"Crooked River Mike," not to be confused with "Crooked River Bob" I presume.

We had some good Alaska thread on here within the last month or two. You may want to run a search.

The Alaska Marine Hwy is a nice ride, but is by no means cheap for porting an auto.

The Kenai Peninsula is probably the ticket. The Kenai itself is best tackled with a boat, but there are certainly places for fishing that are accessible for bankwalkers. The Russian River is good wade fishing, and Quartz Creek is good for dollies. One can fish the Ancho on down near Ninilchik.

Tha last time I inquired, charter operators in Ninilchik had the most attractive service for halibut, and were running out into Cook's Inlet. I say it was most attractive because it was true charter and not the partyboat. Virtually everything else up there is partyboat, and I just don't care for fishing with a bunch of strangers, many of whom have never been and are going to puke, etc. There are many operators out of Seward and Homer.

There is a number of guide services that run out of Cooper's Landing. Billy Couilette at Alaska Troutfitters is a good guide if you could get him, but I don't know the others. One of our members recently posted a picture of a great fish that he caught with Fred Telleen of Mystic Waters . He and his partner are good guides.

There is a significant number of guides who live in OR and WA during the offseason and guide in AK during summer. You may want to ask around at The Fly Box in Bend; Kauffmann's would likely try to steer you to Bristol Bay because they book for some lodges there, and that of course costs big bucks.

The best fishing for a given species is not necessarily concurrent with another because the salmon runs are staged sequentially (but have some overlap). The runs are similar to those in OR and WA in that rainfall and water levels affect their timing. I'd plan to go in a period of mid August to mid September if you want big rainbows foremost, and want silvers as a sideshow. The chinook season will be closed then, and they will be close to finished dumping eggs and dying. The reds (sockeye) peak die-off begins at about the very end of August, first week of September (depending on when they entered the river). If you want the peak of chnook, you'd probably be better off in June, but the rainbows are not fattened up and prime yet.