If you slept in, you missed the first kings of the year in Ship Creek.
The popular downtown Anchorage Ship Creek king salmon fishery normally does not hit full stride until early June. But several anglers have landed the first Ship kings of this year on Monday and Tuesday.
The first öfficial” verified king was Monday evening, a chrome 21-pound hen Chinook caught by a bait fisherman on the incoming tide. But we were doing our own field research Monday evening and lost our own “first fish of the year” a couple of hours earlier. Tuesday morning we saw three bright fish landed.
Don’t rush to the creek expecting fast action or many fish. These are the small early vanguard of what should be another promising run of urban king salmon. Runs of kings have improved over the past several years as production from the new hatchery upstream has increased.
Reminder that the fishery is open 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. and the one-king-per-day limit applies to the 5-king Cook Inlet annual limit.
That said, it’s a promising start to a year that’s had too much negative king salmon news.
— Lee Leschper
