Season Updates
May 16th, 2008
Spring Steelhead
The rains have come and brought spring Steelhead to the island. The guests that are here emailed me before they came up because they were concerned about the weather forecast which called for rain most of the week. I reassured them that it was crucial that it did rain during their stay for them to get into some fish. The second day they were here the rains came and the fishing picked almost immediately.
After getting double digit hookups one of our guests, Jack Ward Smith, came back from a day of fishing and said, "That was the best fishing day of my entire life." Jack and his guys had a great day.
The following day Jack caught a fish that set the bar for big Steelhead this year at 38.5 inches in length. We thought it would be fun to establish a few lodge records and this fish will be our big Steelhead. By mid week we actually had a little too much rain making the rivers unfishable for a day. By the next day the high water had receded enough that our guests were back out catching fish again. I have posted a few pictures that they gave me below. I will post more after they send them to me.
This week our guests did great for Steelhead but it wasn't like that early in the season. You never know what the season will bring each year. The good fishing should keep going well into June this year. From here on out our groups will all be bear hunting so I guess I'll have to go out and catch the fish myself.
The Black Bears are starting to come out as the weather begins to warm up. We saw several bears this week and I have heard of a few nice bears being taken around the island. That is a good sign for being this early in the season. Brent and I also took a drive this week to look for bear sign in a few areas. We found a bear feeding on some grass right where you would expect to see a bear this time of year. I'll have more updates soon.
Kenji King
Prince of Wales Island, Alaska