Spring seems to have come to Southeast Alaska early this year. There are flowers blooming, skunk cabbage popping up, birds chirping, and wild salmon fry out migrating into the salt water almost a month earlier than usual.
With the nice weather we had a few weeks ago, the wild salmon fry around Sheep Creek began their pulse out of the creek and into the creek estuary. There, they are hanging around feeding on zoo plankton, and trying not to be devoured by the early Dolly Varden that have been seen scooting around town.
Although typically April is too early for the Dolly Varden and Cutthroat to be actively feeding on salmon fry, this year seems to be the exception. So, now is the time to dust off your trout rod and reels, and hit the creek estuaries around town using small bait fish and fry patterns.
We have heard rumors of spring steelhead moving into the creeks around town, with no photographs to prove it. However, now is the time of year that they typically show up, so it would be worth poking around the road system to find out. Try using small nymphing flies such as the Money Bug and the Sitkoh Prince, 10-14mm beads in pink, red, and orange tones, and large flies such as the Egg Sucking Leech and the Dolly Llama.
We just want to remind everyone who is targeting wild steelhead off of the Juneau road system to please use safe catch and release tactics, because all of these steelhead are catch and release only.
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