Alaska Bound - Alaska Fly Fishing
It’s pretty hard to imagine going all the way up to Alaska, and ending up with poor fishing. But that’s what happened to us, because we had so much rain right from day one that the river and lake we were fishing rose about 2 feet in one day and overflowed the banks.
In addition, our primary target salmon, the Silvers/Coho, had not started to run in any meaningful numbers. We hit the end of the Pink and Chum salmon runs, and we managed a fair number of those. But as most of you know, these fish get downright scuzzy when they’ve been in the river for awhile, and they aren’t pretty. As well, we got a lot of foul-hooks because they basically just sit in the prime holding water and wait to die.
I caught a couple of nice Cutthroat trout before the water rose, my first time for that species, but we were totally surprised that we didn’t see any Rainbows either in the lake or the river.
One day we hit a few Silvers where we were fishing, and had some wild, wooly rides. They hit, run and leap just like Steelhead, even more. I had one on for 20 minutes, and he jumped 6 times. Had to be 12-15 lbs, and he had me half-way into my backing. The current was so fast I figured I’d never get him back, but then suddenly he turned and came at me. I reeled in and tried to get him out of the main flow and more into the shallows. God, it actually worked and I had him down to about 50 feet when he circled around behind a big rock and the line just went……ping !
Out of 6 hook-ups we didn’t manage to get one of them back to the net.
The water was so high and fast we couldn’t wade it, get much of a decent drift or follow the fish downstream. Falling in would have been disaster. They’d find our bones next spring somewhere out in the Aleutian Islands.
Great adventure though. Once that float plane leaves you are totally on your own. I can’t imagine how the pioneers did it. They get my vote !
Only a couple of bears to report, and some deer, eagles and ducks. I think the bears just move to other areas where the fish are fresher. They can have their pick, after all.
Speaking of eating fish, one of the species the local commercial guys catch up there is halibut. And if you like eating fresh fish, in Ketchikan the specialty is fresh halibut and chips, and it’s to die for ! I ate out 3 times there, and had the halibut all 3 times. Washed down with a couple of pints of Alaska Brown Ale of course.
Because my camera went to Hong Kong and I didn’t get it until 4 days into the trip, my pics are limited. But here’s a flavour….
This is what it looks like when your last contact with the outside world is leaving. An old Dehavilland Beaver, still in service.
Our home for the week. All the comforts…12×14 cabin, propane stove, tarp for the rain, a libation, and a cigar.
This is a 12 lb or so Chum Salmon. You can see it’s not too pretty, but it was still a good fight.
Caught this nice 14 inch Cutthroat on a #20 Trico, just fooling around after dinner.
This shot of part of the river shows how beautiflul but treacherous it was.
