Painter Creek Lodge Fishing Report

June 10, 2011 ... at Painter Creek

Greetings,

Arrived here June 3rd to find lots of snowpack in the mountains, and great water levels in the creek and river. Temps have been in the high 30's to low 50's .... perfect Peninsula weather! We're getting geared up for the upcoming season, which starts July 2nd for us.

I have been communicating with the head Fisheries Biologist in Bristol Bay, and early reports indicate great conditions for returning fish. The water temperature is ideal, and fish are reported already in the Nushagak and at Egigik. Test fisheries from False Pass and other locations are showing good numbers of all species headed this way. All indications point to a great year, especially compared to last season which had record low numbers of both King and Chum salmon.

More updates to follow.

Jon Kent 

Greetings .....

Welcome to The Painter Creek Lodge Fishing Report page! During the summer season I will be uploading reports on anything relevant to our area and operation, including runs of fish, fly patterns, techniques, weather, water conditions, or whatever I find interesting. I'll pass along local Bristol Bay news of events, openings, closings, numbers of fish, etc. I'm excited to be able to offer this to all interested readers!

To recap the past year: We had a great July King run despite multiple system closures in Bristol Bay, most notably the Nushagak, which was totally closed to sport-fishing due to very few returning fish. King salmon numbers in general have been in a steady decline statewide for the past 5 years or so, especially Southeast Alaska drainages. While there is no official reason offered, it is hard to ignore increased commercial fishing pressure, changing climatic conditions, migration patterns, etc. It also doesn't help that too many sport-fishing operations are killing way too many fish. Anyone who has been through the King Salmon or Dillingham airports on a changeover day can't have missed the tonnage of fish boxes being shipped out. It's a no brainer that if you don't release any fish, there's going to be a lot less. A little education would go a long way to helping this problem.

Anyway, we had great bright Chum fishing through July and August, and had great Char fishing, almost all surface action with waking or dry flies. By September, Silvers flooded into our system in big numbers, providing their usual aggressive antics. All in all it was a great year for us at Painter Creek. Oh yeah, we never saw another angler all year, as usual!  Hopefully we'll see you here some day. Stay tuned!

Jon Kent

Painter Creek Lodge

Mid-Winter fishing

The fishing is a little slow right now, in fact, you can call it glacial.