CategoriesDolly Varden, Fly Fishing, Ice Fishing, Jasons Guide Service, Rainbow Trout, Salmon by

Why the Kenai River is the best place to learn how to fly fish

In 1992 Robert Redford directed the movie, A River Runs Through It. Brad Pitt, the lead actor was a master fly angler and the film became a box office hit. Soon after the movie premiered, everyone and their brother and sister wanted to try their hand at fly fishing.  The movie romanticized fly fishing with it’s breath-taking beauty and spectacular fly fishing scenes where Pitt would make 100 foot casts and catch huge trout in fast water. As cool as the movie was, the average fly fisherman never has to swim a class four rapids to land land a big trout or cast a fly rod a country mile.

 

The Kenai River boasts some of the best fly fishing in Alaska, and the world.  The Kenai has all five species of Pacific salmon as well as rainbow trout and Dolly Varden char.  We target sockeye salmon, silver salmon, rainbow trout, and Dolly Varden char with fly rods on the Kenai River.  We target these fish in user-friendly aqua-blue water that is nestled into the Kenai Mountains of the Chugach National Forest and Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.

 

Fly fishing on the Kenai River consists of 80 to 90 percent nymph-style fishing with an indicator and doesn’t require the long casts that can be necessary when fishing salt water flats or when you are starring in the movies.  Nymph fishing with indicators as we do on the Kenai River is a very simple cast and presentation where you dead-drift your fly or beads the same speed as the current to emulate a natural dead drift.  The dead-drift is achieved by managing your fly line on top of the water after a good cast from the drift boat or shore.  Line management is as easy as “high sticking” with your rod, which is keeping your rod tip pointing to the sky to keep most of your fly line off the water and/or mending your line by flipping your loop or belly in your fly line up stream of your indicator.

 

The other styles of fly fishing we do on the Kenai River are dry fly fishing for rainbow trout and Dolly Varden char, and swinging flies for trout, char, and silver salmon. We also strip flies for silver salmon. The dry fly fishing is a purist’s dream and for good reason.  It can be some of the most fun a person can have fly fishing. 

 

Dry flies work best when there is a good hatch of insects on the river.  The Kenai River’s best dry fly hatches in the summer months are the caddis hatch and the may fly hatch.  When fishing dry flies you do a traditional cast and watch your fly on top of the water until the big rainbow trout or Dolly Varden char comes to the surface and slurps up your fly.  Watching a trout or char suck up a bug you are casting is an exhilarating experience that won’t soon be forgotten. 

 

The swing technique is probably done the least on the Kenai River, but is a fun way to really feel the hit or take from the salmon, trout, or char.  Swinging flies on the Kenai consists of casting your streamer fly into the current and letting it swing through the water column that the fish are in and waiting for the big tug.  The fish generally crush the streamers and try and rip the rod right out of your hands.  Stripping flies for silver salmon is a fun and explosive way to catch fish that weigh on average between eight to twelve pounds and spend as much time out of the water as in it.  We cast and strip flies for silver salmon both from shore and the boat. 

 

Fly fishing the Kenai River doesn’t require long casts or hours and days of practice.  Nymph fishing with an indicator is the easiest technique to learn because shorter casts are the norm especially from the boat.  The swinging, dry fly fishing, and stripping are techniques where you are required to cast a little farther than nymph fishing, but we put you on the fish so you don’t have to cast a country mile to present your fly to the fish.

 

Jason’s Guide Service provides highly trained professionals that teach you the ways of the fly rod and fly fishing techniques in a fun no pressure environment.  Jason’s Guide Service believes that everyone comes to the boat for one reason and one reason only, and that is to have great time.  The joys of fly fishing are many, it’s as much about the journey of learning and being a part of nature and flowing with the river as it is catching fish.  The first few fish you catch on a fly rod no matter the size or species will be fish you never forget.

 

If fly fishing is on your to do list but you have always been a little intimidated by it look no further and wait no longer, come to the Kenai River and fish with Jason’s Guide Service and we will make memories that last a lifetime.

CategoriesJasons Guide Service, Salmon by

For Sockeyes You Gotta Swing

The technique we use for sockeye salmon on the Kenai River is called the Sockeye Swing. It takes just a little practice to get good at it.

A question I get a hundred times each summer is,  “When I fish for sockeye salmon using the Sockeye Swing on the Kenai River, am I really just snagging fish or are the sockeye biting my fly?”  Snagging a fish usually means you are ripping a treble hook through the water and trying to hook a fish anywhere you can. Sockeye fishing – doing the sockeye swing, flipping, or flossing as we call the technique on the Kenai River – is a lot more civilized and specific in its presentation.  We are allowed to use one single hook for our presentation and on the Upper Kenai River that hook must have a 3/8 inch gap or smaller. 

The Sockeyes, or “Reds” as they are called in Alaska, run up the river in schools along the shoreline until they reach staging areas to rest as they migrate to their spawning grounds.  The sockeye salmon like to swim as close to the shoreline as possible so they can stay out of the heavy current.  When a salmon runs up the river they take breaths by having water run through their mouths past their gills to pull oxygen out of the water into their bloodstream.

The objective of the Kenai River salmon angler is to present their fly in a manner in which the leader attached to the fly drifts or swings down and through the water column where the sockeye are running and the fly ends up in the salmon’s mouth before the angler swings their rod into the next cast. 

When the fly is presented properly and the salmon are running good you end up with a positive connection and have a hook up that results in a landed salmon for the stringer and grill, or a quick photo and release.  When you learn to present the fly with precision, to the depth and speed of the water you are fishing, you will have lots of hook-ups and landed fish. 

The water speed and depth you fish will dictate the leader length from the weight to the fly and the amount of weight used.  The kind of line and pound test you use will also dictate buoyancy of your fly.  When the sockeye have seen lots of flies swinging past them they can become leader and line shy which makes a heavier fluorocarbon a good bet. When buoyancy is needed a limper monofilament line doesn’t drop as fast as the fluorocarbon is the best option in a heavier diameter test. 

Sockeye or red salmon are pound-for-pound one of the hardest fighting, best eating fish that the Kenai River and Alaska has to offer.  The fact that the limits on the Kenai River are usually liberal with a three or six fish bag limit – depending on the time of year and escapement goals met – makes them a great fish for sport or table fare.  The best way to learn the sockeye swing quickly is hire a guide and get out on the water as soon as you make it to the Kenai Peninsula on your Alaskan vacation.  Don’t hesitate to book a trip with Jason’s Guide Service to learn the ins and out of the sockeye salmon fishery and learn that Sockeye Swing.

CategoriesDolly Varden, Fly Fishing, Jasons Guide Service, Rainbow Trout, Salmon by

Everything Works – Sometimes
Shortening Your Learning Curve to Catch More Fish

There’s not an angler on the planet that hasn’t dreamt of fishing for salmon or trout on one of the rivers in Alaska. Except for those that have done it, and they just keep coming back for more.

Many of the anglers who come to Alaska have a preconceived idea of how they are going to choose to target a particular species on a given resource, but there are those with questions as well. “Do I have to use a fly rod?” or “Do I get to use a fly rod?” or “Will I be in the Combat Zone (an area on a river where anglers congregate and it gets crowded) when I fish on the Kenai River?” or “Do I get to stand in the river and fish?” The list goes on and on.

The simple answer is:” YES,” you might get to do all of the above because everything works – sometimes.

Jason’s Guide Service takes pride in the fact that we fish all the techniques needed to catch sockeye salmon, silver salmon, rainbow trout and Dolly Varden char. There is no right or wrong way to fish, but there are times when certain techniques with certain gear will work better for certain species.

When we have high and fast water on the Kenai River, and we are fishing rainbow trout and char, the spinning equipment can be a better choice at times. When the water is low and slow the fly rods are usually the better choice. Average water levels and current flow means fly rods or conventional gear are both going to work great.

When we chase the sockeye salmon we will use fly rods and wade fish. We don’t wade out past our knees into the river because it isn’t safe, and it impacts your fishing in a negative way by pushing the running sockeye salmon out into deeper, faster water making them harder to catch. When conditions are right, or we have people who have mobility issues, we will fish sockeye from the boat running plugs and back trolling for the salmon. This technique only works well in certain types of water at certain times of the year.

The silver salmon are a fish that allows anglers to be more versatile in our approach to catching them. We use both fly rods and spinning gear when we target the silver salmon. Fly fishing for silver salmon is is pretty cut-and-dry with a cast-and-strip technique with streamers, but we also dead-drift and swing flies for silver salmon as well. When we get out the spinning gear we back troll, cast spinners and spoons, jig, and float fish. The key to being a successful salmon angler is understanding the species and conditions of the river.

Rainbow trout and Dolly Varden char are two species that can be targeted with any rod and reel combo of your choice. Fly fishing is a style of fishing that gets lots of hype, both good and bad.

Fly fishing the Kenai River is both fun and easy. Like any new sport there is a learning curve. When fly fishing with Jason’s Guide Service we shorten the learning curve in a fun no-pressure environment. We fly fish for rainbow trout and char from the boat and, on shore wade fishing.

Spinning gear opens up lots of techniques that can be used, and is a versatile way to catch fish. Jason’s Guide Service back-trolls crankbaits, side drifts from shore, drift fishes from the boat, float fishes from the boat, float fishes from shore and incorporates some jig fishing when that is the preferred technique. We can also drift fish from the boat or wade fish from the many gravel bars with both fly and spinning gear. So you see, the options are many but the species that are being targeted dictate what we use.

The best thing any angler can do when they book a trip on the Kenai River with Jason’s Guide Service is pick the species of fish they would like to pursue, as well as a technique or techniques they want to try and come to the boat with an open mind and desire to have a great time on the river.

We will soon be writing a series of blogs, detailing in depth, each technique mentioned for each species. When you are done reading these blogs you will have a much better understanding of what you will be doing on the water, and what to expect on your guided fishing trip on the Kenai River.