Who here lives in Anchorage or nearby?

[TTNuge]

Have an opportunity for some pretty cheap air fare to Anchorage for sometime in August/September or thereabouts.  Curious on the salmon fishing opportunities around that time frame, feasibility of making a 3-4 day trip on the cheap, do some fishing, maybe camping to keep costs down, etc.  Could just be myself, possibly me and a buddy of mine, hoping to "rough it" and just spend a few man days in nature, fishing, drinking and having a good time away from the family.

[Tenpoint5]

Should be pretty easy to find space on the water. If memory serves me right Moose season opens up on the 15th of Sept. I would check into that Trent see if one of the guys will guide you on a Moose hunt!! You have to live there for a year before you can do it without a guide. Funny the little things you remember.

[squirtthecat]

Remembering my last trip there, the rental car, gas and food (well, beer) prices will be the bulk of your expenses.

We drove from Anchorage up to Denali for a few days, then down to the tip of the Kenai Peninsula to Seward for the rest of the time.   Beautiful!   

No hunting/fishing/camping for us.   Well, one place didn't have a TV or phone.  So no entertainment/communications/internet.  And that's as 'rouging it' as I can stand!

[TTNuge]

OH man, Moose hunting!!  Then again I'm currently in shape to sit on my ass on the water or by the river and not necessarily in shape to go hiking in the Mountains.  Heck, even if it isn't the best fishing season I'm considering just going up, renting a car, just driving around and seeing the sites and sleeping in the back seat if needed. 

[ArnieM]

Check with Iceman.  I believe he's in Wasila and his wife, Ann, commutes to Anchorage.  Worth a shot.

[Tenpoint5]

Good thing your from the Midwest Trent. That September weather up there is like ours only a lot more evil. Could be 50º today and overnight be 20º with 3 foot of snow on the ground. At least it did that up in Fairbanks when I was there.

[stantonl]

If you can make it up there in the month of August you should be able to catch the last of the runs. I would say if you have some money saved it would be worth it to go halibut fishing as well. That will be one of the things I miss the most about Alaska. Before you get to far into the hunting thing you might want to look at the cost of the license for a non resident. It can be pretty spendy. Also fishing in Alaska is very different from most of the lower 48. Combat fishing can be an understatement at the more popular rivers. Bird Creek and the Russian River to name a few.


Larry

[aces-n-eights]

Come on up!  If you want to target salmon, you should try to get here as early in August as possible.  The King season ends the end of July, but there will still be a few reds and pinks running in the various rivers.  There is a state web site that shows the historic fish runs so you can see what is running where at what time - i'll look that up for you...

As suggested before a halibut charter would be great - expect to pay $240 or so each and the limit in South Central Alaska is two fish each.  A couple of 30-40 lb halibut - or maybe bigger - will send you home with a lot of meat.

You should be able to do things on the cheap pretty easily.  There are numerous campgrounds or just sacking out in the back of the car also works.  Lots of RV'ers park in Fred Meyers or WalMart parking lots and you may be able to do the same with a car.  You usually have to register with someone in the parking lot, and they are reasonably safe.

If you're only here for a few days, i also would recommend you pass on the hunting - fairly expensive for non-residents and you'll need to bring a lot of stuff.

Hope to see you in the Great Land!

[aces-n-eights]

Go to this website and you'll find a page that list the fish counts from various areas in the state by fish type.

http://www.alaskaoutdoorjournal.com/Sonar/sonar.html

If you click on the Kenai Peninsula Salmon counts and then Kenai River sockeye, you'll see a graph like this...



The green bars are the actual fish counts by day and the dotted line is the 19 year average.  So, yes last July 16th was a good day to be fishing with just shy of 60,000 red salmon in the river.

Hope this helps - let me know if you have more specific questions about areas.

Oh, yeah, i just remembered there is a good silver salmon run in Sept in some of the rivers and streams near Anchorage.  My buddy that used to live in Anchorage told me that last year he was catching 20lb'ers in 20 Mile Creek which is not too far from Anchorage.

[Kummok]

EVERYTHING depends upon what you want to spend....especially in that short of time period, TTN. August can have some Silver (Coho) runs that will wear your arms out. Believe it or not, I catch Kings pretty much year round but they normally aren't spawners where I fish. As & 8s has given some good links for preplanning and Stantoni's given you some rivers you can drive to and fish on-the-cheap. "Combat" is the keyword he used that I wouldn't take too lightly....it can be shoulder to shoulder there on the weekend and openers and your neck is gonna be twisted, keeping an eye on the bears behind you!  :o Still some great fishing though.....

If I had only a few days, I'd head to Seward and do the charter thing. It's close to Anchorage, has lots of fish (and rain!), is close to good fishing grounds for day trips and is a beautiful drive or rail trip. Check them out and get the free visitor guide at http://www.sewardak.org/   Homer is a great place but it's twice as far as Seward and has pretty much the same selection of fish ( 'cept the ones As & 8s and I catch down here!  ;) ;D )

[TTNuge]

Thanks guys for the information, I really appreciate it.  Not sure if I'm going to be able to pull this off but I'm definitely going to try.  And if I do I really will be going on the cheap, trying to spend as little as possible.  The thought of sharing the river with the bears is a bit scary but also very awesome.  I'd much rather have to worry about them than worrying about being shoulder to shoulder with other fishermen. 

I'll be continuing with my research so if you think of anything else worth mentioning feel free to share.

Thanks again!

Trent

[aces-n-eights]

Hey Trent,

Hope you can put your trip together.  IMO the drive from Anchorage to Seward is worth the effort and expense to come to Alaska - one of the most beautiful drives i've ever been on.  Driving north out of Anchorage on the Glenn Highway towards Glenallen is equally impressive.  Simply renting a car and driving around is pretty impressive.

There are a lot of tourist oriented books on camping and other opportunities.   Here's one on fishing in Alaska along the roads.

http://www.amazon.com/Highway-Angler-Fishing-Alaskas-System/dp/1578333660/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275065752&sr=1-1

Enjoy!

[squirtthecat]

If you are driving, I think this is a must have.   It had every highway/byway noted with food/lodging/attractions listed by the mile marker.   It's a huge book (obviously), but we relied on it for everything.

[squirtthecat]

Trent,

I'm sure the prices have changed, but here were some affordable (and, umm, 'quaint') places we stayed at in Anchorage, Denali & Seward back in 2004.

We were traveling on the cheap, so don't expect room service at any of these places!  But, they were clean and affordable.


Anchorage:

http://www.alaska.net/~caribou/main.html


Denali (just North of the park entrance, near Healy)

http://whitemooselodge.com/



Seward:  (they even arranged a day trip out on one of their boats into Kenai Fjords - absolutely amazing!)

http://alaskasaltwaterlodge.com/

[Kummok]

Also don't hesitate to negotiate with all the lodging/charter folks if you go that way....Not a huge amount of wiggle room with fuel costs up and international tourism down but lots of tourism industry folks are just trying to make expenses up here these days and are willing to negotiate a bit on their rack rates....I'm still "between boats" or I'd take you out myself!  :'(