Salmon and Trophy Trout Adventure Package

Fall Trophy Trout & Salmon Fishing Package

Available August 10 - October 31
1 to 7 Days

Our Salmon & Trophy Trout Packages are our fall speciality. This is one of our favorite times of the year with pockets of golden cottonwoods and bright yellow birches are starting to show on the hillsides and riverbanks. The fireweed has lost its magenta flowers, but the leaves have turned all sorts of reds.The crowds of July and early August have dwindled we focus or attention on silver salmon, football sized rainbow-trout, and barn-door halibut.There may not be another river in the world that produces a large, girthy, native trout population like the Kenai River.

Our recommended trips combine a focus on trophy trout and silver salmon on both Kenai River and Kasilof Rivers. We also recommend that we add a multi-species halibut trip to these itineraries as well. Like all of our fishing packages, these trips are just our suggestions but we are happy to make substitutions and add or subtract days from the itinerary as necessary.

Upper Kenai River Kenai River Trophy Trout
Kasilof River Trophy Trout & Steelhead
Kenai River silver salmon
Kasilof River silver salmon
Halibut, rockfish, and lingcod

Upper Kenai River Trophy Trout

With 82 miles of river to fish we can spend multiple days on the Kenai River and never see the same section twice. The Upper Kenai River is known of it’s legendary fall trout fishery and there’s a reason we call them footballs. After millions of sockeye salmon, silver salmon, sockeye salmon, and on even numbered years, pink salmon have spawned in the 82 miles of river there is no shortage of food for these year-round resident fish.

Kenai River rainbow trout fishing is some of the best in the world due to the millions of salmon that return to its rivers each summer. Rainbow trout devour the eggs and carcasses from spawning salmon, this incredible food source allows Alaska rainbow trout to reach epic proportions. Every summer brings one of the largest salmon runs in the world to the Kenai River and while we're always disappointed to see it come to an end, it also marks the beginning of one of our favorite fisheries of the year – rainbow trout and dolly varden fishing on the Kenai River.

The Kenai River and Kasilof Rivers are some of the best trout fisheries in Alaska with 10lb rainbow trout frequently in the net. It's not uncommon to catch 25-30 of these in a day. Occasionally we'll even get lucky enough to break that magical 30″. Experiencing the battle of a wild, native, Kenai River rainbow trout will turn your once in a lifetime Alaska fishing trip into an annual event.

In the fall starting around August 15th we can do combo trips target silver salmon and trout on the same day and we can use nearly all 82 miles of the Kenai River to do it. Mid-August through November is the absolute best time to fish for trophy rainbows on the Kenai River because it coincides with the majority of the salmon spawn. Kenai River rainbow trout first target the massive amount of eggs rolling down river as the salmon spawn. Once the salmon having finished spawning and start to die off, the trout transition to eating flesh. We modify our fishing techniques in exactly the same way moving from egg indicators to flesh flies.

Kasilof River Trout & Steelhead

The Kasilof River is one of the most underrated rivers and fisheries in Alaska. It’s located just 12 miles south of the Kenai River and this river would be a lot more famous if it weren’t sitting so close to the mighty Kenai River. While the fish aren’t quite as large as the Kenai River genetics it has an amazing king salmon, sockeye salmon, and silver salmon run. What’s also really great about this river is that it’s fish start arrive a couple weeks or so before they do on the Kenai. While the techniques and salmon runs of the Kasilof River are very similar to the Kenai River salmon the day on the water could not be more different.

The Kasilof River is fed by the 8th largest lake in Alaska – Tustamena lake. 26 miles long, 6 miles wide, and 1000 feet deep. We fish this river a lot – because we love it. On the Kasilof River we leave the zooming, wake creating power boats behind as this is a drift boat only river. With no motors, no wakes, we fish all 18 miles of this river.

The Kasilof run of fall steelhead that begin arriving in late August and will continue to enter the river system through Octoboer and into parts of November. This fishery is catch-and-release only and as such has remained very healthy over the years.

Trip duration will be around 6-7 hours in length with departure times at various times throughout the day. Generally we can do morning, mid morning, noon, and early afternoon.

Kenai River Silver Salmon

Trading out our salmon beads and flesh flies we’ll switch over to trolling plugs wrapped in herring and eggs behind spin-n-glows as we target The Kenai River Silver Salmon. Silver salmon are very aggressive and will readily strike at these lures. Fishing is generally better in the early mornings and it’s amazing to be fishing for these chrome fish on the lower river as the sun begins to rise and light up the river. Peaceful and magical is one of the best ways to describe it.

We're able to target both the Kasilof River and Kenai River for Silvers starting around August 15th and continuing through the first week of October. Both of these rivers have an excellent Silver Salmon run. The Kasilof River provides a beautiful and serene fishery in a drift boat while on the Kenai River we will primarily use power boats although the upper Kenai River is a great option and that section of River is drift boat only.

Homer Multi-species Halibut Fishing

These multi-species halibut trips are one of the most amazing fishing trips anywhere in the world. That’s a pretty bold claim right? But where else can you target massive halibut, massive lingcod, beautiful yellow-eye rockfish (Alaska has 30 different species of rockfish alone!), and king salmon all in one day of fishing? Enough said right? The number of different species we can target is dependent upon the dates so we’ll let you know what trips are available at the time of booking. All 4 species (Halibut, Lingcod, rockfish, and salmon) starts July 1st. However, you don’t have to do all 4 species as we also offer 2 species and 3 species trips if you would prefer.

Most of our trips will originate out of Homer – the halibut capital of the world. These are early start mornings usually leaving around 6:30-7:00AM. The ride out to the fishing grounds takes between 45 minutes and 2 hours depending upon the weather and the type of halibut fishing trip you're interested in.

We will always target filling the limits of halibut first. Once we get to our fishing grounds for the day we'll look to anchor the boat, drop down a chumbag full of herring, salmon and other fish oils and scents and then it won't be long before the bite is on! It's not uncommon to have several rods going off all at one time. Once we've finished halibut fishing we'll move on to the lingcod/rockfish areas. Finally, after those fish have been caught we'll troll for Kings and Silvers depending upon the time of year.

At the end of the day, once we've motored back to Homer and the crazy epic pictures have been taken, your fish will be filleted and provided to you in bags which we'll then vacuum seal, label and freeze in preparation for your trip home. We always like to say the fishing trip isn't over until you've stopped by the world famous Salty Dawg Saloon for a cold one and some equally world famous merchandise.