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Picture Of The Month



SD2OR with a trophy fall walleye

Topic: Kayak fishing Friends. Or just fishing friends....  (Read 2540 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

AKsteel7377

  • Herring
  • **
  • Location: Eagle River Alaska
  • Date Registered: Jun 2018
  • Posts: 42
Hello Alaskan Kayak Fishermen and women. Just wanted to say hello in the Alaskan forum. I look forward to picking all of your brains on this amazing recreation. I just bought my first Kayak from Alaska raft and Kayak. I think over the years I have watched every Alaskan kayak fishing video on YouTube. Probably way more than I should have but I am hooked now. In the process of outfitting a new 2017 outback for offshore fishing and made an attempt to make it to Rainbow Alley via Lower Skilak lake. Wind came up and I turned back, but it was a good experience. I am hoping to meet some new people and make some friends while getting involved with the Alaskan Kayak fishing community. Be safe and thanks in advance for all your kind advice and information.

Jeff
Eagle River, AK


easyyakker

  • Lingcod
  • *****
  • Location: Soldotna, AK
  • Date Registered: May 2016
  • Posts: 229
Welcome to community. Saltwater has been a bit rough (pun intended) so far this summer. You can usually run into tupperware fisher people on weekends at Whiskey Gulch. If the weather sucks, you might not see many kayaks there though.


AKsteel7377

  • Herring
  • **
  • Location: Eagle River Alaska
  • Date Registered: Jun 2018
  • Posts: 42
Thanks Easy, I am headed back to work for a couple weeks. I hope to make it down several times on my next R&R. Maybe the wind will die down and water will smooth out a bit. One can only hope :)


Swartz

  • Herring
  • **
  • Location: Soldotna
  • Date Registered: May 2018
  • Posts: 21
Hey There! Congrats on your purchase. I also took the plunge this year thanks to my loving wife getting me a Pilot 12.0. I am also interested in floating down the Kenai more that hitting the LCI or Katchemak Bay areas, since it doesn't look like many people on here do it. I've also been a river rat pretty much my whole life, so I feel more at home there.

If you're interested in floating around with another Kayak newbie, I will be attempting to do Skilak to Bings (favorite drift) and possibly Stewarts or Dots to Eagle Rock. Right across that boat launch at Eagle Rock and down by Beaver Creek is KILLER for sockeye and coho. If for some reason its not possible to make it back to Eagle Rock, we would have to float down to Cunningham. Cunningham would be kind of not fun to pull out of though (muddy and some stairs to a parking lot). I haven't looked at pulling out of Beaver Creek. Swiftwater to Centennial would be a very short drift, but there are football shaped trout that take up residence behind all the fish cleaning tables after August.

Pescador Pilot 12.0
Raymarine Dragonfly Pro 4
Scotty holder on Mighty Mount
Scotty Flush mounts x 2
Yak Attack carry handle x1 off back.


AKsteel7377

  • Herring
  • **
  • Location: Eagle River Alaska
  • Date Registered: Jun 2018
  • Posts: 42
Hey Swartz, I am totally interested in running the river. I have never floated the Kenai. Never had the opportunity, but kenai rainbows are on my most favorites list of fish to target. I hear fall fishing for trophy bows is a blast. I'll keep in contact and on those windy rough water days out in the salt maybe we can get some nice photos of some trophy Kenai Rainbows. :)


Klondike Kid

  • Lingcod
  • *****
  • The Eagle Whisperer
  • Alaska Outdoor Journal
  • Location: Kenai Peninsula, AK
  • Date Registered: Sep 2016
  • Posts: 488
Hey Jeff welcome aboard. Everything is on the menu when it comes to kayak fishing in Alaska.

Heads Up:  Eagle Rock is under construction and not open to the public until sometime into July. Their target was around the first week of July but the ranger was taking a deep breath when he said that. There are expectations the construction may run longer. River guides won't be happy about that to say the least. And that means Pillars is going to be jammed full very early every morning with truck/trailer parking overflowing out on the highway right of way land for late comers. Long walk to the launch from the highway.

To get a status report you can call the State Parks Department office in Sterling to get an update of the progress and completion date.

Regarding the plans to float to Cunningham, its a real bitch. The clay is extremely slippery, the angle of the bank is very steep at low tide and the tiny narrow "trail" up to the parking lot makes it impossible to use any wheels on the Outback for rolling it. I had my sights set on working kings in Bluff Hole and the Cow Pasture on incoming tides and pulling out at Cunningham but I'm not up to the challenge of that put in/pull out or just a pull out if launching from above. If I give it a shot I'll drop in at the Pillars and haul out at the Kenai Bridge while the tide is high enough to reduce the climb up that muddy bank too. Or even put in at the bridge and ride the incoming up and around the corner trolling all the way.   Its really a shame they never went through with the tentative plans to actually construct a boat launch at Cunningham which would allow the drifters some prime real estate to fish kings.

Good luck on your season.
The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

Take a Kid Fishing and Hook'em For Life!  ~KK~


AKsteel7377

  • Herring
  • **
  • Location: Eagle River Alaska
  • Date Registered: Jun 2018
  • Posts: 42
Thank You KK, and thanks for the years of work and dedication with the AOJ....😁


Klondike Kid

  • Lingcod
  • *****
  • The Eagle Whisperer
  • Alaska Outdoor Journal
  • Location: Kenai Peninsula, AK
  • Date Registered: Sep 2016
  • Posts: 488
Naw, I think Kardinal_84 (I call him Kayak Rudy on AOJ) deserves all the credit. Although there have been saltwater kayakers for the nearly 50 years I have been here their excursions have always been oriented to exploration of coastal waters and camp outs. I'm sure a few of those pioneers drop a line once in a while but truly the "explosion" began when Rudy ventured where no Alaskan has ventured before. HA And started racking up (literally) some very impressive achievements to draw attention to what a wonderful opportunity everyone was missing by not trying saltwater kayak fishing even with the often severe Alaskan conditions.

He has a personal best of catching a king salmon from his 'yak for 14 consecutive months. With the decline of feeder kings (perhaps due to West Coast hatchery reductions) and the collapse of our wild king fisheries in our own streams that record may persist for eternity! It takes a special commitment to drive all the way from Anchorage to Homer in blizzards, whiteouts, icy roads only to encounter challenging seas and still get out there all by his lonesome and nail those fish. That's the stuff a true Alaskan is made of, no doubt. Kudos Rudy.

I got the bug from him. Couldn't let it go to just report on his trips and success so I jumped on board. Did a 2 week self-guided trip to Kodiak last summer for the first time ever on saltwater in a 'yak. Followed the previous "peddle steps" of guess who...Rudy in my quest to catch a 100+ lb. halibut on the Emerald Isle. First ever halibut from my Outback, facing the open ocean in 6-8 foot rollers and Hawaii being the next stop south of me and I nailed a 95 pounder at 57 inches. So I'll have to drag some bait in Cook Inlet this summer hoping to reach my "centurian" goal. Thanks to Rudy.

The NWKA forum is the ideal place for newcomers to get up to speed in record time. The ocean is full of fish so there is no threat of having your "secret spot" fished out. I've learned a ton in addition to my own experimenting.

LIFE IS GOOD!
The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

Take a Kid Fishing and Hook'em For Life!  ~KK~


AKsteel7377

  • Herring
  • **
  • Location: Eagle River Alaska
  • Date Registered: Jun 2018
  • Posts: 42
You are totally correct. Its was Rudy and his son I kept watching on YouTube that gave me the bug....But you and the AOJ kept me in the fish and up to date on what was going on when I first moved up....and i still tie and catch fish on the "Krill Killer" when nobody else is. So you still get a big THANK YOU KK... :)


Klondike Kid

  • Lingcod
  • *****
  • The Eagle Whisperer
  • Alaska Outdoor Journal
  • Location: Kenai Peninsula, AK
  • Date Registered: Sep 2016
  • Posts: 488
 :D I kinda thought you were thinking Kardinal_84. I just figured you got your K's mixed up. I do that all the time when my mind is thinking one thing and my keyboard fingers are typing something else. I'm constantly "proof reading" everything I post now days.  So thought I'd wiggle in with that alternate assumption.

I'm really thinking dragging a Krill Killer in saltwater along the beach down at Deep Creek where the water is clear enough for the fish to see it and the sockeye migration has moved next to shore by that point in the Inlet that it might be successful. I watch lots of jumpers running 30-40 yards out from the beach at the tractor launch every year. Its one of my gauges of what is heading for Kasilof/Kenai. And the imitation is just what they eat in the salt.

Tough year for freshwater salmon here in Southcentral as everyone from 5 to 95 knows. Very tough. There will undoubtedly be more to come with impacts on Kenai July kings but the flip side being a major positive for the sockeye harvesters. Not far off to see. I've never posted so many EO's in a single summer. And I'm not even announcing some of them for Kodiak and the Yukon/Interior/Southeastern regions. The pipers have been playing those bagpipes going back to March.  I'm getting very tired of that funeral march. Thank goodness for Res River Reds and the Russian so far. I think they will close Ship early because they may not have enough fish at the hatchery for egg take and inriver spawning in the creek. Happened a few times before. This year is worse than those years.

There is always the ocean! Keep your hooks sharp!
The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

Take a Kid Fishing and Hook'em For Life!  ~KK~