Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Alaska fishing trip advice

Im looking at doing a 5 to 7 day trip to Alaska to flyfish. Im interested in king salmon, silver salmon, and grayling fishing with a flyrod. Is a DIY trip possible or should I use a guide. Im thinking about flying into Anchorage then flying to Soldotna to fish. Any recommendations for lodging, public access, and lastly outfitters if I cant DIY? Thank you

I can tell you that in Talkeetna, up the road from Anchorage, you won't hardly find a silver and a king at the same time. For the most part. Some of the salmon are same time, others you have to pick and choose between species.

Personally I"d be thinking Red and silver would be my choices if the two blended at your desired location. And I'd pick silvers over the reds just RE how you catch them.

Kings are going to be the hardest, if at all possible. Silvers would be funner to catch. Grayling aren't all that hard to catch if they are there.

That's a pretty tall order. Most all rivers will be closed to king salmon fishing when the silvers arrive. The kenai runs will overlap the last week of July, as well as pinks and Reds, though. The kasilof will is another one that would be open, but I don't recall seeing anyone "flyfishing" either one, especially in that timeframe because of high water and heavy flows.
Chuck and duck is more the norm on those rivers if you're on the bank.

If anything, fly into Anchorage and rent a car to have options to move around

Consider this....

This place is good for Kings, Silvers (not at the same time) and world class Rainbows.
Kings run early with the Reds and the Silvers follow much later...

It's not all fancy but it's in a amazingly good location.



Just down river from Naknek River Camp and further from the best Rainbows on the river is Crystal Creek Lodge.
They have all the bells and whistles any snazzy Lodge would and their rates are...

I hated doing Kings on fly's.

I was fishing the Nushagak when you could be bangin' 20 Kings a day tossing hardware at them with two guys in a boat, if I got a guy that insisted on Fly fishing, I'd be down to a 1 King a day average. The only way I even maintained that was to tie a monster egg pattern and saturate it in roe juice...it wasn't any fun.....

I'd toss all the spinning gear in the world overboard to catch Silvers, Rainbows and Graythings on the fly though, just not Kings.

The Bristol Bay King run is holding up better than the S.E. in recent years.

I would like to catch a king but silvers are fine. What is the better tablefare? Guess I will need to decide. Probably go after Silvers if easier to catch on flyrod

Silvers are definitely easier to catch on a fly rod.

Guess im going with that. Hopefully they taste good.

Silvers are delicious

Fly from Anchorage to Soldotna? It would be cheaper to rent a car and drive.

OR

If you use guide from Soldotna, they might even come get you at the airport.

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g31127-Activities-c61-t217-Soldotna_Alaska.html

Flies for silvers. Egg snell a hook and put a piece of black or blue yarn on. Generally black. Every now and then orange. Doesn't have to be much harder than that though they hit all kinds really. Have caught a lot on some small blue/chrome trout flies quite often too.

I like that you can spot a silver in the midst of lots of other fish and sight cast a fly to them and have a good chance of enticing them, rather than blindly hauling and hoping. Elevation helps, like on the back of a boat...but its not needed.

Out in the salt I used big streamers, pink or bright green. Strip it in fast jerks while letting it sink in between and hold on.

Thats good to know if I can ever get to the salt.

Have not seen anyone try bright green way up the fresh. I'll have to put it on my list, though I rarely hook anything with lime green pixies.

Same, I'd always put something for some flash in them.
We just call them pixie flies.

Coho are angry when they are in the salt. I don't even throw spinners or spoons if I am fishing from shore. I use a Mister Twister sassy shad on a jig head, they smash it. Had to shop around for jig heads that were tough enough to endure more than a fish or two. Most of them are too weak and get annhilated.




Yep that helps a lot too. Sometimes I would use flies with either a weighted head or a weighted body to help it sink a little faster. The weighted head helped give it a pretty good action on the retrieve.

I am big on big flies for fresh fish. Shrink them the longer they have been in freshwater.

I was fishing with those type flies with two guests in the boat over on the Togiak River, we got big fish there, 12 -15 pounds all the time.

They were fighters, jumpers, lots of fun.
Had a guy hook up and this Silver just stripped him out in moments, got to the end of the backing and it just blew up and he was gone.

About an hour later we were reeling in another rig and dragged in that fly line we'd lost.
Fish was still on it...the guy just started hand lining him in, the backing was piling up in the boat so I grabbed it and put it back through the eyes on the rod that was stripped, reeled it back up and caught up with the guy hand lining.

He got to fight the fish the rest the way in on the rod he started the fight with....

Wow that had to be fun.

On most of the road system the daily limit on silvers is two. Reds while smaller have a usual limit of three and that is frequently jacked to 5 or 6. And reds are better eating IMO.

Popped off a king last summer on 10 pound test braid IIRC. Figured now way we would have gotten to land and photo and release anyway. The fish was a bit stunned when the line popped, I went as fast as I could in waders managed to grab the line and wrap it around my net hand and got it with the net handle.

I'm impressed a bit with the fly rod. that was a GREAT save for sure!

You get lucky some times, just gotta seize the moment and turn it into a tip enhancing event.......

Years ago I was fishing the mouth f the Deshka with a friend of mine. He cast out his bait and the reel was a monster birdsnest.
As he was working on fixing the reel, a king picked up the bait and started to move off with it. I grabbed the line and gently started pulling it in, never putting too much pressure on it. When I was able to steer the fish up close to the boat and put a couple wraps around the fish club and then held on as my friend netted the fish.
We sat back and laughed at the goat rope and the fact we were able to pull it off.

I took a work buddy who’d lived in AK for over a decade and never caught a salmon out one evening after work. I quickly caught one shy of my limit and started C&R fishing all the whole he’s fishing away without so much as a bump. Finally, after a couple hours of him complaining he exclaimed that he had something and began reeling furiously. He landed a decent sized silver with an 18” leader with a hook and yarn broken off hanging out of his mouth. The hook on his Vibrax was hooked in the eye of the swivel on the broken leader!

He started in about some nonsense of that not being a “catch” since he hadn’t hooked it. Meanwhile I quickly clubbed his fish and told him he was on the board and we were going home. I explained on the way home that the odds of that hook threading into that eyelet were far slimmer than him accidentally hooking a fish in the mouth and therefore it was a great trophy! Probably still the only one he’s ever caught.

The Goodnews River lodge has great runs and good guides. I would go for the Silvers season, they are a blast on top water flies. Good Rainbow and Grayling too. Agree with the others fly fishing for Kings can be a work out 1,000 casts plus per fish and slinging lead core heads will unhing your shoulder after a couple days.

The Silvers and Rainbows are a sight fishing proposition with much more action. For the first time I would recommend a guide or a lodge or at least a float trip. It will take you a while to get in the groove especially DIY possibly your entire trip. With a guide you will be on fish the entire time. When the bite is on it is no problem landing 25-30 fish a day more if you work at it.

The Iliamna area is the place for big rainbows and they have all the salmon as well. The Nek Nek Narrows is a good outfit.

Thsnks Tejano, that sounds like fun. I want to bring some fish back to eat. Ill check into both outfitters

I have been thinking about a trip to Wildman Lake Lodge, it is pricey but they do pick you up at ANC.
https://wildmanlodge.com

Alaska's a spendy venture no matter how you go about it.

Most economical trip I ever made there was when I went discovering Alaska by road.
I took a small RV starting in Montana, we were up the haul road and down the Kenai and many points in between.
Slum'ed it all the way cooking most our meals and mostly camping for free.

Spent 60 days, and needed every one of them.
We successfully fished and successfully hunted Moose and Caribou and returned to Montana.
I averaged spending $1250.00 a week for two of us and that was 20 years ago, it was 10K for the 60 days.

You'd barely have time to get started before it was time to leave if you only had a week.
You'd spend more money than you'd ever dreamed possible on rental cars, hotels and restaurants alone.

Some form of and outfitted trip is a good idea when your time is short.

Good points there JeffA

If you want do it yourself silvers on a fly I can set you up
I’ve a cabin approx 1/2 mile from the Klawock River on Prince of Wales in SE Ak
The Klawock has a hatchery and gets a large run of coho along with chum and pinks
We are going to rent out our cabin for a couple groups of fisherman after my charter season is done. This will be in sept which is prime time for river fishing
One must buy a fishing permit which is $100 for a nonres(native land) and a state fishing license to fish the river
Limit is 6 coho per day per person
Take your catch to the dock and cut your own fish, then drop them off at the vac packer here in town who will pack and freeze for you to take home
Easy and inexpensive trip as you are going to get and will catch fish
We could also do a day or two of saltwater fishing for salmon/halibut/lingcod as I do charter trips
Thanks
John

Nice, thanks John. Im planning this trip for next year but am interested. Shoot me a pm with prices for 3 fisher men so i can go over it with them. Thank you.

I can't give any insight on flyfishing but Kings out in saltwater are much better to eat than silvers are. Barbequed king salmon is one of my favorite things to eat. Silvers aren't in the same class as food in my opinion.

My wife caught her first fish ever, a silver, on the Little Susitna. Not a fly though, spinning gear and fish eggs. I can still hear her scream.
Money....we stayed with friends in Anchorage so no hotel expenses. They lent us a car.
We eat a lot of fish. Brought home a bunch of fresh salmon....waaay better tasting than the store bought farm raised stuff.
We also took a charter out of Whittier for halibut and rockfish. Very successful. In a sense, the amount of fish that we brought home paid for the trip. The retail cost would have been more than we spent on the trip.
Have used a fly rod and yarn combat fishing for reds on Bird Creek near Anchorage.

That is a great story!

No reds in Bird Creek... humpies and silvers only...

My mistake....pinks in Bird Creek on yarn.

No harm, no foul. Just don't want people heading to my secret fishing hole expecting reds...

One of the best fishing trips I experienced in Alaska was a trip on the Naknek River in the early fall. And it was a late fall, many were out hunting Caribou. We fished some silvers and a lot of Rainbows. We caught many rainbows from 24" to 30" and some bigger. What an amazing trip. What was hot at the time were black miraboo jigs with silver eyes, if that helps. Two of us were fishing and had a guy running the boat. He was a friend, and doesn't guide professionally, but I'm sure there are some. If interested I can give you a name or two, make your own deal. It was a wonderful experience.

Thank you Caribou. Always like options, so yes please pm me. I have one in my party that is trying to push Soldotna and Homer areas. They went in 2007 to one of the rivers. Im trying to appease everyone as best I can but......we will see how that goes.

Soldotna is a great place to start. Unfortunately you cant currently keep kings from the kenai river. There is however fantastic Red salmon fishing in late July in several rivers down here. Grayling can be caught in some higher elevation lakes on the KP as well.

Thanks for the info were trying to do an August or September trip next year not sure which species will br where.

Ive had good luck with silvers on a fly rod using a purple bunny leeches I tied. Really simple effective pattern