September 2007

09/01/2007

Little Susitna River — I guided 3 fishermen, each of whom caught a limit of silver salmon by drifting Fire Cured salmon eggs under ESB Bobbers. Although it rained slightly, the river remains extremely low. The river was also busy with duck hunters today, as it was the openning day of duck season.

09/02/2007

Little Susitna River — I guided 3 people, each of whom caught a limit of silver salmon. 2 silver salmon were caught on a #3 silver and black Flashtrap Spinner and 4 silver salmon were caught on Fire Cured salmon eggs drifted below ESB Bobbers.

As mentioned earlier, because of lower than expected numbers of silver salmon swimming past the Little Susitna River weir, regulations will go to catch and release fishing only for silver salmon starting Tuesday September 4, 2007. While we have some trips currently booked to fish through September 10 on Little Susitna River, we have decided not to book additional Little Susitna River silver salmon fishing trips for the 2007 season.

09/04/2007

No fishing trips scheduled, however, we have a group that will be fishing catch & release for silver salmon on the Little Susitna River tomorrow, so we should have another report posted Wednesday evening sometime.

09/05/2007

Little Susitna River — I guided 2 fishermen on a catch and release trip this morning. While we fished on good sized schools of silver salmon during the entire trip, it took quite a bit of coaxing to get the salmon to strike. 1 angler caught and released 4 silver salmon, and 1 angler fished the entire trip without catching a salmon. I watched and gave some fishing suggestions, however, why one angler seemed to get nearly all the strikes I do not know. Both fishermen were presenting both lures and salmon eggs directly to schools of fish. It seemed that most of the fish caught were taken within minutes of arriving at a new location or within minutes of switching from bait to lures. The water level on the river continues to drop daily, and the fish are quite spooky in the shallow clear water. Even a little bit of rain to raise the river and give the water some color could like increase the amount of bites a fishermen could get.

We did not see anyone else out on the river this morning, however, when we returned to the landing there were a few more vehicles than when we departed in the morning.

09/07/2007

Little Susitna River — I guided a group of 2 anglers who caught 7 silver salmon on #3 Flashtrap Spinners and salmon eggs drifted under ESB Bobbers. Water remained extremely low and clear, and similar to other recent trips we could see large schools of salmon, but usually only get a few to bite. Wising up to the pattern of getting some early bites and then almost total lack of interest from the salmon, I spent less time on each individual school of fish, and fished more places. Thus getting more overall hookups and landing more salmon. During the trip I saw a few salmon in some of the holes that appeared to be chrome fresh run fish, but all of the salmon we caught had various shades of spawning color blush to them.

09/08/2007

Little Susitna River — I was scheduled to guide an afternoon salmon fishing trip, however, after meeting me at the river, and observing how much it was raining, my guests decided to cancell their trip, so we did not fish.

Even though it was raining quite hard since late on Friday evening, the river water level only rose slightly from Friday.

09/09/2007

Little Susitna River — I was at the river today, but did not fish. Boating along the river, I did see a few salmon rolling or swimming away from the boat. Even though it has been raining steadily for the past couple days the lower river water level was still low but rising. A look at the USGS water level chart for the Little Susitna River, however, shows a dramatic rise in water level on the upper river, so water levels should rise significantly on the lower river by Monday or Tuesday.