An Alaskan Adventure: Part 2 Game On

On Wednesday things didn't quite go as planned however ,on Thursday we were able to get on our connecting plane and even though it was delayed by an hour for "technical" issues we finally made it to our destination. We got off the plane at around 1:00pm, got reunited with our waders and flies, got our rental van that would double as our tent for our stay and headed down to the river eager to make up for lost time. On the way to the river we got an Alaskan welcome by a Brown Bear that was working his way across a meadow.

An Alaska greeting...

The river

After the bear sighting, we made our way to the river, rigged up our rods and started hiking in search of some good looking water. After putting a few miles behind us, we spotted a good looking run and made our way down to the river. Upon hitting the water, we immediately spotted a few steelhead holding, definitely a good sign!! Blake got things kicked off for us and within the first half hour landed a beautiful chrome steelhead on a nymph.

Blake with the first steelhead of the trip

After Blake his fish, we hit a bit of a slow spell. The fish were there, but they just weren't overly grabby. However, Chris changed that as he threw on a big Dolly Llama streamer and stated stripping it across the pool. It didn't take long for this to grab the attention of one of the fish, about three strips as a matter of fact, and Chris was tied into a big albeit a little dark steelhead. The fish gave him a run for his money, but Chris won out and brought the buck to hand.

Chris' colored up buck

Although Chris did manage to get a few more fish to chase his fly and Blake hooked up with one other fish, things really slowed down so we decided to head upstream to do a bit of exploring. However, the rest of the day remained much the same, with me hooking and losing one and Chris getting another dark fish. Even with the extended hours of daylighting of the far north, before long we were losing light and it was time to head back to "camp," for dinner and some sleep.

Back on the trail

A great end to a great day... 10:00pm in the Alaskan spring...

With the end of the day upon us, we re-rigged our rods organized our gear and set our alarm for 4 AM to ensure that we would get our pick of spots on the river. As it always does, 4 AM rolled around very quickly and after gearing up we were on the trail again. While I hadn't landed a fish on Thursday, I was hoping that Friday would treat me a better especially being that we were the first ones on the river and there had been a good early morning tide promising fresh fish would be pushing in. After staking out our spot on the river, it didn't take long before Chris hooked into a fish. This fish was an absolute chrome rocket and didn't want anything with being hooked and tossed the hook after a short battle. As Chris recovered from his tussle, I moved into position and after a handful of casts my indicator shot under and I had a fish on! This fish was also a chromer and acted the part displaying all of the aerial acrobatics that these fish are famous for. I luckily got a good hookset and before long my switch rod over powered the fish and I brought my first Alaskan steelhead to hand.

My first  Alaskan chromer!

This same process played out again shortly after releasing this fish, with Chris tying into and losing another fish and me being fortunate enough to hook into another fish and have it stay buttoned long enough to being it in. Things didn't stop here either, as the wave of fresh fish continued to push in we continued to hook up and by 7:00 AM we had already hooked seven fish between us and I had personally brought three in and another right at shore. As the tidal push thinned out, we spread out with Chris moving upstream and getting chromer and another dark buck on the Dolly Llama and earning the nickname the "red dragon" slayer. Blake and I took turns fishing the honey hole for a while and he pulled a nice chrome fish out right before we regrouped for lunch.

Blake's chromer

Lunch was more of an excuse to rest the hole than anything else and of course it paid off with one of us hooking up within a few casts of getting back on the water, but losing the fish. There was a definite mid-day lull in the action and as such Blake and Chris decided to head downstream to try the pool below us. This move was apparently well timed as within a half hour the next albeit small tidal push of fish worked its way in. The numbers may have been smaller for this push, but the size of the fish was not and Chris managed to pull a beautiful 12 lb hen still carrying sea lice out of the hole.

Chris with a slab of a chromer

While I was pretty sure that either Chris or Blake had just gotten a fish, as I could hear all of the commotion, I didn't have enough time to figure out, as I also found myself tied into a fish. Right away I knew that this fish was bigger than others that I had gotten, and it quickly tore through most of my fly line and finally came shooting out of the water. Have just released his fish a couple of minutes prior, Chris came running upstream to help me land mine. When we got it in he had to do a bit of a double take because this fish was very nearly the twin of the fish he had just gotten. We snapped a few pictures of this beauty, then sent her back into the current and to continue her journey to start the next generation.

My big fish - note the sea lice by the anal fin

Although we did hook into a few more fish after this one, this would be the last one landed before we had to hit the trail at 3 PM to make our way back to the airport for our flight home. However, with over 20 fish hooked throughout the day and somewhere around 10 to hand I would have a very hard time complaining!

Alaska did not disappoint!

Our ride home... The salmon thirty salmon!