Alaska rainbow trout fishing …..does it GET any better than this? Alaska has some of the best rainbow trout fishing found anywhere in the world. From small local streams near Anchorage to the prolific waters of the Lake Iliamna drainage, Alaska rainbow trout fishing is second to none. Most of the remote fisheries have an abundance of wild native rainbow trout. A few of the fisheries near Anchorage do have a stocking program to enhance these fisheries. But, to catch a true wild – and very large—rainbow trout, the angler should head to the famed waters of Lake Iliamna. More specifically, the Kvichak River, which connects Lake Iliamna to Bristol Bay. This river has a very large population of ALASKA’s largest RAINBOW TROUT and is in ALASKA’s only designated trophy RAINBOW TROUT area.
How to catch Alaska Rainbow Trout
Each spring, shortly after the ice goes out, millions of baby salmon, or smolt, leave the lake system and head to the ocean to grow to mature salmon. These smolt provide a tremendous amount of food source for the hungry rainbows that have just finished spawning themselves. The smolt must travel from Lake Iliamna through the Kvichak to Bristol Bay. These aggressive babies will lie in waiting for the smolt in the first few miles of the Kvichak. Anglers will want to imitate these smolt during the month of June. For the fly fishermen, that will mean using a smolt pattern, a woolly bugger pattern, or any other streamer pattern that includes some flash of silver, blue, and white. These patterns must be fished sub-surface with a 9-foot leader. All the flies should be weighted. For the spin fishermen, the best technique in the spring is to use a spoon that imitates a smolt. That means using a 2″ to 4″ spoon. A downstream “troll” is extremely effective as this imitates the smolt out migration. Anglers in the spring can expect good catches. Kvichak river ones will average 24″-28″ in the spring and a fly fisherman can expect to hook into 12-15 fish a day. The spin fishermen can expect to hook into 15-20 fish a day in the spring. By mid-August the salmon have started spawning throughout the Lake Iliamna streams. This means they are ferociously gobbling up any loose egg they can find. They will have put on considerable size from the spring and this is the time that the 15-pound fish are caught. The fly fisherman will want to have sin-tip line and floating line. Contact Us today for more info on catching these big boys!
