Fly fishing for Kings. Chums and SockeyeSalmon on the Kanektok River Alaska

Our guide - Ryno holds up Mike's monster King Salmon. Like almost all our Salmon this beauty was released. We did keep two small Kings (under twenty pounds) one day as we were the designated "Dinner getters."

If we wanted to get a photo of the fish, we had to beach the boat and land it from shore, otherwise we would just pull it up beside the boat and our guide would quickly release it. They use the Teeny hook release which worked great to remove the hook without touching or harming the fish.

When hooked, these Kings would go crazy and you never knew which way they would go next. We had doubles on several times - that was wild!

This King was not even close to being ready -as it took off again when it saw the boat.

After catching several nice Kings on our fly rods on day one, we thought we would try something the locals call "back bouncing ." This type of fishing is only available a few weeks of the year - during the times fresh Kings are still coming in on the tides. This fishing method is not for everyone, but is just one of the many options available during certain times.

I can tell you that for us - this was a SUPER kind of fishing. Not that we are not fly fishing fanatics - because we are... but this fishing was fishing like we had never experienced before. Maybe it's because we had spent many years chasing salmon in the salt or maybe it's because we just liked catching fish after fish after fish. I don't know, but back bouncing was more fun than... I don't know, but it was FUN!!!

After catching something in the neighborhood of 20 Kings - the smallest about 18 pounds - the largest about 35... I was ready to call it a day - at least for Kings... we still had a few hours left. So - we headed to the Teeny Bar (not a drinking bar, but a fishing spot, though a drinking bar would have been nice too) on our way back to camp. It was about a 30 minute run to the bar, this gave our arms a chance to rest. We decided to catch a few Sockeyes and Chums to finish off our day.

Click the fish to navigate forward or back.