catching limits? No. But overall it’s been good …
Fishing Report Week Ending 7/7/24
I had July 5th circled on my calendar for a Homer saltwater trip for ling cod, yelloweye, black rockfish, and halibut. It’s the Upper Cook Inlet Grand Slam. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get out. Mother Nature greeted us with 20mph winds and gusts to 35mph. This made traveling 60-90 miles out to the fishing grounds …
Fishing Report Week Ending 6/30/24
Without a Kenai River king fishery to participate in, I’m currently in a lull between the early red salmon run, and the late red salmon run. The closest freshwater salmon fishery that has been consistently good (sorry Russian River, this wasn’t your year) has been the Kasilof River, a mere 15 miles away from the …
Fishing Report Week Ending 6/23/24
Team Holtan/Matthies split up this past week. I went to the Russian River to fish for several days, and Jane went to Homer to fish the ocean. One of us had a lot more “catching” success than the other. For many years I’ve wanted to camp at the Russian River during the peak of the early red salmon run. There’s …
Happy Father’s Day
It’s been quite a week. Not so much for fishing, but for me personally. It began with my birthday on Monday, and ends with Father’s Day. This week included lots of time with friends enjoying dinners and barbecues (Ken and Michelle, I will dedicate an entire blogpost to the two of you in the off-season). I’m a …