Looking at the Numbers…

I’m starting to get sockeye questions now,  even though we’re still deep into the steelhead run this year.  2007 was a very late steelhead run as well,  so if we’re to compare 2007 to 2012,  we’re still running another week or two later than that!  Here is what 2007 looked like in July for steelhead:

Date	Count	Cumulative	Notes
Jul-22	14	12,438
Jul-21	12	12,424
Jul-20	0	12,412
Jul-19	1	12,412
Jul-18	1	12,411
Jul-17	6	12,410
Jul-16	1	12,404
Jul-15	0	12,403
Jul-14	0	12,403
Jul-13	0	12,403
Jul-12	1	12,403
Jul-11	28	12,402
Jul-10	48	12,374
Jul-09	8	12,326
Jul-08	0	12,318
Jul-07	6	12,318
Jul-06	5	12,312
Jul-05	59	12,307
Jul-04	6	12,248
Jul-03	5	12,242
Jul-02	63	12,237
Jul-01	25	12,174

Obviously,  June will still have a LOT of steelhead in the river,  although the majority of them will be spawning.  There will be plenty that are NOT spawning,  so pick your location to fish wisely.  We are also NOT looking at a 12,000+ kelt fish count this year…

Sockeye fishing on June 2nd, 2011

The sockeye run in 2007 took till June 15th to break the 1000+ fish mark through the weir.  There were pockets of good fish down below the weir for weeks earlier than that though.  Not enough to entertain multiple groups of fishermen,  but one or two could have a very good time down below the Rodeo Hole from June 1st on.  Here is early June,  2007 for the sockeye counts:

Jun-15	269	1,072
Jun-14	109	803
Jun-13	0	694
Jun-12	3	694
Jun-11	152	691
Jun-10	247	539
Jun-09	11	292
Jun-08	0	281
Jun-07	8	281
Jun-06	256	273
Jun-05	6	17
Jun-04	3	11
Jun-03	4	8
Jun-02	3	4
Jun-01	0	1
May-31	1	1

A typical sockeye fly selection, from June 4th, 2011

Here is the bad news though…  Sockeye are a 4 or 5 year fish.  A pretty sizable number of fish returning this season came from the 2008 spawn – the worst return in the history of counting on the Situk and the only year they did not see at least the minimum escapement goal reached.  Some of this year’s crop will be from 2007 parents  and 2007 reached an escapement of 61,360 through the weir as of August 13th,  when they took the weir out.  As bad as the 2008 numbers look with a total count of 22,522,  they had to take the weir out that year on July 24th because of flooding.  There should have been an additional three weeks of counting – an additional 21,000 sockeye were counted in 2007 after July 24th.  The run may not have been as bad as it looks on the cumulative total for 2008.  In other words,  we probably did reach the 40,000 goal,  but no one was there to count them after July 24th.  If no one is on the river to hear them,  do they make a sound?!?!

 

June 9th, 2011 – pulling another one out from the pool, this was an odd spot for sockeye fishing but they were thick enough in there to react well to our dead drifted flies.  Do these waders make Matt’s butt look big?

 

The local Fish and Game biologists have not produced their 2012 forecasts yet.  They had to put that off with the massive workload created by the Board of Fish meeting earlier in the year.  Looking at the numbers and not being a biologist (or an environmentalist fly shop owner…),  my guess is that we’ll see a mediocre sockeye run this year around 50,000 through the weir.  Far short of the 90,000 fish count we had last year in 2011,  but right around par for the 2010 run with 47,000.

June 3rd, 2011 – there were still plenty of steelhead especially above the weir, but we wanted one for the table and this sockeye was willing to commit suicide for our pleasure.

I’m not a fisheries biologist and I don’t play one on TV.  2007 was an OK run,  the 2008 run sucked.  Sockeye are a 4 and/or 5 year fish.  You can do that math too…

The great thing about June is that NO ONE is here! I get to leave Teen and Eden to work the shop and spend most of the month goofing off on the river. This year, we’ll have far more steelhead still in the river than sockeye. Bummer… I’ll have to fish for both of them all in the same trip…

Dispelling Icy Rumors

Over the past week,  I have heard a couple rumors about an ice dam on Situk Lake potentially causing flooding at the lake cabin and Hubbard Glacier is nearly closing off the fiord.  Since things are so slow around the shop this week,  Teen and I took to the air to check things out.  Here’s what we saw…

Just off the end of the runway at the mouth of the Ahrnklin Inlet- big blowdown damage from the big winter storm in January.

Passing by 9 Mile Bridge… You can see much of the snow is gone now. This first batch of photos is from Teen and she couldn’t get the flash to turn off…

More window reflections, but you can see the river outlet is completely ice-free. A little ice left to the right of the outlet, but very little. That’ll be gone in a few more days.

OK, here is the “money shot” of the lake outlet, except Teen put the strut right in the way… OOPS!  Either way,  you can see the opening is totally devoid of ice.

 Now on to Hubbard…  Yes,  it looks kind of close,  but the gap is pretty normal of late.  It will NOT be closing off this year.

My camera now… Coming up into Disenchantment Bay

The crevassed surface of Hubbard Glacier

Gilbert Point, with Hubbard in the foreground – that’s “the gap”…

The whole glacier continues to advance, but the tidal surges through the gap keep the narrow opening… open…

The glacier and Gilbert Point could fit together like a perfect set of puzzle pieces, but the tidal surges undercut the face of the glacier and keep it clear. You’d need a REALLY quick surge to slam it closed and we’re too late in the season now for that to happen.

Henke Island AKA Egg Island. This is where we do a lot of camping when I do kayaking trips up to Hubbard.

And in a backhanded defense of Teen’s photography skills… this is my shot of the whale we flew over…

Thank you my dear, for coming along with me… not just on today’s flight but the WHOLE journey!

 

How Late will the Steelhead be Running???

Rick asked the following question and since the WordPress interface wouldn’t let me reply with an image,  I’ll post a response here…

“ How late can we anticipate the late steelhead run to last in the lower Situk and do you think the sockeye run will be late also?”

Here is what the last 5 years look like…

 

Purple is 2007,  green 2008,  blue 2009,  black 2010 and red 2011.  ’10 and ’11 are throw-aways,  since those runs were early,  or on time…  These are the counts going through the weir,  so outgoing surviving kelts.  Three out of 5 years,  we still had a lot of steelhead in the river system,  however they were busy digging redds and spawning through June.  Not necessarily what we’d want to be fishing over.  With that said,  we are seeing an even later run this year than anything on the weir web site.  We are seeing really good fresh fish coming in daily right now (the 20^th of May) and it will take those fish as much as a month to get into spawning mode.  The majority of fish have not even begun to spawn yet.  NONE have been seen leaving the river yet and the graph shows we should be seeing between 10 and 200 outgoing kelts daily now!  My guess this year is that we’ll have good steelheading on non-spawning fish through mid-June.  You’ll have to bypass a lot of fish that are spawning to find the pockets of non-spawners,  but there will be good fishing on “the right kind” of steelhead probably through the end of June this year…

As for the sockeye run,  no idea yet if/or how late that run is going to be.  They are operating on a completely different set of triggers and they crave colder water.  We’ll have better sockeye runs with colder cycles,  where steelhead are harmed by the colder water.  We’re only talking a degree or two to have an effect,  but this year we definitely are seeing good sockeye salmon conditions (for future runs) and tougher steelhead conditions.  I have heard rumors that the commercial king returns north of us are behind schedule,  so perhaps the salmon runs will also be late here.  Not sure yet though.  Not a single sockeye has ventured into the Situk that I know of yet though…

For sockeye – 2007,  2010 and 2011 were “on time”,  while 2008 was about a week late (and very weak).  2009 was about two weeks earlier than “normal”,  with strong sockeye numbers arriving as of June 1st.  “Normal” seems to be about June 14th when we reach the 1000+ number through the weir.

New Additions to the WWII Collection

 

The primary focus of the Alaska Warbird Museum will (hopefully) be warbirds…  Since I’m not exactly a wealthy benefactor,  I haven’t been taking advantage of the poor economy to buy up cheap warbirds.  Oh,  the opportunities that we’re missing out on,  with the values of warbirds falling off a cliff over the past few years…  Oh well.  If anyone wants to help me buy some really cool airplanes,  let me know…  There is a gorgeous Wildcat for sale right now!

What I can afford to collect are original government propaganda posters.  I have posted photos of a handful of the ones we have acquired recently,  but here is another batch:

Sullivan Brothers as propaganda subject in 1943

All five Sullivan brothers died in the sinking of the USS Juneau off the Solomon Islands.  Back in 1943,  the US government couldn’t just print more money.  To raise funds for the war effort,  they had to sell war bonds to the public.  The Sullivan story was a sad event in American history and resulted in rule changes where family members could no longer serve together.  Unfortunately,  they became an icon of WWII for very tragic reasons.

More on the Sullivans and the USS Juneau:

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-j/cl52.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Juneau_(CL-52)

http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/j5/juneau-i.htm

http://www.navsource.org/archives/04/052/04052.htm

Local southeast Alaska connection to the USS Juneau from the Juneau Empire:
http://juneauempire.com/stories/072708/loc_310223694.shtml

War bond drives weren’t the only use for propaganda…  “Educating” the public about spies in our midst,  inspiring you to work harder at your job,  how to save tin and rubber for the war effort,  or instructing you on the merits of planting a Victory Garden (so food supplies could be sent overseas)…  Here are some examples I have recently obtained for our collection:

Not exactly a very sexy image, but with most of the American workforce tied up in other endeavors, women, children and the elderly were just about the only semi-abled bodies left to harvest food. Imagine getting the youth today to put their %$#@ iPhones down, stop protesting Wall Street and help feed the world…

The United Nations didn’t exist yet in 1942, but that didn’t stop our government leaders from promoting the idea to the American public early and often.

After the League of Nations debacle following WWI,  “we” wanted a stronger league that would promote peace and understanding,  while eliminating war…  How’s that working for us?

Lovely caricatures of Tojo and Hitler

Linking the today of 1943 with our vaulted Revolutionary past… You too can be remembered with Washington, Knox and Green.  Except this time we were saving England instead of fighting them…

This image isn’t exactly “inspiring”, even if that was your son crawling to his death…

One of my all-time favorites!!!

2012 Steelhead Survival Rates

Talking with Brian Marston again at the local Fish and Game office,  I had some concerns about our grossly delayed spring steelhead run.  In past conversations,  Brian has said that colder than normal water temperatures can increase the mortality rate of the kelts.  We have an extremely cold spring water temp on the Situk,  so I asked him his thoughts on how this would affect our future returns.

Water temperature graph trending downward throughout April and early May, 2012

He confirmed that we should expect to see a lower survival rate this year due to colder temperatures,  but will this spell a smaller run for the 2013 season?  Not necessarily.  During the peak fishing pressure window this spring,  there were few fish in the river.  Fewer fish were landed,  therefore fewer fish were fought to exhaustion.  Right now as the peak of the run seems to be arriving,  there are not many anglers on the river.  Fewer anglers means fewer fish hooked and molested,  therefore fewer fish will die from being caught.

So…  one factor (cold water temperature) is expected to increase mortality,  while another factor (low angler pressure) is expected to increase survival.  We’ll probably just have a wash,  with the two factors cancelling each other out.

The spring fish have greater fat stores and are able to recover better from the harm caused from handling by fishermen.  The winter fish have been here in fresh water for 5-6 months and have exhausted their reserves long before any fishermen see them.  With 2012′s cold river water,  their spawning was further delayed – exposing the fish to more otter predation in the river and physical exertion to stay in the current.  The cold water is hurting the winter fish much more than the spring run and their survival rates should reflect that.

Proud Fatherly Moments

As a non-environmentalist fly shop owner,  I can’t take pleasure in saving the spotted bull weevil,  but I can have some personal moments that make me happy.  As a fly fisherman,  you gradually progress through the various phases of hooking your first fish,  then hooking the first fish on a fly you personally tied, etc.  Then,  since I’m a dad and I involve my kids in a lot more than I probably should…  the first time I hooked a fish with a fly each of my kids tied was another one of those flyfishing milestones and great moments in fatherhood for me.

This morning,  I had a guy come though the shop who wanted to make sure I told Eden that he had fished with one of her flies and the cutthroat on Tawah hammered it!  I am practically giddy whenever someone chooses to support my kids’ efforts and then comes back with a good story of how well their fly worked.  It encourages them to keep it up and to inspire their own entrepreneurial work ethic.  Last fall out on the Italio,  Tanis had created a couple poppers he fashioned out of orange foam ear plugs…  You bet they caught fish!

If you have that opportunity,  get your kids and/or grandkids tying flies.  There’s more to it than just keeping them entertained for the few minutes it takes to make a fly.  It could even inspire them to spend their life outdoors instead of glued to the TV,  or iPad.

The Internationally Renowned Tsiu Carrot…

 

 

This fly was featured in Salmon, Trout and Steelhead magazine a couple years ago, after Eden (at 7) tied an ugly orange fly up and sold it to Robert Campbell, who named it and was kind enough to include it in the photo spread. You guys are so great!

 

The Earplug Popper in the hands of Greg (one of my clients) and the mouth of a nice silver hen…

The best part of living here in Yakutat is being able to share this life with my kids and to also be able to share the things that are truly meaningful to me with some of you.  The first time I hiked into Italio Falls,  I wanted to keep that place hidden and a secret…  Then I learned how fulfilling it is to share these things with others that “get it”.

Thanks for helping me live this life.

Another Batch of Spring Steelhead Photos

I have some photos from Roy’s pre-storm trip a week ago.  Hope you enjoy them.  The river has dropped back down to 544 CFS as of mid-day today,  with the spring run finally arriving now that all the fishermen have come and gone.

It is amazing how much snow we had just a week ago…

He titled this photo “High Water”… Um, nope. That came a few days later, when the river was over the banks at 1630 CFS. They only had about 400 CFS to contend with…

And now the obligatory trophy shots… Chrome-bright!

Another chromer

Do all these fish look identical to you? Are they just handing it back and forth for the photos?

Well, these look different.

Like I said,  most people have already come and gone for the spring run.  Now,  the run is finally coming in.  Timing on the steelhead run can really be a craps shoot and this year it is coming in very late.  One of the Fish and Game guys popped in today and heavily suggested I get my butt out on the river NOW.  More on that later…