2019 Mid-season Fishing Report from ATA Lodge on Bristol Bay's Alagnak Wild River

I've heard it said that a picture paints a thousand words!  So I thought I'd let some of our photos from July "tell the story" of how things have been going so far this season!!  I think this blog post might just make the best seller list if that saying proves true!  I will sprinkle a few words in between, but will mostly let the pictures do the talking!

  

  

So June saw some fantastic trout and grayling fishing as our opening week blog post pointed out last month!  We also caught a few dolly varden and lake trout too!  In fact we saw early signs of Sockeye Salmon arriving in the system as well in late June.  We thought that bode well for another stellar Sockeye run.  And we did get some fantastic Sockeye fishing, but they were late and the run never quite materialized as we are accustom to having here on the Alagnak River.

   

    

We had record high temperatures throughout June and most of July, with almost no rain.  Water temperatures were very high too during the heat wave.  We thought that might have effected the run, and that the numbers of Sockeye we are accustomed to having would eventually show up.  But at this stage in the season, although some Sockeye continue to come in as we enter August, we have had to admit that the run was just poor this year.  I suspect that our fish were caught up in the commercial netting that took place in Bristol Bay, as reports that early netting in the Bay was very productive.  I now believe that much of this years run will end up in supermarkets and restaurants instead of on the spawning gravels in the lakes and headwaters of our system.  Even so, we did have a few weeks with decent pushes of fish, just not the silly numbers we have previously taken for granted!

Having said that, the King Salmon fishing was amazing with large numbers of Chinook showing up much earlier than expected, especially considering the low water and high temperatures.  We've had our best King Salmon season to date this year with most anglers having caught some incredible fish from the first week of July through to the end of the King Season on July 31st.  

  

   

   

The Chum Salmon fishing has been really good too.  They showed up on time and in great numbers and have already filtered through the system.  Down river trips to fish the "Chum Bars" in tidal effected areas have produced some epic days with dozens of hard fight chum salmon being hooked and landed by many ecstatic anglers, this last week in particular and we expect it to continue for the next couple weeks with new fish arriving on every tide!

   

   

Along with the great fishing, there has been some really good bear viewing and photography opportunities.  We have had 3 hosted weeks with groups of photographers that have produced some amazing images.  Both Charles Glatzer of Shoot the Light and Kevin Dooley of Idube Photo Safaris brought groups.  Here a few of the images those groups shot while here.

   

   

   

To cap this off, today (August 2nd), the first Silver Salmon (Coho Salmon) was caught as well.  Over the next few days, we expect the "bead fishing" to kick off as the salmon already in the system start to spawn.  The "egg drop" will trigger some fantastic, trout, char and grayling fishing as these resident fish gorge on the salmon eggs.  So "watch this space" for the next update which will demonstrate just how good the fishing should be for these resident species in coming weeks!  The Chum salmon should continue to pour in over the next couple weeks as well, being joined by a growing number of Coho Salmon making an appearance as August develops!

If you think you might like to experience the bounty that this incredible resource has to offer the intrepid angler, get in touch soon as next season is already 65% full!