"The Kings in Valdez are true. It has been the best run ever!"
Halibut aren't the only fish in Valdez
By TIM MOWRY, Staff Writer
While Valdez has long been known for its halibut fishing, the small town at the edge of Prince William Sound is quietly becoming a destination for king salmon anglers.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has been planting king salmon smolt in the Port of Valdez for the last five years and anglers are just beginning to see the first crops of kings returning to the Valdez harbor. Last year was the first year anglers in Valdez caught the hatchery-raised kings and fishermen are having even better luck reeling in kings this year.
"They're pulling a lot of kings out of here," said Larry Hodges, who owns the Hook, Line & Sinker tackle shop in Valdez. "People are trolling right in the port. There have been several caught right off the city dock. We've seen some 30- and 40-pounders."
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The king run is a result of a cooperative agreement between ADF&G and the city of Valdez. The city has agreed to build a small rearing pond to raise and release the fish, which would provide a terminal fishery similar to the Homer Spit in Homer and Fleming Spit in Cordova, where anglers can fish from the shores of the pond.
"We'd like to get that started in Valdez and Whittier," said Matt Miller, area management sport fish biologist for Anchorage, Resurrection Bay and Prince William Sound.
The city of Valdez is working on building a rearing pond in the old town site of Valdez where the fish could be released, said Lisa Von Bargen, director of community and economic development. The city should have the permits by late July and construction should take place this summer so the pond will be ready for next year's crop of king smolts, she said.
Currently, the smolt are released from net pens in the small boat harbor. This year's crop of 105,000 smolt was released last week, said Dave Cobb with the Valdez Fisheries Development Association, which releases the fish for Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
The first crop of 50,000 smolt was planted in Valdez in 1999 and Fish and Game has released an average of about 100,000 smolt a year since.
"We should be having some mixed year classes starting to come back," said Miller. "Once you start getting multiple release years you'll start getting some 2-year-olds but mainly it will be 3- and 4-year-olds and some 5-year-fish returning.
The first fish appear to be returning in late May and early June and there will be kings returning into mid or late June, said Miller. Fish and Game is hoping for a 3 percent return rate, which would mean an annual run of about 3,000 kings. Cobb estimates that about 300 to 350 kings have been caught so far this year, ranging from just under 10 pounds to more than 30. Anglers are having decent success trolling herring and Hodges said there are a few lures that have produced success, though he said it would take a visit to his shop to find out more specifics as to what works and where to go.
"People are going to have go out there and hunt for them," said Cobb.
The state doesn't have good way to track harvest for specific fisheries such as the one in Valdez, said Miller, the biologist. The best source of information about how the fishery is from fishermen, he said.
"We're relying on anglers," he said. "Harvest surveys are not a good tool for evaluating very specific fisheries."
There has been significant interest in the fledgling fishery, Miller said.
"It's definitely a fishery we're trying to develop and people are excited about it," he said.
The city of Valdez would benefit, too, said Von Bargen.
"It would be great for Valdez to at some point have a substantial enough king salmon run that it would become a king salmon destination," she said.
*CASTING AROUND TOWN: Arctic grayling fishing on the Chena River is reported to be good with low, clear water conditions. Fish on the upper Chena have been surface feeding "like crazy," according to Richard Barnes at Fish and Game in Fairbanks, so any number of dry flies (i.e. elk hair caddis, blue duns, mosquitoes, stoneflie) should attract the attention of grayling.
Grayling fishing on Piledriver Slough and Badger Slough has slowed as fish move out to their summer feeding grounds.
One of those feeding grounds is the Delta Clearwater River and anglers have reported grayling moving into the Delta Clearwater, though not in the same numbers as past years, said Dave Davenport at Fish and Game in Delta Junction. Anglers have been catching fish at the campground on Jack Warren Road and behind the Clearwater Lodge, just upstream from the campground.
*LOCAL LAKES STOCKED: Here's a list of lakes that were stocked with fish in the past week by Fish and Game. Quartz Lake (13,000 rainbow trout); Chena Lake (9,300 rainbow trout); Birch Lake (9,300 rainbow trout, 6,000 arctic char); Lost Lake (4,700 rainbow trout). Other smaller lakes that also got fish include Polaris Lake, Hidden Lake, Moose Lake and Grayling Lake on Eielson Air Force Base, Monterey Lake on Fort Wainwright and Little Harding Lake and North Pole pond.
*FIELDING LAKE INACCESSIBLE: Anglers thinking about heading down to Fielding Lake for a fishing trip might want to hold their hooks.
The magnitude 7.9 earthquake on Nov. 3 left its mark on Fielding Lake in the form a large crack in the road leading to the boat launch that has developed into an impassable ditch for boat trailers, said Anna Plager, northern region superintendent for Alaska State Parks. While you can still drive to the campground, getting to the lake will present a challenge even for four-wheel drive vehicles.
Plager is seeking emergency funds to repair the road but she said it might take a month to get the manpower and money to fix it. The site is not closed but campers will find large cracks in the ground. The toilet is still working and the public-use cabin was not damaged.
*GULKANA RIVER: Reports about king salmon in the Gulkana River were sketchy this week but anglers are reportedly catching fish in the lower river around the Richardson Highway bridge, said Masterson. There should be kings getting up near Sourdough at some point, though none have been seen at a counting tower upstream of Sourdough as of Wednesday.
*THE SCOOP ON CHITINA: The dipnetting season on the Copper River at Chitina opened at 8 a.m. Wednesday and fishing was reported to be "pretty good" on the opening day, according to charter operator Mark Hem, who ferries dipnetters up and down the river.
"Most people came back with 10 to 30 fish," Hem reported on his message machine in Chitina at 10:30 p.m. Wednesday. "I anticipate it will stay good the next few days."
With salmon still swimming past a sonar counter at Miles Lake in larger-than-expected numbers, the first opening was extended through midnight on June 15.
The number of fish passing the Miles Lake sonar continues to exceed preseason projections. The cumulative count for the period of May 26 to June 1 was 77,037. The projected count for that period was 53,197 salmon. The daily counts from May 28 to June 3, respectively, were 9,930; 12,777; 10,038; 17,132; 17,278; 13,437; and 13,164.
*HALIBUT DERBY UPDATES: Edward James of Tok assumed the lead in the Valdez Halibut Derby by catching a 177-pound fish on May 28 to overtake John Savage of Eagle River, who caught a 171.5-pound halibut on May 26. Boats have been grounded by bad weather the past few days but there should be a shakeup in the standings when the weather clears.
Though there have been no reports of a 200-pound halibut on the docks at Valdez, Larry Hodges at Hook, Line & Sinker said there have been some 180-plus pounders caught by anglers who didn't purchase a derby ticket. There is a new leader in the Homer Jackpot Halibut Derby but it's still not an Alaskan. Raymond Dooley of Houston, Texas caught a 240.2-pound halibut on May 30 fishing with Alaska Halibut Charters to displace Dan Ozuna of Boise, Idaho, who had held the lead since May 3 with a 228.4-pounder.
Of local interest, Cheryl Motsko of Fairbanks caught the fifth-largest halibut in the month of May with a 182.4-pound fish caught on May 25.
In Seward, Hennies McConnell of Anchorage caught a 132.6-pound halibut on May 31 to take the lead in the Seward Jackpot Halibut Derby.
*DOWN IN THE VALLEY: King salmon fishing in the Little Susitna and Deshka rivers is improving but action on the Parks Highway streams is still slow, with only about 1 in 10 anglers hooking a king, said Dave Rutz at ADF&G in Palmer. More than 4,000 kings have passed the weir on the Deshka, a high number this early in the season. Bait will be allowed in the Deshka River starting at 6 a.m. on Sunday.
Anglers are catching a few fish at Willow Creek but fishing is still slow, for the most part on the Parks Highway streams, which are open through June 16 at which time they convert to weekend-only fishing on June 21-23 and June 28-30.
There are hooligan all the way up to the Kashwitna River this year, the first time in about five years the fish have made it that far, Rutz said.
*ON THE PENINSULA: Anglers are reporting good catch rates on the Kenai River, said area management biologist Mark Gamblin with ADF&G in Soldotna. Most fish are in the lower river and water is low and clear. Any fish between 44-55 inches must be released.
Good catches have been reported from the Kasilof River also, though anglers can keep only hatchery kings with their adipose fins clipped. About 30 percent of the catch have been fin-clipped fish, Gamblin said.
The king salmon return on the Anchor River has been a good one this year and fishing has also been good on Deep Creek, according to area management biologist Nicki Szarzi with ADF&G in Homer. The Ninilchik River is probably the slowest of the three weekend-only fisheries. Fish are reported to be "spooky" because of the low, clear water conditions. This is the final weekend of fishing on Deep Creek while the Anchor River will be open one more weekend. Biologists will monitor the proportion of hatchery fish in the Ninilchik River harvest this weekend to determine if they will extend the season for hatchery fish, Szarzi said.
