Season Updates
September 14th, 2008
Fall is Here!
September is here and fall is definitely taking hold. There is a colder bite to the breeze and the days are getting shorter. The morning breeze shakes a few more leaves free every day as the leaves begin to turn. I love this time of year. September is the month that the Coho Salmon runs peak in the rivers. The deer hunting is a tough early but gets better as we get later into the month.
Today we had a forked horn buck brought in and another group of guests got a black bear yesterday. While those groups were hunting another group went fishing and caught a good number of Coho Salmon. When the weather is good like it has been the last few days Halibut fishing is good as well. There are almost too many things to do this time of year.
The first week of September we had a lodge full of bear hunters and they had a good week. Two of the groups had a lot of experience on the island and that definitely helped them. They were patient and glassed the clear cuts or watched quietly by a stream looking for bears. They were seeing up to 13 bears a day. That is a lot of bears to see in a day. Most of our guests don't have that much success but I thought I would mention the potential you can have for encounters in a day. Also this year hunting has been much better than last year. I don't have any pictures because nobody sent me any pictures after they left. I guess I have to start stealing their cameras while they are here.
Coho fishing has been good on the rivers of the island. It slowed down a little last week due to lack of rain. Once we started to get some occasional rain fishing has picked up. The Pink Salmon were still scattered throughout the streams two weeks ago but have since spawned and for the most part died off and cleared the streams. There are always a few around but it's nothing like it was a few weeks ago. This time of year the weather is a little cooler and the bugs aren't as bad. Plus there aren't as many people out fishing and hunting later into September. I'm not sure why because the fishing is better and fish are bigger later in the season.
I'm sorry we don't have more pictures than this but we really don't get to go fishing as much as you would think. If you're not here you're missing out........
Kenji King
Prince of Wales Island, Alaska