Knik Arm Fishing Spots

The Knik River region includes the Knik, Matanuska, and Little Susitna Rivers. This area offers a wide variety of fishing for both natural and stocked fish. The Little Susitna offers big natural kings and silvers, while the Knik offers a stocked fishery. Jim’s Creek offers the closest red salmon fishing to Anchorage, while the Nancy Lake Recreation area offers the region’s best pike fishing. Numerous lakes stocked with rainbows, char and grayling also litter this region

Available species: King Salmon, Silver Salmon, Red Salmon, Pink Salmon, Chum Salmon, Rainbow Trout, Dolly Varden, Arctic Grayling, Northern Pike

Hot Spots: Eklutna Tailrace, Jim’s Creek, Little Susitna Boat Launch, Kepler - Bradley Lakes, Nancy Lake, South Rolly Lake

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Fishing Spots

This unique fish­ery, about 25 miles north of Anchor­age, is com­prised of a small, arti­fi­cial eddy of water that comes down from a pow­er plant and con­nects to the main stem, Knik Riv­er. The glacial-fed water looks murky and blue-gray, and there’s very lit­tle cur­rent. While you won’t find much soli­tude here, you can usu­al­ly find a spot to set up a lawn chair for some lazy fish­ing. There’s abun­dant park­ing, too, as well as restrooms.

The Susit­na Riv­er is a major drainage sys­tem in the Denali region. The riv­er flows south from the Susit­na Glac­i­er and the Alas­ka Range and even­tu­al­ly turns west to flow through the Tal­keet­na Moun­tains and then south to Cook Inlet. The Susit­na is not float­able because of Devil’s Canyon down­stream. Access to the his­toric Valdez Creek Mine is on the east side of the Susit­na Riv­er. The mine is now closed and the land is being reclaimed.

On the north side of the bridge is a turn out with good access to Cari­bou Creek Bridge. It’s a good spot to stretch your legs, let the kids skip rocks, or con­tem­plate flow. As Thore­au said ​“He who hears the rip­pling of rivers utter­ly despairs of noth­ing!” If you’re a riv­er run­ner, this is the launch for the Lion’s Head white­wa­ter run. Class III and Class IV water awaits, and you can run this with Nova Guides.

A good dirt road, with plen­ty of pull-outs, leaves the main high­way on the south side of the road. The ​“Alas­com Road” runs four miles across the val­ley floor. There are sev­er­al lakes, stocked with trout and grayling, for fish­er­men, and plen­ty of camp­ing spots. It’s qui­et, and there’s great canoe­ing and bird watch­ing on the lakes. It’s a pop­u­lar week­end des­ti­na­tion for Anchor­age folks, so you might not be alone. And in the fall, you’ll see…  ...more

Avoid the crowds and explore a local favorite. This 6.2‑mile out-and-back trail, locat­ed in Wil­low, Alas­ka, takes trav­el­ers on a wind­ing jour­ney along bore­al for­est floor. The pay­off is at the turn­around point, which fea­tures views of Red Shirt Lake’s shore­line. At the lake, fish for north­ern pike and keep an ear out for loons, which fre­quent the area.

The Chick­aloon Riv­er runs strong and fast out of the Tal­keet­na Moun­tains of cen­tral Alas­ka on its way to merge with the larg­er Matanus­ka Riv­er which runs into Knik Arm of Cook Inlet. There is a 33-mile sec­tion of riv­er that is Class II and III+ and could become a bit more with high water flows. This is not a trip for begin­ners! It is a superb week­end trip for groups with good raft­ing gear and good read and run skills, as the main stretch of…  ...more