Mission Lodge | Bristol Bay Alaska

Alaska Fly Out Lodge in Remote Bristol Bay | The State’s Premier Lodge

You are here: Home / Archives for Bristol Bay Fishing Reports / 2015 Season

2015 Season

WASHED OUT :: JULY 3 – 10, 2015 :: WEEK 3

Always be careful of what you ask for. We all did rain dances, prayers and unspeakable sacrifices to help bring on some much needed rain and just might have over done it a bit. It was more than enough to put out the fires burning all around us. The officials sitting in their offices far, far away were not convinced that it was enough moisture to allow campfires thought. That only changed once the water levels in our lake came up a few inches. Roughly 600 million gallons worth.

While rain jackets sales in the gift shop were brisk, the fish really loved the freshet of water and became vary corporative indeed. King Salmon remained strong on both the Nushagak and Togiak rivers. Lake Hopping continued to be very strong with the addition of Lake Trout adding to the mix of species caught.

The Sockeye Salmon continued to trickle in just enough to catch some here and there. That trickle was also enough to bring in the Bears in full force over at Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park. Kudos to Joe Lee for capturing a Bald Eagle swooping in and steeling a fish at the falls.

JUNE 26 – JULY 3, 2015 : SCORCHED EARTH [& LIVERS] :: WEEK 2

The weather slightly turned and some welcome rain showers helped to quill most of the fires around our area. A few fires were still smoldering, but not to the point of interfering with operations. We were fortunate to have a bunch of different people from the spirit and wine industry and with them came some great vino. Let’s just hope that livers are self healing shall we.

The fishing for King Salmon on both the Nushagak and Togiak river systems remained strong enough to provide some great action, even on two handed spey [fly] rods. The highlight for the week on the King Salmon front was the new season best of 47 pounds and change going to Robert Saxe. We were delighted to here that the fish was carefully caught and released, giving back the genetics to the system. Unlike good wine, the young ones taste better anyway.

We had a number of couples join us this week and of course we had to include Brooks Falls to see the bears and do one of our epic Lake Hops. Thanks to the really cool Bear-Cam, we were able to confirm both jumping Sockeye Salmon at the falls and bears fishing. It was bandwidth well spent, which is something we do not get a lot of. The trip to Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park was great and catching a couple of King Salmon on the way home did not hurt either! The Lake Hop more than lived up to the hype and was just one of those amazing experiences that will be etched in their minds for years to come.

Trout, Grayling and Arctic Char fishing remained strong with some quality dry fly fishing on both the Wok and the Pak. Migrating Sockeye Salmon smolt continued to flow through the lake system, attracting very aggressive takes from the waiting char.

JUNE 19 – 26, 2015 : BURN BABY BURN :: WEEK 1

The start to 2015 was a burner. Most of us left very warm weather in our home states to come up to Alaska and find… you guessed it, warm weather. While it was still a solid twenty degrees below temps in the likes of New Mexico and Texas, it was just plain hot and dusty up here. So much so that thunder and lighting started up all across the state, including here in Bristol Bay. A somewhat rare event in these parts. Within a day or so, over three hundred fires where burning around the state with over dozen inside of our flying radius.

As you might have heard, our snow pack was low. Around the lower lakes it appeared that there had been no snow and we all feared the water levels would be similar to the Rio Grande on the Mexican border. Turns out, the snow in the upper reaches of our river systems, especially the Nushagak system, were actually better than last season and all rivers where running at a very optimum level and quite cool. Good news for fishing.

The local species benefited the most from the mild spring and were in great physical shape, with most of the trout recovering nicely from an early spawning season. While streamers worked good, fishing for them with mice patterns was at its best. Rumor has it that mice rival rabbits in the fertility department and matching this furry hatch was our pleasure.

Our first group of the anglers were mainly here for King Salmon however, and early in the week it started a bit slow, but built up nicely as the week went on. The last couple of days saw escapement numbers of fish into the river that rival anything we have seen over the years and the angling success matched it. Game on.

The only glitch we ran into from a fishing standpoint goes back to the fires. One fire in particular had broken out on the tundra a couple of miles off of the Togiak River and depending the direction of the wind became an issue as we could not get into that river system a couple of days. Time to do a rain dance or two.