Dollies, bears and "the creek"....Alaska

[DocEsox]

Hey Bill...no offense taken at all. I do consider it unethical to fish in a manner that would have you incidentially "snagging" spawning fish. But dollies in Quartz Creek are generally sitting within a few feet below a spawning redd. Usually the only problem, since you can see all the fish, is aggressive males around the redd which hit anything floating by. There isn't an issue of hurting salmon numbers as the fish are "managed" up here by the numbers which are checked by sonar. Personally I do everything I can to avoid hooking any salmon while dolly and trout fishing...it is a real pain to do so....and they are never intentionally targeted. Although there are some who do go out the thought of snagging red after red....I'm not sure why as the fish do not fight very well and they should be left alone as much as possible. But most the times you are sight fishing to specific dollies and trout. This year there has been an overescapement of sockeye.....too many came up late to support the juveniles in the lake system....up the Kenai and this can cause a problem....late in the season the limits were doubled to six a day in an effort to thin out the numbers. This still, to me, never justifies fishing in a manner to intentionally snag salmon, which goes on a lot up here. Or treating them poorly while releasing. The practice itself of fishing behind spawning salmon in Alaska has virtually no detractors that I am aware of.....

Brian

[Spike Klein]

What a great report! That little creek you fished sounds like my idea of the perfect "secret spot." I wish I had a spot like that- minus the bears!

About the spawner situation; I think if I were ever fishing for Dollies and kept hooking the salmon, I'd probably quit for the day- just to avoid impacting the population negatively. But a skilled fisherman could release a few mistakenly caught salmon without causing too much havoc. I particularly don't see the harm if, in fact, the salmon are overabundant that year. I should mention, though, that I've never actually had the pleasure of trying for Dolly Varden.

[BigBill]

Hey Bill...no offense taken at all. I do consider it unethical to fish in a manner that would have you incidentially "snagging" spawning fish. But dollies in Quartz Creek are generally sitting within a few feet below a spawning redd. Usually the only problem, since you can see all the fish, is aggressive males around the redd which hit anything floating by. There isn't an issue of hurting salmon numbers as the fish are "managed" up here by the numbers which are checked by sonar. Personally I do everything I can to avoid hooking any salmon while dolly and trout fishing...it is a real pain to do so....and they are never intentionally targeted. Although there are some who do go out the thought of snagging red after red....I'm not sure why as the fish do not fight very well and they should be left alone as much as possible. But most the times you are sight fishing to specific dollies and trout. This year there has been an overescapement of sockeye.....too many came up late to support the juveniles in the lake system....up the Kenai and this can cause a problem....late in the season the limits were doubled to six a day in an effort to thin out the numbers. This still, to me, never justifies fishing in a manner to intentionally snag salmon, which goes on a lot up here. Or treating them poorly while releasing. The practice itself of fishing behind spawning salmon in Alaska has virtually no detractors that I am aware of.....

Brian

Ahhh, so the bows and bulls are holding in the same exact water as the schools of sockeyes? I always assumed when I read articles about fishing for these opportunistic bows and bulls that hang out below the schools of spawners that they actually meant downstream a bit of the school, not below individual fish among the school. Is this incorrect? If so, then do most of the bows and bulls follow the schools and therefore require an angler to cast into these schools of spawners in order to get into any fish at all? I ask because I'm wondering if this might be a situation where an angler can just avoid targeting the bows and bulls that follow the spawners and still catch fish in other parts of the river to avoid accidentally catching spawners.

Also, How can there be too many returning sockeye? And, what problems are caused by this?

[DocEsox]

Yes...the bows and dollies (no bull trout up here) do hold very tight to the spawning reds and if you get very far away you catch virtually nothing. Before the salmon move up the streams the fishing is pretty thin....the whole system revolves around the salmon spawning. If you look at the pictures of spawning reds in a usual day on Quartz I might hook 3-5 reds in a day of fishing....these are virtually all males too. When they are actually on the redds the males get very aggressive....they are constantly chasing the dollies and bows around them. If you look near the back of the dolly from Quartz you will see to rips in its flesh....marks given it from an irate male sockeye. Some of the bows, especially, can get pretty slashed up from the salmon. One does not throw into a big school of spawning reds as you will snag them but you have to have good accuracy to skirt the salmon as the dollies will not move far from being directly behind the salmon. The other day I didn't have one snag of a red....they will actually chase the egg when on a redd....you don't see that with the hens.

As far as too many sockeye....the runs, although all native fish, are managed for commercial and sportfishing take. Sockeye are always dependent on a a nearby lake system for their survival. After hatching the frye head into the lake system where they feed for almost 2 years before smolting and heading out to sea. The lake systems have a very finite amount of food available....if there are two many frye in a given year they starve themselves in the lake system and you have a very poor return when they mature. All the reds moving through the Kenai River system are counted by sonar on the river.....there are certain minimal limits set and when those are met limits are increased. Occassionally, like last year and this year, way more reds came in late then expected. It's a complicated process and I don't believe the people in charge are near as good at predicting it as they think they are...too much politics involved. If runs are low fishing is cut off. Just yesterday coho were relegated to catch and release up the Mat-Su valley rivers due to poor return numbers.

Many people up here do not handle salmon very well and it infuriates me. It is just respect of your resource. This whole question is very entertaining when you include native ALaskans and they think catching, then releasing your fish is the most disrespectful thing you can do to them.

Some may abuse salmon up here.....personally I do everything not to...heck who wants to foul hook one of those beasts when their spawning??

Brian

[bigtj]

Guys,

I have 8 years experience guiding/fishing in AK so I feel qualified shedding some light on the targeting/spawning thing. It is definitely unethical to sight fish to spawning salmon. Most guys don't do this, though, and they fish between/behind the salmon and try to sight fish the dollies and raibows. However, no matter how hard you try to avoid hooking spawning salmon, it's pretty tough to avoid hooking at least a few spawners, now and again, due to their numbers, especially while fishing eggs or beads. It's a natural reflex for salmon to pick them up. Is this unethical? I'm not sure I have the answer, but I do know that if you fish amonst salmon with eggs or beads, sooner or latter you're going to hook a salmon, either fairly or foul hooked.

The only thing I prefer not to see is a salmon dragged up on the gravel bar for a picture and/or release. Not the end of the world, but definitely a lot of stress the salmon don't need at this stage of the game. In that situation I believe the best thing to do is just break the fish off as quickly as possible after hooking it, leaving the hook in the fish's mouth, where it won't interfere with further spawning. Flies are cheap and it won't kill you to leave a few flies behind.

If someone feels l the need to play the fish, it should be kept in the water and get it released ASAP. In a small stream or side-channel, like that in the pictures, this is very much more difficult said than done; a thrashing sockeye will often distrupt all the surrounding spawning, adding stress to not only the fish being fought but the other surrounding fish as well. Ultimately the outcome of this isn't dire by any stretch, it's just something to keep in mind.

When fishing in AK around sockeyes it's important to fish with a heavier rod, like a stout 6 or 7, so if you do hook a sockeye and decide to play it, you can get it back to spawning quickly. You can also break a hook off much easier with a heavy righ. I still think the best approach is to just point the rod and pop the line and get back to fishing. Heck 50% of the time you get the hook back, anyway.

Another approach to fishing up there that won't hook as nearly as many salmon is to avoid the spawners and fish flesh or mice around structure and target rainbows and bigger dollies. Dollies look very cool but they really don't hold a candle to wild rainbows for fight, jumping, etc. After the Kings are done spawning I generally don't fish egg patterns anymore as I really prefer catching rainbows with flesh, and rainbows are much more selective towards flesh than dollies. This approach generally works best after the Kings die off, it generally isn't as effective when there isn't any flesh in the system.

As an alternative, you can swing/skate glo-bugs on the surface, where dollies will chase them. It is a really fun way to catch dollies, it's deadly effective, and you hardly ever hook salmon this way.

Regardless of how you fish it is important to be cognizant of the redds and to stay out of them while wading. Smashing up the redds while wading will cause more harm than fighting a few fish while accidentally hooking them.

I hope this info is helpful.

-John

[dtp916]

Darian,

I"m sorry my manners aren't up to your par As you said, think about all the times we have had long discussions about targeting any spawning fish.

BigBull,

I thought Doc was targeting bows and dollies which were holding below the Sockeyes. he did also mention that the Sockeyes gave a pretty weak fight so I was lead to believe that he wasn't targeting them.

Both - don't you think if Doc was fishing for Sockeyes he'd have 1) more pictures of Sockeyes, 2) Chrome bright fish since he lives in a fish mecca and 3) prorbably wouldn't post pics of spawning socks caught on a relatively conservative fly fishing message board? Not to mention the title would be Sockeyes instead of Dollies and he'd post it under the Steelhead/Salmon section?


Honestly I was just kidding around when I wrote a short answer. I guess my "abrupt/ trite" answers are hard for some to digest.

Personally, I don't condone fishing for spawning salmon. Personally I hardly even fish for salmon. But I have hooked spawners when fishing for trout behind the redds. I've also caught tons of kokanee when trying to tie into browns and bows feeding on eggs.

Ethical? Like bigtj said, who knows, and more importantly, who am I to say what's ethical for other people to do.

[DocEsox]

I definitely considered it unethical to target spawning fish....period. Inadvertent hooking as John says is unavoidable and I generally follow his sage advice and just straight line them and try to pop them off immediately. But occassionally if they don't fight much I will work them in quick and unhook them.....didn't realize this would get people's knickers in such a twist. BTW virtually all this fishing on the smaller streams, like Quartz Creek is sight fishing.... you can always spot the dollies sitting down in behind the salmon but they are pretty close at times. How come no one gets after the brownies for endlessly catching spawning salmon????

Brian

[PaulC]

Quartz is a beautiful stretch of river along with the Russian.
I noticed the same thing with the dollies in close when I was out there a few years ago.
Great report. Hope to make it out there again sometime.
-Paul

[BigBill]

Thanks for all the info guys. There is a lot of knowledge on this board!

[roostersgt]

Awesome report and pics. I'm curious. I read in one of my magazines awhile back about Alaskan guides "pegging" a bead an inch or so above a a hook when fishing for 'bows and such. Were you guys using this "pegged bead" set-up? It looks like it from some of the pics, but I can't tell for certain. Did you try streamers or nymphs on that stream?

Cheers!