Thanks Joshua! We are going to have a lot of videos this year. They should get even better.

The first sockeye salmon run in Cooper Landing will be over by then. The second run will be underway but considerably fewer fish make it / migrate to the Russian. I would head down to the Soldotna area (about a 45-60 min drive) and fish the Kenai. The second sockeye salmon run will be taking place during the time you are here. Quite a few public access areas in Soldotna to get in the river. Second run sockeyes are generally considerably larger than 1st run fish.

Totally agree with @AlaskaLivingToday but you can still get your limit at the confluence where they were fishing early in this video. Easiest way to do that is to take the ferry across at Sportsman’s Landing. Parking at Russian River campground is an option too but you’ll have to walk some and wade across the Russian (water level can change so difficulty can vary - low when they did it but I fished a few days later and it was much higher). Good luck!

I was parked in the “grayling” parking lot and then walked down river from the river access point there.

It's a bit of a walk from the Grayling Carpark, about a half a mile (0.8km). You also have to go up/down a significant amount of stairs to get down to the water from that carpark. Here is a link to the Russian River Campground page. You will see a link to the map under the cost for entrance information. www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/chugach/recarea/?recid=6647 You might want to consider driving down to the Russian River Ferry and crossing there. It's just a little bit below the confluence, but the walking would be much less and more manageable. It is great fishing at that location as soon as you get across the river on the ferry. alaskarm.com/russian-river-ferry/

It always starts out at 3 on the Russian and Kenai rivers. Once they get a gauge of how strong the run is, and they get closer to their escapement goals, they will raise the limit accordingly. They ended up raising it to 6 about 4 days after we fished and yesterday they raised it to 9. Very strong first run this year.

@@AlaskaLivingToday Thanks

I tie my own flies for this, but you can also buy ones that are made for the Russian River at most Alaskan sporting goods stores. You can see the fly that I tie and my overall setup in my tutorial video kzfaq.info/get/bejne/nsuXn9R6nc23ook.html

No problem George! I wouldn’t exactly call the Russian River the “Alaskan Wilderness”, but if you haven’t made your dream a reality in almost six decades you likely never would have. One less fisherman on the river works for all the rest of us 😂

​@AlaskaLivingToday you aren't fishing. You're snagging is what he is getting at. I understand spawning salmon don't bite and are coming there to die but most people that only fish for 10 inch stocked trout can't understand you're there for food.

@georgepretnick4460 there's literally a boardwalk there, that isn't Alaskan "Wilderness"

June 2023

That’s actually not correct. While you can’t keep foul hooked ones you can remove them from the water. Not removing fish from the water only applies to Kings and Silvers and only in some situations for the silvers.