The KeenEye Kronicles finally begin.

316 rod hours for 18 king bites in 8 days of fishing, 9 of them brought to hand. That's over 35 rod hours for each king boated!

Biggest fish of the trip in the high 30's.... never broke 40#, though we did help a fellow digitally document the giant tidewater fire engine that you've all seen the tail-shot of.

First fish brought to hand was actually a 14.5# coho caught by my bro Noel on a wrapped eyeFISH 2005 K-16 Kwik. Boat policy is that ALL Kenai coho MUST die and this beast was no exception.

Is this guy happy or what? We ate three dinners off this porker!

First king of the trip succumbs to Katosan.... a platinum tidewater hen plucked from the Wall on the incoming. Funky Chx scores again and before you know it, we're takin' it to the bank.

I've been anxiously awaiting these Kroinickles.
That's a lot of hours per fish.

As usual though, Beautifully photographed Francis.....

Nice work!!

Hopefully the Kenai returns to it's self someday....

Keith

Great pic's as usual, Doc.

Totally out of curiosity, why must "ALL" coho on the Kenai, die?

I'm not tryting to stir any pot and I understand why you say "ALL" hatchery fish must die. I am just not sure why you are saying that about the Kenai coho.

Thanks again.

Love seeing the pics!

My how things can turn in just a couple of years.

Just for comparison, 2008 was 291 rod hrs for 67 bites and 34 kings to the boat.... about 8.5 rod-hrs per king landed. And those were REAL kings, (many in the 40's and 50's, biggest 64) not the dinkerschitz we caught this year.

2006 was 314 rod hrs for 91 bites and 47 kings brought to hand.... 6.7 rod hours per fish brought to hand. That year we landed three Release-A-Hawg bucks.

I fished the Kenai only one day in 2009, and the boat landed ONE decent king with tons of dinks... including 4 sub-taggable micro-jacks ALL in the SAME day! My brother fished later in the month without me, and he described it as the WORST ever king fishing of his career....... only to be de-throned of that status when 2010 came along. I posted earlier this year about the new Kenai 20.... exemplified by micro-jacks around for a crew of five.... and two solid weeks in July when it was tough to break 10 pounds on the big river. Considering the PRIME fishing conditions afforded our persistent crew, 2010 will go down as our all-time worst in 37 seasons. A famous Kenai guide I know had not caught a real fish out of the Kenai since May 27... willfully canceled all his July bookings before we even got there. BTW he's the guide that caught last year's 90 pounder.

The glory days of the Kenai are CLEARLY past.

Too few fish....
Too small fish....
Entire age-classes missing in action....
The extirpation of Slikok (trib stock) now down to only a handful of hens (16-24 in the past 3 years).....
The depletion of giant 5-ocean fish....

I've been on my "release the bigguns" crusade since 2001. Not sure it's doing much good. Yes there have been some bright spots along the way.... just like a stock market ticker tape.... but overall the trend line is on a progressive downhill slide. Managers and industry seem to feel that as long as a couple big hawgs are plucked out of the gene pool each year, there are no problems... the run is just fine.

My a$$!

2010 will go down as the sentinel year when everyone gets a very RUDE awakening.

Look for a future STS feature on this subject.

Tidewater Kenai silvers losing scales are a HORRIBLE c&r fish. Release mortailty is estimated at about 70%.... an order of magnitude worse than that of Kenai kings.

So, what do think is the bigger culprit? Too liberal sport seasons for too long or mis-managed commercial fisheries?

It's a sad story for sure. Sounds like the river could use a break from both user groups for a couple of fish life cycles.

What is Fish & Game's view up there? Do they see this trend and how dire it's becoming?

Nice pics by the way.

Just like every other river system out there.....

OVERHARVEST

Keith

No doubt Keith. I was just wondering which mode of overharvest was having the bigger impact in the opinion of the Doc'. He has enough years logged there to form a valid opinion.

Regardless of how they are caught, dead is dead. Take away the sport, maybe the commercial makes it. Take away the commercial and maybe sport makes it.

The lack of an age class (old) looks a lot like marine hook and line (troll or sport). It can also be a selective terminal fishery that consistently removes the oldest (largest). This type of loss generally takes years to have its impact show.

If I would have only known the bite was far & in between, I would have left the Clown-Oil reserve at home o-well it kept me warm in the cold rain,,,,,,,, had a great time. Thanks Doc for all you do.

I find it interesting that the most devout C&R fishermen in Washington get to the Kenai peninsula and find it OK to bonk these truly unique fish.

The writing is on the wall. If we as sportsmen don't take the first stand we will all be sitting on the sidelines. Don't forget the Kenai was closed in June and the day it opened the river was a blood bath.

Ok, I'm off my soap box.

Thanks for bringing up the topic of C&R doc!

If the average size of the adults is going down, that's a sure sign of over-fishing, possibly long-term overfishing. It could be from commercial fishing or recreational angling. Or both. If the numbers are going down, that could be due to alot of things. The usual suspects come to mind - habitat loss, natural disaster, change in ocean/near shore conditions, etc.

But if adult size AND abundance are both heading south at the same time - alarm bells should be going off. Big time. Let's hope the folks at ADF&G and the Board of Fisheries have the intestinal fortitude to turn this situation around. The State of Alaska has always taken great pride in it's ability to manage their famous fish populations. That's hard to argue with, given their apparent success. However, this situation might be different. Do they have the ability to shut down the Chinook salmon fishery on the Kenai River for long periods of time if it becomes necessary? Let's hope so.....

Conserving chinook would probably require allowing "too many" sockeye to swim on by. Loss of chinook may be perceived by managers as an OK tradeoff for good sockeye harvests.

Sg

On average the setnets would have to forgo the harvest of 75-100 sockeye for each chinook salmon conserved.

But that's only because of the constraints imposed by clinging to a centuries old gear type.

There is a better way.

Talked to many guides on the river this year. All said the same thing, "worst season they've ever seen" I have to agree, 2008 was bad, 09 was worse, and this one was pitiful. If it wasn't for the great silver and rainbow fishing, I'd sell my boat and go offshore.

I've never seen anyone stand so still with a fish on

Guess I'm under no pressure to write that article. Looks like author Terry Sheely beat me to it. Excellent article in the latest issue of SSJ (Fall 2010) that hit the shelves in the last week or so.