At the Susitna: the campground and the half-mile markers
Willow Creek meets the glacial Susitna west of the Parks Highway, and the mouth is where most people fish. The Willow Creek State Recreation Area is listed by State Parks at Mile 70.8, covers 3,583 acres and has 140 first-come campsites, and State Parks notes that rafters floating the Class I to II creek take out in the campground near the confluence.
The first rule line is a set of ADF&G markers half a mile above the mouth. Below them, bait and multiple hooks are legal from July 14 to August 31 in a normal year, and from June 1 to July 13 unbaited lures with multiple hooks are allowed. Above them, you may use only one unbaited, single-hook lure or fly all year. From May 1 to July 13, no one may fish from a boat in a roughly 300-yard stretch of the Susitna at the farthest downstream mouth of the creek, and from May 15 to July 13 fishing is allowed only from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Up to the Parks Highway bridge
King fishing on Willow Creek runs from the mouth to the Parks Highway, and ADF&G calls it the only enhanced king fishery among the eastside Susitna streams, with private campgrounds near the bridge. In a normal year a few anglers show up the first week of June, but ADF&G says the best fishing is mid June through the season closure, mostly 25 to 30 pound fish with a few in the 50s and 60s each year. In this stretch, including water within half a mile of the Susitna confluence, grayling and rainbows are catch-and-release only.
Coho are the fish that still matter most here. ADF&G's Mat-Su coho booklet says silvers spread throughout the creek as far as Deception Creek and that the best time on Willow is late July through early August. Its favorite coho flies are dark leeches with a bright head: the Electric Egg-Sucking Leech, Marabou Popsicle, Bunny Leech, Dr. Bill's Spin Tail and Hairball Leech, fished on a 9-foot 7 or 8 weight with a fast-sinking line and a short 10 to 14 pound leader.
Bridge to Deception Creek
Upstream of the Parks Highway to the Deception Creek confluence, the creek is open all year to everything except kings, on one unbaited single-hook lure or fly. Rainbows are catch-and-release from April 15 to June 14, then one a day under 16 inches from June 15 to April 14. This is the water to fish for trout and Dolly Varden in August and September, when salmon are on the gravel and a bead or flesh fly drifted below them is the obvious choice.
Deception Creek is where salmon fishing stops. Above the confluence, Willow Creek is closed to all salmon fishing, and the Deception Creek drainage itself is closed to salmon all year and closed to all fishing from April 15 to June 14. The lakes in the drainage, Crystal, Long, Rainbow, Shirley and Willow, are closed to salmon too, with grayling release only.
2026 on Willow: two closures
Willow sits in ADF&G's Unit 2, the Parks Highway streams, and the 2026 Northern Cook Inlet orders hit it hard. King fishing was closed from May 1 through July 13, catch-and-release included, with gear limited to one unbaited single-hook lure with a half-inch or smaller gap; a king hooked by accident must stay in the water. For coho, a three-fish salmon bag with only one coho a day and no bait took effect August 6, and from August 19 through December 31 no coho 16 inches or longer may be kept in the Susitna drainage at all. ADF&G tied that order to four poor years of Susitna coho escapement.
Reading the Willow gauge
USGS 15294005 is on Willow Creek near Willow, above the salmon water at the mouth, and unlike the Susitna it is a clear-water number. Its long-term monthly means run about 630 cfs in May, 1,020 in June at snowmelt, then 630 to 700 from July through September and 420 in October. No shop publishes a range, so the 600 to 1,000 cfs band is the May through September span of those means. When a rainstorm pushes it well past 1,000 the creek colors and the fish sit tight at the mouth; when it settles back toward 600 in August, the silvers move up and the pockets toward Deception Creek fish.