CHARTER SEASON HIGHLIGHTS

FULL 2018 KENAI RIVER FISHING VIDEO HERE:

2018 cHARTER sEASON hIGHLIGHTS | cOOPER lANDING fISHING gUIDE, llc

2018 aLASKA fISHING sEASON

Marking Cooper Landing Fishing Guide’s second season in business, the 2018 fishing charter season on the Kenai and Kasilof Rivers was definitely one for the books!

Not only did the number of fishing trips on the Kenai River we booked nearly double for our small Kenai River Charter, we also got to meet and fish with hundreds of amazing people from around the globe. We still keep in touch with a lot of our guests from our Alaska Fishing Trips.

From the outset, the 2018 season was exciting as we began fishing very early - in April and Early May, something we hadn’t done in previous years.

May and June were filled with lots of King Salmon Trips down the Kasilof River. There was a healthy mix of conventional fishing using back-trolling techniques as well as two-handed fly fishing or spey fishing techniques as well.

Though there were a lot of ups and downs during the King Salmon Season (bait closures, limited retention and low numbers of fish), we were able to weather it quite nicely. Most of our guests on our Alaska Fishing Charters are not all that interested in keeping King Salmon, so we were able to do lots of catch and release for them in the June and July time frame.

Late June into July and even into August went by super fast as all of our available charters on the Kenai River were booked solid. We didn’t even have a day off during that time period!

As August wound down, we settled into what can be considered the peak fishing season for avid fly anglers. 2018 was a “Pink Year,” where millions of Pink Salmon return to the Kenai River, making the Rainbow Trout and Dolly Varden fishing absolutely unbelievable.

Not only did we catch dozens of fish on each fishing charter, we also caught the biggest Rainbow Trout of the season - we were also lucky enough to nab a 32” Steelhead from the Kenai River as well.

With the end of the 2018 Charter Fishing Season in Alaska in early November, we looked forward to an even more productive 2019!