Leopard Rainbows
The Goodnews River Lodge is especially proud of our outstanding Leopard Rainbow fishery. These are beautiful, healthy fish averaging 18-22″ with many larger fish up to 30″ landed each season. They are available all season long, but tend to put on weight as the season progresses. In the early season, they follow the smolt migration downriver, and then follow the arriving salmon upriver to get ready for the banquet of eggs and flesh that follows the spawn. You can fish for them with Streamers, and when the water is warm enough, skating a Mouse fly across the surface results in explosive strikes.
Once the spawn begins, the Bead Egg, or what we call “Match the Hatch, Alaska Style” is hard to beat. A 6Wt fly rod with a floating line is all you will need for these beautiful fish. As they are resident fish, we protect them by restricting all rainbows to catch and release, pinching those barbs, and trying to minimize their time out of the water. Since they live in all areas of the river, we never fish the same stretch of the River two days in a row, and rest the fish between trips so as not to unduly stress them.