Home Forums Fishing Freshwater Trout in Alaska, looking for advice

I'm heading to Anchorage in late July and wanting to ask advice on what lures/spinners etc. I should take.

I'm not set up for salmon gear, but I do have experience trout fishing with spinning gear.

I'd love to hear of any lure and tackle recommendations to help the family have some success while we are there.

Thanks.

Beads or flesh flies on any of the rivers/creeks with salmon. Incredible how effective such simple tackle can be.
And screw a flyrod, give me a good 9-10’ side drift rod with a good spinning reel.

Dave, four of us made that trip about 10 years ago. We rented a van in Anchorage and drove south to Homer and stayed in a B&B. We wanted to fish the Kenai River the first day so we hired a guide and holy smokes, first time that I'd ever blistered my hand fishing catching pink and silver salmon. I'd picked up a few lures before I left WI. and the other guys used lots of the spoons and spinners that the guide had. I asked if I could try a few of the ones that I'd brought and once we pinched down the barbs, the guide was fine with me using my own lures. I figured that those fish were in that river to spawn, so once I tied on a gold #3 Mepps spinner with three or four egg shaped orange body segments, I never took it off the rest of the day. It was like taking a census of the fish once we found them. A fish or a strike at least every second or third cast. It was unreal. Being that we were right off the ocean, we hit the halibut chartering the rest of the week.

The guys had fished Alaska before and sending the fish home was really expensive. One of the guys was grousing about it and the charter guys told us to just have them flash frozen and send them home with us on the plane as extra luggage. For that $20.00 extra luggage charge we each brought home an insulated 50# box of salmon and mostly halibut fillets. Have a great trip. It sure made a great memory for us.

Never fly to a great fishing area without a Polar Bear Cooler size 48. They hold 45 pounds of frozen fillets in an insultaed luggage that airlines have been unable to destroy. I have several that have made the Baja to Alaska two day trip many times. Some have gone from Alaska to Germany.

Thanks guys.

For trout specifically, what size line would anyone recommend? Most of my trout gear is 4lb or 6lb, but I can easily respool if that is not appropriate.

I figured that spinners would be the way to go, but wanted to hear it from someone with experience.


My daughter and son in-law are stationed up there with my 4yr old grand daughter and we're making the trip to see them and get some day trips in.

For lake fishing, your 4-6 lb line will work great. I like to use small mepps or blue fox spinners, and it's always hard to beat an eggsucking leach if you have a fly rod.
For the rivers I'd up my line to a 6 or 8lb. As was mentioned, dead drifting beads is hard to beat, as well as a flesh fly.

If you decide you want to chase salmon, fish and game loans out rod/reel combos or hit up Ship creek and visit the Bait Shack and you can rent gear.

lived up near Wasilla for awhile and don't remember any trout fishing up there. lot of salmon and lot of grayling but that was about it. Some really nice looking water but never saw or heard of the first trout.

Really? there's some good lakes and the streams that everyone flocked to for salmon (Willow, Sheep, Montana, ETC) all have trout in them, and some pretty impressive ones too.