rford
Less Than Beeko
Well guys, as you can see by my lurking, I made it back from Alaska. Sorry for the delay in offering up a report, so here we go…
This was my second trip to Alaska, but to the same lodge, Anglers Alibi, Alaska Fishing: Angler's Alibi Alaska - Salmon Fishing - Fly Fishing
on the banks of the Alagnak river in the Bristol Bay region of south west Alaska.
The Alagnak river is one of the few rivers in the state that has runs of all 5 species of pacific salmon: King, Sockeye, Chum, Pink ( only on even years) and Silver(Coho). Its headwaters also have Rainbows, Char and Graylings and as I found out, also contain Northern Pike.
King….
Pink…
Silver…
Our trip began on Saturday the 22nd. We flew from LaGuardia to Cincinnati to Anchorage.
We arrived in Anchorage at about 9 pm Saturday. Wired from the trip , we decided to go out for a cocktail. We took a cab to The Great Alaskan Bush Company! I kid you not. As Go-Go bars go it was Ok, although it was a bit touristy and the first Go-Go I have ever been with a gift shop. It was kind of like The Country Bear Jamboree in Disneyworld meets Deadwood. If you feel you need to know more, please check the web site… The Great Alaskan Bush Company
The next morning we headed out to the big city. We hit a few gifts shops in downtown, got our fishing licenses, checked out Ship Creek, the downtown salmon stream (Pulaski on steroids, pure combat fishing at its best) and then as reported played 18 holes of gold at the Anchorage Country Club.
That night all ten members of our group met for dinner, where I monopolized on the local supply of king crab, it was great with the exception of the melted butter substitute that accompanied it. After a couple of days in Alaska you start to realize that not all commodities afforded us in what the mostly refer to as the lower 48 are readily or cheaply available up there. Cigs $ 8.00, 30 Pack of Bud in Cans $ 30.00! And so on…Sorry, no priceless gag here…
Monday at 7:20 am our flight on Penn Air, left for King Salmon, AK (Pop 237), approximately 300 miles South West of Anchorage. We arrived with no delays and by 9:30 were staged across the street from the Airport at the Branch Air “Best in the Bush “(they have a bush fixation up there) Terminal ( a one room cabin ) with a 100 foot walkway out to the river and the docks with its float planes. It would take three full DeHavilland Beaver Float planes (circa 1952 serial number# 444) loads to deliver all 11 (we picked up an extra man in king salmon whom we failed to connect with in anchorage, he had a swell time in king salmon the night before, but he can post that to his own web site in Paris) to the lodge 28 miles due north, with all our luggage, gear and liquor.
By 11:30 am on Monday we all had arrived at the camp with out a Hitch. I was now working a pretty nasty cold as a result of bad air conditioning and close proximity of other peoples sick kids on the plane rides, but the show must go on. Despite the remoteness of this location, the owner has done a great job providing all the comforts of home.
Carl, who runs the camp, announced to us all that there was an unexpected bonus, the King Salmon were still running and the season still ran till the end of July. Albeit that this was good news, not one of us had picked up a King Stamp back in Anchorage as the locals up there advised there was no need as the fish had already come and gone. Hind site reminds me that that would be like taking advice from a fly shop in NJ as to current fishing conditions on a stream in Maine. Regardless, there was a barge upstream from our camp that apparently had a Stamp pad and may be able to accommodate our needs. 9 out of ten of our group got there King Stamp, I was not one of them. I was not being a snob; it was just that I was not that interested in catching fish on conventional tackle.
The set up for kings is to drift over the deep channels with a “Boon Doggeling Rig “
Its basically an Easter egg, painted orange, dragging the bottom with giant tubbie like weights that come in giant rolls, keeping them down, on a conventional rod with a level wind reel.
On average the guys that did it, had a ball, and caught 2-4 fish per day…but, that’s not why I went to Alaska. Then again, I never heard the expression, When the Sun Shines make Hay !
The first three days I spent wade fishing (Tuesday I was mostly in bed) on sand bars of the Alagnak River. An eight weight was sufficient, well unless you pull a bone head maneuver like I did by letting a chum salmon swim between my legs, while trying to land him. Advice… Keep a little slack in the line. The top half of that 2 piece rod is now 9 pieces, I fished a loner 9 wt the rest of the trip.
Fishing on the main River provided constant action. The main quarry was and fresh salmon regardless of species Chum, Pink or Coho. The basic method was to swing a fly down and across. As the action changed, different methods seemed to attract the chrome fish more than the colored up changing fish. Upstream cast with a quick retrieve, jerking motion at the end of a swing at the dangle…it all pretty much worked. I will say this, its not Pulaski, there is no need for 10 oz of split shot on the line. These fish are definitely not eating, but they are definitely taking the fly, you would often see them attack it.
As far as what fly, anything pink, pink and white, pink and silver, it had to be pink though. I guess the salmon must eat a lot of pink food! For the most part a WFF line was fine, although most people were using a ghost tip. I found I picked up more chrome fish with the floating line, avoiding the changing chums.
Funny thing about the chums, after they changed colors they fought better but for some reason, held less intrinsic value. And when I say fought better, that Is an understatement.
These chums could bull dog all day long. This is a river with out a boulder or a log jam, just sand, and yet you would swear you were snagged on the bottom. I know my answer for the age old question “what is the best fighting fish pound for pound?” my answer will now permanently shift from blue fish to chum salmon.
You may ask why I did not King Salmon fish with the fly rod. I tried with a camp rod, a 10 wt with a full sinking line. The problem was, that the camp has 10/11 guts and 4 guides. They run in packs of 2 or 3 guests per guide. The only way to catch the kings would have been for them to dedicate one of there john boats to me so I could get to the deep side of the river and reach the kings in the deep channel, and every one else king fishing was “Boon Doggeling “with 2 or 3 guys per boat, so that possibility was basically shut out.
Tomorrows’ another day…or is it….?
Now, what I really planned to spend most of my seven days doing was rainbow trout fishing or at least 4 days. That finally worked out to 3 days and it almost wound up 2 days. Here is how it worked. If you wanted to go for rainbows you had two options. 2 guys could go on the one jet boat the camp had on a 2 hour upstream ride to what is called the Braids. Or 5 guys could go on a fly out to one of the many smaller rivers in the region that were known for rainbows. When you do a fly out it is not included in price of trip, and that’s why you needed 5 guys to go, to cover the cost of the float plane.
In addition you can save money by doing your fly out as an overnighter, where you really camp out but get two days of fishing in and the float plane only needs to do one round trip.
Contact Creek…
My plan was to do one fly out to a River called Contact Creek, One overnighter to a river called the Moraine, and one jet boat trip to the Braids. Here is where the trip broke down a little. On signing up, I was informed that 10 / 11 people going wanted to go on two fly outs and that several folks were up for the overnighter. Well it did not turn out that way.
I think forking out an extra $ 400 per day turned some of the people off, even though those cards were clearly on the table. In addition the group that did the first fly out on Wednesday ( I was not on that one ) planned on going to the Contact Creek and the weather conditions had them diverted to the Brooks river. It is a great river, but it is in the middle of Park, so there are a lot of tourists who fly in to get the Famous Bear pictures you see on TV of the bears eating salmon at the water falls.
It also has game wardens actually in the trees. No one was planning any violations, but the Park has special regs that you can’t yell at the Bears to clear them from a spot, you can not take a fish out of the water for a picture, etc…. So that group found the trip restrictive and disappointing from a fishing perspective, no lack of fish just lack of opportunity to get to them.
Thursday, Colman and I did our first and only fly out to Contact Creek. This was about 70 miles due SW from the camp. It is a different drainage and closer to the coast. The walk in after the plane dropped us off was about 1.5 miles over defrosted permafrost tundra. It is like walking on a Stairmaster set to Cardiac Infarction; with each peddle having a piece of Bed Mattress strapped to it. Me and my 2 plus pack a day habit combined with my cold, now being bronchitis, had a rough time, but we made it in.
Our Landing Strip…
We made it…
This fishing was great. It was a combination of fresh chrome sea run Char, Graylings and Rainbows. The Char and the Grayling become the nuisance fish. You get a take on almost every cast. The game we played was to site the rainbows sitting below the chums and kings dropping eggs and hope the rainbow got it before the char and graylings.
Once again , the action was non stop.
The tactics were a bit different, but we went with the flow. It’s the “ Bead Egg “ basically the guides have about 20 different colored bead eggs that have been painted to represent a certain type of salmons egg in a certain stage i.e.: freshly laid, fertilized, spent, sun bleached etc.. The egg is slipped on the tipped, and then a hook is snelled on below it about two inches and the egg is pegged off with a toothpick. Also a yarn strike indicator is put on.
Of course I found it my duty to annoy the living crap out of the guide by asking if there was any more sporting/flyesque type of method. And he said you can try nymphs’/streamers/mice etc… however he made a disclaimer he wanted no responsibility if I did not catch anything or very little. He said if you came in late may or June, all of the above would work, but the fish were selectively feeding and suggested I go with the flow.
He than suggested that if he came to the West Branch of the Delaware and put on a bead egg in the middle of a Hendrickson’s hatch would not I think he crazy? I pondered this, and put on my egg and shut up. However I did manage one small trout on a mouse!
That night when we returned to camp with our stories, three of the fellows on the trip wanted to go back to contact creek and they were afforded the ability to take a smaller float plane that would cost the same $, as they had missed it back on Wednesday. Colman and I wanted to go to the Moraine (fly out) or the Braids (jet boat) as we now had rainbow fever, so we went to the Braids and we assumed the other guys went to Contact.
Once again we had a fabulous day with mostly Rainbows this time with a few grayling and Colman even caught a straggler Sockeye that was bright chrome almost 40 miles from the brackish water! Upon return we found out the other fellows could not make up there minds so they wound up Salmon fishing again, and now we only had two days to go on another fly out. As it worked out, it started getting a little bit survivoresque, as we only had 5 people that wanted to do another fly out and 2 of us wanted to go to the Moraine and 3 wanted to go to the Contact Creek. As much as we liked Contact Creek, the Moraine is the hallowed water. It is above the lake that the salmon have to run through to get to there home waters. When the salmon run through the lake it triggers the Rainbows that behave steelheadish to leave the lake and gorge on eggs through September gaining an incredible 1.2 lbs per week. A 24 inch rainbow that normally weighs 4/5 lbs will re-enter the lake for the winter at 10 – 15 lbs! You can see why we wanted to go there.
Alas the 5 of us could not come to agreement, and the bad weather cinched it as no one could go on Saturday, we were punished by having to fish the Alagnak again that was now flush with all species including very chrome pinks and silver salmon.
That day Colman had got a late start and stayed at the camp in the AM to shake off the cold I had given him. When we returned to pick him up, he reported he had caught several sockeyes at the end of the dock. That night when we returned, not satiated by the 50 or so salmon he had hooked that day, Colman started fishing for the sockeyes again. One of the other guests decided to follow suit, instantly hooking into a 28 inch 10 lb Rainbow! I wanted to kill the guy, but instead I ran for the net and assured he would have the trophy on film!
The heartbreaker…
The last day there we were lucky enough to have everyone else defer there interest in Rainbows or fly outs to Salmon, opening up the Jet boat to Colman and my personal use for a final day of Rainbow fishing back at the Braids. It was a stellar day, I would guess we each hooked at least 40 fish and landed 20.
That night we all had one last fabulous meal at the camp, a Prime Rib diner…
with lots of jokes and story telling. It’s a bittersweet ending to have to leave Alaska. You are overjoyed with the fishing and the grandeur of a place truly unspoiled by man, and so glad you were lucky enough to go there and can only hope you get to go again.
Monday morning the float plane picked us up starting at about 10am as it dropped off the next week’s visitor in three trips. 4 Flights later at 11 am Tuesday we got in the car service at LaGuardia, exhausted and satiated from a grand week, as we readjusted to the 100 degree heat of queens, we both silently contemplated this past week and began crafting and scheming what would be our next trip?
“Why are there so many songs about Rainbows?” - Kermit the Frog
“ Somewhere over the Rainbow “ – Judy Garland -
“ The Colors of the Rainbow, So Pretty in the Sky” – Louis Armstrong-
“Hey, Has anyone ever seen a rash like this before?” - Ralph-
Wait , Stop Everything….!!!!!!!!!
NJAngler you did not think I would go without bringing you back a gift , did you?.....
.
This was my second trip to Alaska, but to the same lodge, Anglers Alibi, Alaska Fishing: Angler's Alibi Alaska - Salmon Fishing - Fly Fishing
on the banks of the Alagnak river in the Bristol Bay region of south west Alaska.
The Alagnak river is one of the few rivers in the state that has runs of all 5 species of pacific salmon: King, Sockeye, Chum, Pink ( only on even years) and Silver(Coho). Its headwaters also have Rainbows, Char and Graylings and as I found out, also contain Northern Pike.
King….
Pink…
Silver…
Our trip began on Saturday the 22nd. We flew from LaGuardia to Cincinnati to Anchorage.
We arrived in Anchorage at about 9 pm Saturday. Wired from the trip , we decided to go out for a cocktail. We took a cab to The Great Alaskan Bush Company! I kid you not. As Go-Go bars go it was Ok, although it was a bit touristy and the first Go-Go I have ever been with a gift shop. It was kind of like The Country Bear Jamboree in Disneyworld meets Deadwood. If you feel you need to know more, please check the web site… The Great Alaskan Bush Company
The next morning we headed out to the big city. We hit a few gifts shops in downtown, got our fishing licenses, checked out Ship Creek, the downtown salmon stream (Pulaski on steroids, pure combat fishing at its best) and then as reported played 18 holes of gold at the Anchorage Country Club.
That night all ten members of our group met for dinner, where I monopolized on the local supply of king crab, it was great with the exception of the melted butter substitute that accompanied it. After a couple of days in Alaska you start to realize that not all commodities afforded us in what the mostly refer to as the lower 48 are readily or cheaply available up there. Cigs $ 8.00, 30 Pack of Bud in Cans $ 30.00! And so on…Sorry, no priceless gag here…
Monday at 7:20 am our flight on Penn Air, left for King Salmon, AK (Pop 237), approximately 300 miles South West of Anchorage. We arrived with no delays and by 9:30 were staged across the street from the Airport at the Branch Air “Best in the Bush “(they have a bush fixation up there) Terminal ( a one room cabin ) with a 100 foot walkway out to the river and the docks with its float planes. It would take three full DeHavilland Beaver Float planes (circa 1952 serial number# 444) loads to deliver all 11 (we picked up an extra man in king salmon whom we failed to connect with in anchorage, he had a swell time in king salmon the night before, but he can post that to his own web site in Paris) to the lodge 28 miles due north, with all our luggage, gear and liquor.
By 11:30 am on Monday we all had arrived at the camp with out a Hitch. I was now working a pretty nasty cold as a result of bad air conditioning and close proximity of other peoples sick kids on the plane rides, but the show must go on. Despite the remoteness of this location, the owner has done a great job providing all the comforts of home.
Carl, who runs the camp, announced to us all that there was an unexpected bonus, the King Salmon were still running and the season still ran till the end of July. Albeit that this was good news, not one of us had picked up a King Stamp back in Anchorage as the locals up there advised there was no need as the fish had already come and gone. Hind site reminds me that that would be like taking advice from a fly shop in NJ as to current fishing conditions on a stream in Maine. Regardless, there was a barge upstream from our camp that apparently had a Stamp pad and may be able to accommodate our needs. 9 out of ten of our group got there King Stamp, I was not one of them. I was not being a snob; it was just that I was not that interested in catching fish on conventional tackle.
The set up for kings is to drift over the deep channels with a “Boon Doggeling Rig “
Its basically an Easter egg, painted orange, dragging the bottom with giant tubbie like weights that come in giant rolls, keeping them down, on a conventional rod with a level wind reel.
On average the guys that did it, had a ball, and caught 2-4 fish per day…but, that’s not why I went to Alaska. Then again, I never heard the expression, When the Sun Shines make Hay !
The first three days I spent wade fishing (Tuesday I was mostly in bed) on sand bars of the Alagnak River. An eight weight was sufficient, well unless you pull a bone head maneuver like I did by letting a chum salmon swim between my legs, while trying to land him. Advice… Keep a little slack in the line. The top half of that 2 piece rod is now 9 pieces, I fished a loner 9 wt the rest of the trip.
Fishing on the main River provided constant action. The main quarry was and fresh salmon regardless of species Chum, Pink or Coho. The basic method was to swing a fly down and across. As the action changed, different methods seemed to attract the chrome fish more than the colored up changing fish. Upstream cast with a quick retrieve, jerking motion at the end of a swing at the dangle…it all pretty much worked. I will say this, its not Pulaski, there is no need for 10 oz of split shot on the line. These fish are definitely not eating, but they are definitely taking the fly, you would often see them attack it.
As far as what fly, anything pink, pink and white, pink and silver, it had to be pink though. I guess the salmon must eat a lot of pink food! For the most part a WFF line was fine, although most people were using a ghost tip. I found I picked up more chrome fish with the floating line, avoiding the changing chums.
Funny thing about the chums, after they changed colors they fought better but for some reason, held less intrinsic value. And when I say fought better, that Is an understatement.
These chums could bull dog all day long. This is a river with out a boulder or a log jam, just sand, and yet you would swear you were snagged on the bottom. I know my answer for the age old question “what is the best fighting fish pound for pound?” my answer will now permanently shift from blue fish to chum salmon.
You may ask why I did not King Salmon fish with the fly rod. I tried with a camp rod, a 10 wt with a full sinking line. The problem was, that the camp has 10/11 guts and 4 guides. They run in packs of 2 or 3 guests per guide. The only way to catch the kings would have been for them to dedicate one of there john boats to me so I could get to the deep side of the river and reach the kings in the deep channel, and every one else king fishing was “Boon Doggeling “with 2 or 3 guys per boat, so that possibility was basically shut out.
Tomorrows’ another day…or is it….?
Now, what I really planned to spend most of my seven days doing was rainbow trout fishing or at least 4 days. That finally worked out to 3 days and it almost wound up 2 days. Here is how it worked. If you wanted to go for rainbows you had two options. 2 guys could go on the one jet boat the camp had on a 2 hour upstream ride to what is called the Braids. Or 5 guys could go on a fly out to one of the many smaller rivers in the region that were known for rainbows. When you do a fly out it is not included in price of trip, and that’s why you needed 5 guys to go, to cover the cost of the float plane.
In addition you can save money by doing your fly out as an overnighter, where you really camp out but get two days of fishing in and the float plane only needs to do one round trip.
Contact Creek…
My plan was to do one fly out to a River called Contact Creek, One overnighter to a river called the Moraine, and one jet boat trip to the Braids. Here is where the trip broke down a little. On signing up, I was informed that 10 / 11 people going wanted to go on two fly outs and that several folks were up for the overnighter. Well it did not turn out that way.
I think forking out an extra $ 400 per day turned some of the people off, even though those cards were clearly on the table. In addition the group that did the first fly out on Wednesday ( I was not on that one ) planned on going to the Contact Creek and the weather conditions had them diverted to the Brooks river. It is a great river, but it is in the middle of Park, so there are a lot of tourists who fly in to get the Famous Bear pictures you see on TV of the bears eating salmon at the water falls.
It also has game wardens actually in the trees. No one was planning any violations, but the Park has special regs that you can’t yell at the Bears to clear them from a spot, you can not take a fish out of the water for a picture, etc…. So that group found the trip restrictive and disappointing from a fishing perspective, no lack of fish just lack of opportunity to get to them.
Thursday, Colman and I did our first and only fly out to Contact Creek. This was about 70 miles due SW from the camp. It is a different drainage and closer to the coast. The walk in after the plane dropped us off was about 1.5 miles over defrosted permafrost tundra. It is like walking on a Stairmaster set to Cardiac Infarction; with each peddle having a piece of Bed Mattress strapped to it. Me and my 2 plus pack a day habit combined with my cold, now being bronchitis, had a rough time, but we made it in.
Our Landing Strip…
We made it…
This fishing was great. It was a combination of fresh chrome sea run Char, Graylings and Rainbows. The Char and the Grayling become the nuisance fish. You get a take on almost every cast. The game we played was to site the rainbows sitting below the chums and kings dropping eggs and hope the rainbow got it before the char and graylings.
Once again , the action was non stop.
The tactics were a bit different, but we went with the flow. It’s the “ Bead Egg “ basically the guides have about 20 different colored bead eggs that have been painted to represent a certain type of salmons egg in a certain stage i.e.: freshly laid, fertilized, spent, sun bleached etc.. The egg is slipped on the tipped, and then a hook is snelled on below it about two inches and the egg is pegged off with a toothpick. Also a yarn strike indicator is put on.
Of course I found it my duty to annoy the living crap out of the guide by asking if there was any more sporting/flyesque type of method. And he said you can try nymphs’/streamers/mice etc… however he made a disclaimer he wanted no responsibility if I did not catch anything or very little. He said if you came in late may or June, all of the above would work, but the fish were selectively feeding and suggested I go with the flow.
He than suggested that if he came to the West Branch of the Delaware and put on a bead egg in the middle of a Hendrickson’s hatch would not I think he crazy? I pondered this, and put on my egg and shut up. However I did manage one small trout on a mouse!
That night when we returned to camp with our stories, three of the fellows on the trip wanted to go back to contact creek and they were afforded the ability to take a smaller float plane that would cost the same $, as they had missed it back on Wednesday. Colman and I wanted to go to the Moraine (fly out) or the Braids (jet boat) as we now had rainbow fever, so we went to the Braids and we assumed the other guys went to Contact.
Once again we had a fabulous day with mostly Rainbows this time with a few grayling and Colman even caught a straggler Sockeye that was bright chrome almost 40 miles from the brackish water! Upon return we found out the other fellows could not make up there minds so they wound up Salmon fishing again, and now we only had two days to go on another fly out. As it worked out, it started getting a little bit survivoresque, as we only had 5 people that wanted to do another fly out and 2 of us wanted to go to the Moraine and 3 wanted to go to the Contact Creek. As much as we liked Contact Creek, the Moraine is the hallowed water. It is above the lake that the salmon have to run through to get to there home waters. When the salmon run through the lake it triggers the Rainbows that behave steelheadish to leave the lake and gorge on eggs through September gaining an incredible 1.2 lbs per week. A 24 inch rainbow that normally weighs 4/5 lbs will re-enter the lake for the winter at 10 – 15 lbs! You can see why we wanted to go there.
Alas the 5 of us could not come to agreement, and the bad weather cinched it as no one could go on Saturday, we were punished by having to fish the Alagnak again that was now flush with all species including very chrome pinks and silver salmon.
That day Colman had got a late start and stayed at the camp in the AM to shake off the cold I had given him. When we returned to pick him up, he reported he had caught several sockeyes at the end of the dock. That night when we returned, not satiated by the 50 or so salmon he had hooked that day, Colman started fishing for the sockeyes again. One of the other guests decided to follow suit, instantly hooking into a 28 inch 10 lb Rainbow! I wanted to kill the guy, but instead I ran for the net and assured he would have the trophy on film!
The heartbreaker…
The last day there we were lucky enough to have everyone else defer there interest in Rainbows or fly outs to Salmon, opening up the Jet boat to Colman and my personal use for a final day of Rainbow fishing back at the Braids. It was a stellar day, I would guess we each hooked at least 40 fish and landed 20.
That night we all had one last fabulous meal at the camp, a Prime Rib diner…
with lots of jokes and story telling. It’s a bittersweet ending to have to leave Alaska. You are overjoyed with the fishing and the grandeur of a place truly unspoiled by man, and so glad you were lucky enough to go there and can only hope you get to go again.
Monday morning the float plane picked us up starting at about 10am as it dropped off the next week’s visitor in three trips. 4 Flights later at 11 am Tuesday we got in the car service at LaGuardia, exhausted and satiated from a grand week, as we readjusted to the 100 degree heat of queens, we both silently contemplated this past week and began crafting and scheming what would be our next trip?
“Why are there so many songs about Rainbows?” - Kermit the Frog
“ Somewhere over the Rainbow “ – Judy Garland -
“ The Colors of the Rainbow, So Pretty in the Sky” – Louis Armstrong-
“Hey, Has anyone ever seen a rash like this before?” - Ralph-
Wait , Stop Everything….!!!!!!!!!
NJAngler you did not think I would go without bringing you back a gift , did you?.....
.
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... that is a sad story but I guess it worked out alright in the long run for you.
