ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – The salmon fishing season is starting to slow down across the state, but you can still find some chrome in the tributaries of the Turnagain Arm.
It is no secret that fishing is a big draw for tourists to come to visit Alaska, but this trip to Bird Creek made that evident.
“Staying at Girdwood, and just rented a house there, rented a car, just taking in all the beauty that is here and thought I’d try and fish a day or two and see what happens,” said Dennis Poper, a tourist from Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Poper rented his rod and gear from The Bait Shack in downtown Anchorage and got some free advice on the side. Poper was doing what we tried to do, drifting some cured salmon eggs under a slip float in hopes of enticing a silver salmon.
That was just one tactic being put into place on the creek. People were casting spinners and fly fishing, and someone was even giving flossing a try. Many different methods of fishing were all hunting for the same result, to land a silver salmon.
Finally hooking into a chrome coho is an experience that could change even a tourist into an Alaskan.
“Culture and nature, I mean look at this place,” Kelly Kulongowski said.
“It’s mainly culture,” her husband Aaron Kulongowski said. “East coast is not the same as Alaska, and Alaska isn’t the same as anywhere else that we’ve been. It’s where our hearts are”
The Kulongowski’s hoping to move to Alaska soon, and instead of searching for just one silver to bring home, they hope to be able to fill their freezer.
We were just looking for one, and after a few hours of fishing and not catching, someone finally landed a silver on a fly. That was about 40 minutes before high tide, the exact time you must fish if you want to be successful on Bird Creek.
Check the tide tables before heading out to Bird Creek, and plan on fishing hard an hour before and after high tide. Also, remember to be very careful on the creek’s banks because the water is high and running fast with all the rain in Southcentral Alaska this summer.
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