Beautiful cutthroat trout caught on a Honey Hole. Photo courtesy of Rocky Estrada.
It has been a wet couple of weeks but the fish don't seem to mind. Cutthroat and Dolly fishing has continued to be quite good and chums, a few pinks and even a king or two has rounded out the salmon fishing.
The first chum salmon are pushing into Sheep Creek, Montana Creek, Cowee Creek as well as other streams around Juneau. The Dollies have lined up behind them and are waiting for the annual egg feast to begin. Beads are very effective for enticing Dollies and the size varies between 10mm and 8mm. A few years ago we put together some small bead selections with enough beads, hooks, split shot, pegs and indicators to get you going in S.E. Alaska. We called them the Southeast Alaska Bead Starter Kit and they proved to be very popular so we got to work this year and built a bunch of them. If you want to give bead fishing a go this is your easy answer.
Those bead boxes don't make themselves!
Dollies will definitely take flies as well, even when there are lots of eggs to be eaten. We have put together a Grab & Go Selection of Dolly flies for July & August that features bright attractor patterns that get their attention during the salmon spawn. You can choose 6, 12 or 20 flies and be ready to roll. We'll tweak the contents weekly as needed to make sure the hottest flies are included.
With our wet summer continuing on, there may be days when the creeks are too high to fish. Generally, they will drop back into fishable shape within 24 hours of heavy rain letting up. But in the meantime, keep lake fishing opportunities in mind. The Dredge Lakes and Twin Lakes (both stocked with rainbow trout this year), Peterson Creek Salt Chuck, some of the high alpine lakes like Salmon Creek Reservoir (Brook Trout!) and Cropley Lake near Eaglecrest, as well as Windfall Lake all fish well even when the streams are temporarily muddy. Plus you have a good chance of finding a cutthroat trout or two which is always a bonus.
Nice lake caught cutthroat trout.
Moving on to salmon fishing, the high water blasts we had this past week pulled some more pinks and chums into Cowee Creek. It is still a pretty slim pink salmon year, but a few more have been caught. Echo Cove has had a few schools of pinks as far in as the boat ramp as well. The low end of the tide is better at Echo and fishing a pink Humpy Hooker will get you into a fish. And just when we thought kings were a done deal, a few more bright ones turned up! Both Lena Cove and Fish Creek have produced a few fish.
They just keep coming....big bright king from July 10th.
It is not unusual for a small late run of kings to show up mid July and surprise us. So if you still have the energy to do it, one more king outing could prove fruitful. Many of these fish are still bright and full of fight.
Stop by the shop if you have questions or need a little help getting going. See you on the water!
