Anchor River Steelhead

One of the many locations I have looked into fishing over the years is the Fall run of steelhead on the Anchor River in Southcentral Alaska. This river located on the Sterling River Highway has the largest run of steelhead in the region, once estimated at around 4000 fish. With increased pressure over the years and overlapping runs of silver salmon, many of these fish are not able to make it through Spring and onto their spawning grounds. Many are mistaken for silvers and harvested before they spend much time in freshwater. Not long ago I actually had a conversation with a friend who witnessed this while fishing the river mouth. Many of the people fishing this river as well as its neighboring Deep Creek and Ninilchik are not educated enough regarding the differences of these two species.

Despite catch and release regulations since 1989, these runs of fish are getting smaller and smaller. Read more about the plight of this run of fish and what is being done to prevent their loss courtesy of the Fairbanks Daily News.