The Kenai Peninsula's Cook Inlet - Kachemak Bay supports a saltwater king salmon troll fishery year 'round...providing you can tough the cold temperatures of winter to get out. Those chinook which are found in our waters from the end of summer to the end of March are referred to as feeder kings, i.e. those fish who have one or more years remaining in saltwater before returning to their home waters to spawn and die. They range from one year old 12"-16" fish to those 3 years or more which can exceed 30 pounds.

These feeders remain in the area even during the spring and summer fishing season when Alaska's mature king salmon begin to return to the dozens of streams which flow into Cook Inlet. One of the historical staging areas and migration routes is along the Kenai Peninsula beaches from Bluff Point just north of Homer all the way up the Inlet to the mouth of the Kenai River. Over the past 30 years, a growing sport fishery has occurred primarily from Anchor Point to Ninilchik River where a great number of kings gather before entering these lower Peninsula streams where they were born. At the same time, kings that are part of the Kasilof/Crooked Creek and Kenai River early king salmon runs also move through this section of coastline, providing even more opportunities for catching a king salmon in saltwater.

As you can see by the charts and their historical data, there isn't a large number of chinook taken compared to what is caught by stream fishermen in the freshwater fisheries of the Anchor River, Deep Creek, Ninilchik River, Kasilof River and Kenai River. But the magic attraction is the opportunity to try for kings for a few hours of trolling before heading out into the middle of Cook Inlet at slack tide to fish for halibut, the primary target species of most saltwater anglers during the summer months.

Klondike Kid