ryguyfi
Active member
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2006
- Messages
- 4,796
So, Alaska... is pretty awesome!
I made plans to head to The Naknek River Camp almost 3 years ago. A friend from PAFF threw out the invite and I instantly used up every brownie point I had with my wife to convince her I NEEDED to go. She semi-reluctantly said yes and the rest is history. We weren't planning on a new day job for me last Fall and a new baby 2 months before the trip but she was still gracious enough to give me to green light.
I started off by driving 1.5 hours to the Canton/Akron airport. Long story short, don't book long distance flights like this according to the 3-4 months rule you see in many articles. Prices shot up about $300-400 at that time and I scrambled to find an affordable ticket. A new credit card later with some flyer miles and I was in. Flew from there, to Atlanta, to Chicago, to Anchorage to King Salmon. Bag got stuck in Chicago. They can't lose it on the way home, can they?
Who's ready to go fishing? This guy!
So I arrived in the very small airport in King Salmon on Saturday morning. The guy who organized the trip (Patrick)was on that flight with me and we got to the lodge and figured out what to do. I had plenty of fishing gear but no waders. So we opted to grab a jet boat and cross the large Naknek river and fish a slough right across from camp for some pike. I've never landed a pike on the fly so I was excited to get a big toothy in the net. Patrick cheated and threw some hardware and landed 2 fish. Well landed is a cautious word as apparently all these toothy pike and salmon blow up nets and both of them went through the netting. I had a MASSIVE blow up on a top water fly and that was all the action I had. However this fish put Patrick's to shame and was ever bit of 40"+.
Then came the winds. We couldn't motor because of the weeds and after more than several attempts to row out Patrick had to get out and manually tow us to the main river. About an hour later we got across the river and back to camp.
I don't get to fish too often with 4 kids ages 6 and under, so I took every opportunity I could to toss some line. You always see videos of the massive rainbows in Alaska under the boat docks waiting for a tasty meal after a fish is cleaned. Well I learned that you can't fish for an hour after a fish is cleaned on the docks. Well no fish were cleaned that day as it was the guides day off and I had some fun with some small rainbows and beads that were quite aggressive. I later stood on the farthest boat out from the launch and drifted some egg suckingleaches and streamers. Needless to say the Naknek's identity of being the best rainbow trout stream in all of Alaska showed itself quite quickly. I landed 2 rainbows, est 25" and 30" in about 15 minutes. Then had a big fish take and put me into my backing in about 10 seconds after he decided he wasn't playing around. Everyone's guess was a big Silver.
So Saturday night ended with a good start and we met as a group (13 guys) and decided where to go from there. There is a guy who they knew at camp who just bought a remote lodge last year and didn't have it booked up. We could pay extra for 2 fly outs to remote locations and I used 1 of those fly outs to spend 2 nights at this other lodge. https://www.atalodge.com/
This was on the Alagnak River. We flew in on a small plane onto a dirt airstrip with no other access besides a 10+ hour boat ride. True Alaskan wilderness!
We were told that the water was up significantly across the whole state of Alaska. The Alagnak was fairly high and I was told later in the week that the Naknek was running 4 feet higher than last year. The fishing was just so-so for Alaska standards but I would guess I caught close to 100 fish for the week.
The water on the Alagnak was very braided and you could fish the same stretch of water all week and never fish the same water twice. The pink and chum salmon were in full spawn and the grayling, rainbows and char had the feed bags on. 2 people in a jet boat with a guide and drifting through the river with beads produced about 20-30 fish days for 2 days. We mainly fished out of the boat and then 2-3 times a day we would get out and fish some more productive spots.
Put MANY grayling in the boat. A few pushing 20". They didn't like being touched AT ALL and quickly squirmed out of your hands when trying to unhook and release.
colorful char but bad picture. I needed a photographer to join me.
Only chum I took all week.
One spot our guide put us on was one he found just a few weeks earlier and called the "Char Bar". A nice gravel bar that for some reason held lots of big char. The guy I was fishing with snapped 2 BIG char off early due to some bad tippet and I landed this guy.
We headed up stream on day 2 after a nice night in the lodge, some good food, and a good nights rest. There we found some slower water where a massive pod of pinks were. We were looking for Silvers but it was a good consolation prize to find all these aggressive pinks. I tossed pink streamers to the bank and swung them through the pods of fish. I landed 6 in about an hour or less with many other takes. Needless to say it was a blast.
Another day of drifting beads and landing a good amount of fish as well as checking out the wildlife. I tried throwing some pink wogs for silvers but we just couldn't find any.
We saw a few eagles in the trees as we motored by, as well as just a few bears.
Another night in the lodge and rested up for the next day of fishing.
The next day our plane came a few hours late and we got into the Naknek camp around 2pm. My wife wanted me to bring fish home so we grabbed a boat with a guide and headed out for Silvers. They were just starting to run on the river in the past 1-2 weeks so they were there but not a ton yet. It was a cast as close to the bank as possible with a weighted streamer and 2 big split shot, throw a quick mend in and swing it through where the fish were lying. Needless to say it was some tough work. I landed 1 Silver and snapped another off on a wind knot when he made a big run. Landed a few small rainbows and a few pinks but a slow afternoon of fishing for Alaska standards. My camera guys failed in pressing the button down on the camera so no pictures of this days fish.
The next day I did my 2nd fly out to Contact creek. This was about a 30 minute plane ride on a small plane with water skiffs. Landed on a small lake, hiked in and fished about 2-3 miles. Then about a 2 mile hike out through the tundra to another lake where we got picked up. Windy day and leaving the lake got a bit interesting on the small plane. This stream was loaded with lots of BIG char. I went with a Father/Son and they had limited fly fishing experience. The guide was getting them set up and I went to fishing. In the first hole I hooked up 4 fish and landed 3 in about 10 minutes. 2 of the fish had big gouges in their bellies probably from a bear. We saw bear signs on the stream but no bear encounters. You can see a small wound on the side of this fish but a much larger gash was on his other side. I released him and had blood all over my hand after he swam off.
We fished down and landed some fish here and there. The guide knew I had some experience and put me on a few of the harder spots. We came up to a small drop off from the bank and a fish sitting tight to some brush. He said he didn't think that fish could be caught so I said "Challenge Accepted!" and hooked the fish about 4-5 drifts in. I enjoy doing things like that.
Now about half way through the day I wanted to get a picture of a Father/Son double. The dad was having some trouble getting hooked up and finally on a nice bar he hooked up. Just as the guide was netting his fish the son hooked a slightly bigger fish. I was upstream of both of them and began walking downstream, reeling in my line. When there was literally about 5 feet of fly line left on the tip of my rod, an even bigger char took my bead and the triple was on! All 3 fish in the net at the same time!
My fish stopped for a photo shoot underwater after the release.
I finished the day throwing some awesome mice that a friend of mine tied in the slowest water I could find and had 2 rainbows blow them up but no hook ups. Then we headed to another slower section and tossed dries at some more grayling. Landed a few and then took the walk out. I was told walking on the tundra is like walking on wet mattresses. That statement couldn't be more true. If it wasn't for the mountain range completely surrounding us and the occasional stop to pick some wild cranberries, blueberries and crowberries it would have been pretty rough.
The plane picked us up and after dinner I was ready for a well earned good nights rest.
The next day Thursday and the last day to put fish in the freezer. The fish needed to get frozen enough for the trip back home and keeping them Friday wouldn't get them done. So I headed out again on the Naknek for throwing heavy streamers. We went to the same spot as earlier in the week "Silver Bend" and I landed 1 Silver and a few pinks early in the morning. From 8:30-4:30 I cast that heavy rig, mainly back casting from the back of the boat as accurately as I could to the bank. I think I landed 1 small (15") rainbow the rest of the day with no other action. My guide said he doesn't see very many people all year long that can cast a weighted fly like I do and was pretty disappointed as I was that we didn't get into more Silvers. Once again no pictures of this day but 2 fish in the box for the wife.
(when the fishing isn't good take a picture of the scenery)
Last full day we took about a 1 hour boat ride to Margot Creek. We were told there was a good chance of bear encounters there but a good walk and wade stream with more big char. The boat ride was fantastic, even though it was very foggy as we rode upstream on the Naknek, to the big lake and through some mountains. The stream was just on the bank of an inactive volcano and floating pumice rocks lined the beach. I won't say whether I broke the rules and took a few home for the kids.
This creek was FILLED with colored up Sockeye salmon. Bright red and stuck out like a sore thumb. We matched the bead hatch and once again landed a bunch of big char and a few rainbows. I can't seem to get the videos of the Sockeye up on Photobucket but I'll see if I can add them later. The water was up high and we had to lock arms with the other guys in the group to cross more than a few sections. Once again the guide (different one) showed me some of the harder sections and I pulled a few nice char out of them.
About half way through the day I ate lunch quickly and the guide was helping the other 4 guys in my group. I said I was headed up stream to fish a section and I would wait for them to catch up to me. I fished but kept an eye on them. They packed up and I checked back. They started walking a few minutes later as I checked back again. A minute later I looked back and they were standing in the brush just stopped. I figured there was a bear and that means he was on my side of the creek. I quickly reeled in and walked upstream. I saw a mom and her cub and crossed the creek as best as I could. We then stood about 30-40 yards upstream and across the water from the 2 bears and got to watch them swim and fish for about 10-15 minutes. I have 2 videos and I'll see if I can get them posted later.
Right after I clicked one of the videos off, the momma bear sprinted and jumped with all 4 legs out of the water into a huge pool of Sockeye right where I was fishing not 10 minutes before hand. Definitely one of the highlights of the trip but I wish I got it on camera.
We fished through the rest of the stream. I fished both of these small streams with the final prototype of our new rod series (selfless plug). a 9' 5wt rod and it performed great..... just until the last fish of the day was landed and I asked another guy from our group to take the picture. He grabbed the camera, walked up and firmly placed both boots on my rod. Picture snapped as well as the rod. It landed probably 25 2-4lb char and rainbows effortlessly and then met it's demise. Ohh well.
I took a few product shots and you can see the Sockeye in the background.
We hiked back after that, encountered 2 more bears and had to walk around them to get back to the stream, got on the boat and headed back to camp. That was the last of the fishing for the week and I couldn't have asked for anything better. The fishing was ok, but it didn't matter. The scenery seemed surreal throughout the trip. It's like you were inside a magazine and didn't know if it was real or not. Vast mountains, glaciers, tundra, wildlife and of course the fishing.
This was NOT a trip of a lifetime as I'll be back hopefully sooner than later.
Ryan
I made plans to head to The Naknek River Camp almost 3 years ago. A friend from PAFF threw out the invite and I instantly used up every brownie point I had with my wife to convince her I NEEDED to go. She semi-reluctantly said yes and the rest is history. We weren't planning on a new day job for me last Fall and a new baby 2 months before the trip but she was still gracious enough to give me to green light.
I started off by driving 1.5 hours to the Canton/Akron airport. Long story short, don't book long distance flights like this according to the 3-4 months rule you see in many articles. Prices shot up about $300-400 at that time and I scrambled to find an affordable ticket. A new credit card later with some flyer miles and I was in. Flew from there, to Atlanta, to Chicago, to Anchorage to King Salmon. Bag got stuck in Chicago. They can't lose it on the way home, can they?
Who's ready to go fishing? This guy!
So I arrived in the very small airport in King Salmon on Saturday morning. The guy who organized the trip (Patrick)was on that flight with me and we got to the lodge and figured out what to do. I had plenty of fishing gear but no waders. So we opted to grab a jet boat and cross the large Naknek river and fish a slough right across from camp for some pike. I've never landed a pike on the fly so I was excited to get a big toothy in the net. Patrick cheated and threw some hardware and landed 2 fish. Well landed is a cautious word as apparently all these toothy pike and salmon blow up nets and both of them went through the netting. I had a MASSIVE blow up on a top water fly and that was all the action I had. However this fish put Patrick's to shame and was ever bit of 40"+.
Then came the winds. We couldn't motor because of the weeds and after more than several attempts to row out Patrick had to get out and manually tow us to the main river. About an hour later we got across the river and back to camp.
I don't get to fish too often with 4 kids ages 6 and under, so I took every opportunity I could to toss some line. You always see videos of the massive rainbows in Alaska under the boat docks waiting for a tasty meal after a fish is cleaned. Well I learned that you can't fish for an hour after a fish is cleaned on the docks. Well no fish were cleaned that day as it was the guides day off and I had some fun with some small rainbows and beads that were quite aggressive. I later stood on the farthest boat out from the launch and drifted some egg suckingleaches and streamers. Needless to say the Naknek's identity of being the best rainbow trout stream in all of Alaska showed itself quite quickly. I landed 2 rainbows, est 25" and 30" in about 15 minutes. Then had a big fish take and put me into my backing in about 10 seconds after he decided he wasn't playing around. Everyone's guess was a big Silver.
So Saturday night ended with a good start and we met as a group (13 guys) and decided where to go from there. There is a guy who they knew at camp who just bought a remote lodge last year and didn't have it booked up. We could pay extra for 2 fly outs to remote locations and I used 1 of those fly outs to spend 2 nights at this other lodge. https://www.atalodge.com/
This was on the Alagnak River. We flew in on a small plane onto a dirt airstrip with no other access besides a 10+ hour boat ride. True Alaskan wilderness!
We were told that the water was up significantly across the whole state of Alaska. The Alagnak was fairly high and I was told later in the week that the Naknek was running 4 feet higher than last year. The fishing was just so-so for Alaska standards but I would guess I caught close to 100 fish for the week.
The water on the Alagnak was very braided and you could fish the same stretch of water all week and never fish the same water twice. The pink and chum salmon were in full spawn and the grayling, rainbows and char had the feed bags on. 2 people in a jet boat with a guide and drifting through the river with beads produced about 20-30 fish days for 2 days. We mainly fished out of the boat and then 2-3 times a day we would get out and fish some more productive spots.
Put MANY grayling in the boat. A few pushing 20". They didn't like being touched AT ALL and quickly squirmed out of your hands when trying to unhook and release.
colorful char but bad picture. I needed a photographer to join me.
Only chum I took all week.
One spot our guide put us on was one he found just a few weeks earlier and called the "Char Bar". A nice gravel bar that for some reason held lots of big char. The guy I was fishing with snapped 2 BIG char off early due to some bad tippet and I landed this guy.
We headed up stream on day 2 after a nice night in the lodge, some good food, and a good nights rest. There we found some slower water where a massive pod of pinks were. We were looking for Silvers but it was a good consolation prize to find all these aggressive pinks. I tossed pink streamers to the bank and swung them through the pods of fish. I landed 6 in about an hour or less with many other takes. Needless to say it was a blast.
Another day of drifting beads and landing a good amount of fish as well as checking out the wildlife. I tried throwing some pink wogs for silvers but we just couldn't find any.
We saw a few eagles in the trees as we motored by, as well as just a few bears.
Another night in the lodge and rested up for the next day of fishing.
The next day our plane came a few hours late and we got into the Naknek camp around 2pm. My wife wanted me to bring fish home so we grabbed a boat with a guide and headed out for Silvers. They were just starting to run on the river in the past 1-2 weeks so they were there but not a ton yet. It was a cast as close to the bank as possible with a weighted streamer and 2 big split shot, throw a quick mend in and swing it through where the fish were lying. Needless to say it was some tough work. I landed 1 Silver and snapped another off on a wind knot when he made a big run. Landed a few small rainbows and a few pinks but a slow afternoon of fishing for Alaska standards. My camera guys failed in pressing the button down on the camera so no pictures of this days fish.
The next day I did my 2nd fly out to Contact creek. This was about a 30 minute plane ride on a small plane with water skiffs. Landed on a small lake, hiked in and fished about 2-3 miles. Then about a 2 mile hike out through the tundra to another lake where we got picked up. Windy day and leaving the lake got a bit interesting on the small plane. This stream was loaded with lots of BIG char. I went with a Father/Son and they had limited fly fishing experience. The guide was getting them set up and I went to fishing. In the first hole I hooked up 4 fish and landed 3 in about 10 minutes. 2 of the fish had big gouges in their bellies probably from a bear. We saw bear signs on the stream but no bear encounters. You can see a small wound on the side of this fish but a much larger gash was on his other side. I released him and had blood all over my hand after he swam off.
We fished down and landed some fish here and there. The guide knew I had some experience and put me on a few of the harder spots. We came up to a small drop off from the bank and a fish sitting tight to some brush. He said he didn't think that fish could be caught so I said "Challenge Accepted!" and hooked the fish about 4-5 drifts in. I enjoy doing things like that.
Now about half way through the day I wanted to get a picture of a Father/Son double. The dad was having some trouble getting hooked up and finally on a nice bar he hooked up. Just as the guide was netting his fish the son hooked a slightly bigger fish. I was upstream of both of them and began walking downstream, reeling in my line. When there was literally about 5 feet of fly line left on the tip of my rod, an even bigger char took my bead and the triple was on! All 3 fish in the net at the same time!
My fish stopped for a photo shoot underwater after the release.
I finished the day throwing some awesome mice that a friend of mine tied in the slowest water I could find and had 2 rainbows blow them up but no hook ups. Then we headed to another slower section and tossed dries at some more grayling. Landed a few and then took the walk out. I was told walking on the tundra is like walking on wet mattresses. That statement couldn't be more true. If it wasn't for the mountain range completely surrounding us and the occasional stop to pick some wild cranberries, blueberries and crowberries it would have been pretty rough.
The plane picked us up and after dinner I was ready for a well earned good nights rest.
The next day Thursday and the last day to put fish in the freezer. The fish needed to get frozen enough for the trip back home and keeping them Friday wouldn't get them done. So I headed out again on the Naknek for throwing heavy streamers. We went to the same spot as earlier in the week "Silver Bend" and I landed 1 Silver and a few pinks early in the morning. From 8:30-4:30 I cast that heavy rig, mainly back casting from the back of the boat as accurately as I could to the bank. I think I landed 1 small (15") rainbow the rest of the day with no other action. My guide said he doesn't see very many people all year long that can cast a weighted fly like I do and was pretty disappointed as I was that we didn't get into more Silvers. Once again no pictures of this day but 2 fish in the box for the wife.
(when the fishing isn't good take a picture of the scenery)
Last full day we took about a 1 hour boat ride to Margot Creek. We were told there was a good chance of bear encounters there but a good walk and wade stream with more big char. The boat ride was fantastic, even though it was very foggy as we rode upstream on the Naknek, to the big lake and through some mountains. The stream was just on the bank of an inactive volcano and floating pumice rocks lined the beach. I won't say whether I broke the rules and took a few home for the kids.
This creek was FILLED with colored up Sockeye salmon. Bright red and stuck out like a sore thumb. We matched the bead hatch and once again landed a bunch of big char and a few rainbows. I can't seem to get the videos of the Sockeye up on Photobucket but I'll see if I can add them later. The water was up high and we had to lock arms with the other guys in the group to cross more than a few sections. Once again the guide (different one) showed me some of the harder sections and I pulled a few nice char out of them.
About half way through the day I ate lunch quickly and the guide was helping the other 4 guys in my group. I said I was headed up stream to fish a section and I would wait for them to catch up to me. I fished but kept an eye on them. They packed up and I checked back. They started walking a few minutes later as I checked back again. A minute later I looked back and they were standing in the brush just stopped. I figured there was a bear and that means he was on my side of the creek. I quickly reeled in and walked upstream. I saw a mom and her cub and crossed the creek as best as I could. We then stood about 30-40 yards upstream and across the water from the 2 bears and got to watch them swim and fish for about 10-15 minutes. I have 2 videos and I'll see if I can get them posted later.
Right after I clicked one of the videos off, the momma bear sprinted and jumped with all 4 legs out of the water into a huge pool of Sockeye right where I was fishing not 10 minutes before hand. Definitely one of the highlights of the trip but I wish I got it on camera.
We fished through the rest of the stream. I fished both of these small streams with the final prototype of our new rod series (selfless plug). a 9' 5wt rod and it performed great..... just until the last fish of the day was landed and I asked another guy from our group to take the picture. He grabbed the camera, walked up and firmly placed both boots on my rod. Picture snapped as well as the rod. It landed probably 25 2-4lb char and rainbows effortlessly and then met it's demise. Ohh well.
I took a few product shots and you can see the Sockeye in the background.
We hiked back after that, encountered 2 more bears and had to walk around them to get back to the stream, got on the boat and headed back to camp. That was the last of the fishing for the week and I couldn't have asked for anything better. The fishing was ok, but it didn't matter. The scenery seemed surreal throughout the trip. It's like you were inside a magazine and didn't know if it was real or not. Vast mountains, glaciers, tundra, wildlife and of course the fishing.
This was NOT a trip of a lifetime as I'll be back hopefully sooner than later.
Ryan
