June was excellent on the Kenai River with numerous daily limits of kings. At times, lines would go out just to get buried when we clicked them off seconds after hitting the water. Ann and Bob, Mike, KK and LK, John and Mary all had a seat in that action. The smaller peninsula creeks also produced excellent catches of kings from 10 to 30lbs, though not the sizzling dozen a day like 2005's opener.
After a hot June, July got off to a warm start. This was in part due to liberalized regulations that opened the Kenai River to bait (and higher success rates) in mid June instead of the established July 1st opening. However, most of the big fish this year were caught in July and there were daily catches of quality kings on the Kenai River on all but a couple trips. Honorable mention goes to Gary, the Stanford party, and a couple of the Powers/Slay group's fish.
I had a break between groups and we had a gentleman from Japan arriving to do some casting for kings (instead of trolling). Always looking for exceptional and diverse fishing opportunities for our guests, I headed down to a lower Kenai Peninsula stream that had quietly been re-opened. When these little rivers open during May and June, they are packed with fisherman. Since the printed regulations said the river was closed, nobody was fishing when I arrived. After pulling a fish out of the first hole, I headed upriver to avoid giving away the secret that the river had been re-opened. Fresh kings had still been entering the stream and I caught numerous kings ranging from 5 to 35lbs.
A few days later, I returned early under dark and rainy skies with our Japanese fishing guest. Once again, we had it all to ourselves! We found kings in virtually every hole and had one of the best days of salmon fishing I've ever had. Within a week, others had figured out the river was open too. My nephew, Tino, as well as our South African guests, got a piece of the action before it was over.