Predicting salmon runs on the Kenai is a dangerous proposition. I have done it for a couple of years and so far I have been fairly close on the numbers. There is no secret to my method. I simply look up the stats for 4 years ago on Reds and Silvers and the numbers for 4,5 and 6 year fish for Kings. It helps to also keep track of the runs personally which I have done since my first trip to the area in 2007.
I look for the numbers of Kings to be a bit higher than last year. I do not mean the count that Fish and Wildlife gave of over 40K which was a totally fictional number. I mean that the numbers will be higher in the river than they were last year. I believe only 19 Thousand fish hit the river last year and maybe less in July. I feel that the number will go back up to around 25K this year because of what I see in past runs, though the water temps in the Gulf of Alaska did not improve much so the amount of forage for those Kings is down.
Still the Red Salmon should be very good. 4 years ago over 1.4 million made it past the sonar on the river. That is one of the highest numbers in years. The Russian River also saw some very good numbers and I am hoping the early run will produce like the run 2 years ago. Still the maximum number of reds in the Russian is normally around 50 Thousand so any thing could happen to affect them.
Silvers 4 years ago were good, and while fish and wildlife does not count them, customers had a good year with almost all catching a limit of fish.
Halibut is any ones guess. Last year was a bit down, despite the run of pinks into the inlet. However 2 years ago we saw some meagher days and with the number of days that the charters could not get on the water last year, fishing may have improved. This year is also the first year of the capped charters. In other words only a certain number of boats may now fish for Halibut on the inlet. This will improve the fishery and could result in better catches and fewer boats holding on the hot spots.
