One of our Epic reps from Chile, Matt Nagler turned us on to the fishing on Kodiak Island. It was a fishery we had heard the legendary stories about but had never seen. Of course Kodiak is well known for catching saltwater freezer fish all day long, and the rivers are so chalked full of coho you can hook one every cast. However what always peaked our interest was the opportunity to swing for King salmon and steelhead on small, intimate, uncrowded systems. Kodiak is one of these secrets in the fishing world that when someone starts talking about it he will often be nudged quickly to zip it up. It is such a special fishery that it really shouldn’t even be spoken about many think.
Matt Nagler worked on Kodiak for several years for Fish and Game counting salmon and fishing for them on all his spare time. With Matts intimate knowledge of the waters we reserved the peak king salmon weeks for Epic guests in 2017. Although the run was way down our guests still caught an incredible amount of Kings. They predominately used 8 or 9 weight switch rods with light sink tips and small flies. Most of the fish were holding in less than 6 feet of water and were extremely grabby to the swung fly on the tidal pushes.
Beyond the fishing the scenery is spectacular, and the wildlife is unparalleled. Over the duration of the king salmon season our guests saw 2 other fisherman the entire time. They had flown in for the day on a beaver. This is solitude at its finest. Each day waking up knowing you are going to have a phenomenal river all to yourself. You are going to be able to pick any run you want and wait for that big push of tidal kings rolling there way up river.
For 2019 we have once again booked the peak dates for the King run. if you want to get in on this incredible fishery join us there in June and see what all the hype is about.
