Salmon running
 

When is the best time to cruise Alaska to cath the Salmon running in ketchikan for example?

Salmon run several times during the year, also depends on what kind of salmona you want to catch. Silver, sockeye, King. Check with local outfitters for the best advice. Do you plan on doing a flyout/fish or from river or what?

flyout meaning= bush plane This is the way to go, in my opinion.

One year were were on a cruise June 6-16, we were told it was 2 weeks too early for salmon run. But this may differ from year to year.

Here are charts from Fish & Game specifically for Ketchikan area fresh water (ie, spawning), Ketchikan salt water (ie, near river mouths preparing to spawn) and a third page for the entire state in case you want to see other areas.

I would personally go in June for Kings (chinook) or August or early Sept for Coho (silvers), these are the two best game fish (the Kings get really big, the silvers will take a fly and will jump more than the other species of salmon). Also in Sept I can count on (or at least hope for) big spawning rainbows in the rivers I like to fish. These are actually more fun to fish than salmon in rivers.

The other three salmon species aren't as exciting to me personally as kings and silvers, smaller and not as sporty fighters (but good to eat if caught fresh-run).

If you are doing a cruise then probably the easiest thing to set up is to fish for kings from a charter boat in salt water. Maybe they'll do some halibut fishing too, which is easy to freeze and ship back home. Fresh halibut is $25/lb today in our local fish market :) If fishing streams you'd probably be better flying out like Spiro suggests, which is harder to set up on a cruise because of possible weather delays, etc.

http://www.sf.adfg.state.ak.us/state...m?chart=runktk
http://www.sf.adfg.state.ak.us/state...?chart=runktks
http://www.sf.adfg.state.ak.us/state...tim/runtim.cfm