Denali National Park

[flynhokies]

any of yall been there before? i will be going in august and i'm wondering about the fishing opportunities in the park. from what i have gathered thus far it looks like there are nice glacial rivers full of arctic grayling.

[phg]

I've been a bit south of there in Talkeetna, but we didn't get quite as far as Denali, although we did try one day.  It had rained the night before, and the creeks were impassable on the backroads we were traveling.  We were promised greyling and dollies, as well as a few hearty rainbows.  For the most part, the salmon don't migrate that far upstream.

[TroutBumNT]

I fished some of those glacial streams in Denali several years ago and caught zip, the water has so much sediment in it, it is gray. Later during that trip one of the park rangers told me that there were no fish in those streams due to the amount of sediment and 32-33 degree water. Did pretty well on some of the clear
streams along the highway from Wasila to Denali though. Grayling and rainbows. One of them had several sockeye, too but did not fish for them.

[flynhokies]

well damn...a friend and i are going with his family and i think we will be fairly confined to activities in/around the park, which doesnt look good for the fishing 

[Woolly Bugger]

there are a lot of little 'creeks' that flow into the Sustna River, the ones that are glacier won't hold fish, there are others that run clear and do hold trouts and salmon runs...

there are fly fishing outfiters near the park, like http://www.justflyfish.net/photogallery.html, i dou t that they will give up much info to a non paying fisherman...

I'd call around anyway, you're not looking for any secret streams just a few access points to catch a rain ow or grayling or two...

From Alaska Fly Fishing Network:

Another great location is at the Brushkana River on the western end of the Denali  Highway, MP 104 (about 20 miles East of Cantwell). Again, there is a nice camping area. There are no services in this area, however. There are lots of Arctic Grayling in this little stream as well. I have not personally seen anything over 16 inches, but my bet is that there are fish to around 20 inches available if you are willing to hike from the road a ways.

I would recommend a Dry Fly (Size #12 Adams) with a Nymph dropper (#12 BH PT Nymph) hanging about 18 - 24 inches below the Dry Fly. There should be plenty of eager fish.

Note: check regulations for fishing droppers etc...


good luck....