Ready to go at the Sportsman’s Launch
The Alaska pipe dream I had long romanced began to take shape in an image snapped through the window of a Boeing 757-200 five hours into flight.
The still frame captured a patch of Chugach National Forest as the sun begins its’ downward slope. A grey white line of frozen mountains, their summits glowing pink in the fading daylight, splits in two. Between them, rippling glaciers spill out from the sides of the range and pile into each other before flowing relentlessly toward the Pacific Ocean.
All below looks unforgivingly desolate until the eye reaches mid-frame where land, sea, and air collide in a narrow blaze of yellow and rose streaking horizon to horizon.
“I am in Alaska,” were the only words that came to mind in the moments it took to compose a rational thought in view of this rapturous glory of nature.
“Almost,” offered the traveler who had gracefully granted me permission to have a look out his first class window. “We still need to land.”
An hour later, after the pilot greased the landing, I stepped into the glassy terminal at Ted Steven’s airport. It was dusk and I had flown almost a fifth of the way around the world.
However, I was still not there. There in this case meant a place deep in untrodden woods split by a tumbling clear stream chock full of wild rainbows. The kind of place in Alaska in which I could stand creek side with a grizzly and a salmon and walk away with the fish.
To get there I had further to go. So, I squeezed into a rented Toyota and prepared for the one hundred and two mile drive down the Anchorage to Seward Highway (AK1) to Cooper Landing.
The author at Arrow Rock
The first stop on the journey was the Walmart in Anchorage. It was open late and I needed to pick up a fishing license. There the man at the counter offered me a solemn piece of advice.
“Wait” he said, “until morning if you are not from around here. Lots of stuff crosses the road at night. You won’t see it until it’s too late.”
Indeed, AK-1 has the reputation of being one of the most dangerous roads in America. In this case I got lucky, the weather cooperated and I was travelling during a clear evening.
At night, in the mountains, the route did have all of the elements of a dangerous road. A range of high peaks picketed the left side of the highway and blotted out everything but the highest stars in utter darkness.
To the right, the backwaters of the Pacific Ocean filled the bay created by the Kenai Peninsula. There were only few yards of marsh in which to land if the compact car I was driving left the twisting two-lane strip of asphalt.
The most imposing element of the drive was the overpowering sense of being alone. There was nothing save all encompassing winding darkness and one lonely gas station between Anchorage and Cooper Landing.
However, an hour and a half after leaving Walmart I pulled into the fishing camp. I deliberately paused to look around the dimly lit driveway and ensure that no bears were lurking about, I stepped out of the car. Finally, after decades of waiting I had my chance to fish Alaska – but it would have to wait until morning.
The Upper Kenai
The morning fog had yet to completely burn off of the upper section of the Kenai River. Four of us; me, an inner city English teacher, two dentists, and a lighting contractor settled into the twenty-foot aluminum Willie drift boat named `Hollywood.’
We paddled out from the Sportsman’s Dock and into the rip fast current of the Kenai River to fish a seven mile strip of the river which snaked through the Alaskan wild.
The upper section of the Kenai River is one of the premier destinations in Alaska because of the relative isolation of the fishery combined with a large active fish population as well as its’ proximity to AK-1.
The fishery offers mile after mile of mostly uninhabited stretches of alluvial gravel bottomed river perfect for trout and salmon fishing. Water depths varied from a few inches to six to eight foot deep pockets.
On our drift, it was bursting with glacial melt. Just a week before, an ice jam had broken off a feeder glacier and dumped millions of extra gallons of aqua colored water into the system.
Rather than being a harbinger of doom for the trip, the event turned out to be a fortunate occurrence. The dead and dying Sockeye salmon were mostly washed out of the river. Once gone the only sport fish left were active Coho salmon and, the main attraction, wild ocean-run rainbow trout.
Our leader, Jeff, assured us the area was loaded with fish. He had been to Alaska thirty - five times over twenty years and learned how to fish the river through endless research and active trial and error.
Under these current conditions we fished the area where the fast water bracketed pockets of fish into the slack or slicks. Slack in this case was relative. Any place where the fast water was broken by submerged rocks, dips, broken logs, a bend or curve in the river, or an undercut bank, the water slowed down, even if fractionally, it was enough to hold fish.
The remaining sockeye which, while severely weakened, clustered into the slack water to rest. The rainbow trout, still hungry, hunkered in behind the dying and decaying sockeye and ate the flesh that fell off of those fish as well as the remaining eggs that tumbled by.
Eggs in this case were no longer a pristine orange color, rather, they were beginning to decay. As they did, the once bright clear egg appeared as a washed out apricot color or a dull white.
Sockeye and Silver Salmon, and rainbow trout were everywhere. So were Dolly Varden, which we thought of as the Chevy Cavalier of sport fishing; common, reliable, and occasionally beautiful.
A large dolly caught at my favorite spot - Arrow Rock
‘Hollywood’
‘Hollywood’ is a twenty foot Willie drift boat. An amazing craft; fast maneuverable, and tough as nails, it could float in as little as four inches of water. Over the course of a week, we deliberately grounded the boat into the gravel and rock shoreline and Hollywood and her rugged diamond plate sides just shook off the punishment.
The flat bottom of the craft reduced drag and increased maneuverability in the whip fast water. It easily handled the seventy four hundred feet per second current. Often we scooted over ridges of alluvial gravel just inches below the hull without as much as a shudder in the deck plates.
There was one thing that did take some time to get used to. Often while we would be fishing the boat would zip along the river toward what appeared to be a certain shin busting high speed grounding. The bottom of the river would rise up just off the bow of the craft and close in as a blur. I braced for each impact as the streambed galloped toward us then, it simply disappeared underneath the gunwale replaced once again by aqua blue water.
Fishing the Upper Kenai
‘Hollywood’ carried three fishermen up front; one on the bow, one to port, and the other to starboard. At the bow was the lighting contractor, he used a center-pin reel and a twelve foot rod. He whipped presentations twenty-five yards downstream then let the rig swirl in the current. I took the port side probing the water with a Sage 4200 attached to a 10’ 7’ Winston rod. To starboard our first dentist, was geared out with an identical Winston rod and Sage reel. We rolled shorter casts into narrow lanes ahead and to either side of the boat while coiling the taut line in our hands until we drifted past our eggs.
Despite being a twenty foot-boat the three of us were cramped and needed to coordinate our casts. Jeff sat just aft of the centerline and maneuvered the boat with paddles.
Behind me, on the port side of the craft, was the gear. A day on the water required a cooler with sandwiches, snacks, bug spray, and water. We also lugged plenty of extra tippet and fly line, as well as dozens of eggs in several colors and hooks. Finally, there were four extra Winston rods equipped with Sage reels. Fully rigged with Rio line, tippet, and leader, each rod and reel cost well over a thousand dollars. I was careful not to do anything that would cause me to drop my rig into the hustling river.
The 7 – weight Winston BIIx 10-foot rod flexed responsively as I set the hook into my first fish of the trip. For a fraction of a second the loosely coiled line in my hand snapped tight and I could feel the desperate run of a fish and the whine of the sealed drag of my reel.
She was gone just as quick.
The line went slack and I angrily re-coiled the line in my hand and rolled my cast out in front of the moving boat.
“You have to mend the line upstream and let it uncoil out of your hand downstream,” offered Jeff. That dictum was nearly always followed by, “point the tip of your rod right at the float – make sure it does not move.” The lighting contractor nodded having already accepted and seamlessly integrated the advice.
What can’t move? The rod tip or my float, I wondered, then guessing correctly, I held my rod tip still and line tight to the float. In this way I could feel the take through the rod and the line.
Below the water, just a few inches above the gravel, my 8mm apricot colored acrylic egg bounced along the bottom. Two inches behind the egg I had tied a Tiemco 2499 SPBL barbless hook. We used barbless because they were safer for the fish and easier to remove once the fish was landed.
I followed the rules and shortly after we had beached the boat, and now fishing from shore, I felt the hard thump of a wild rainbow slapping my rod. I pulled back hard but bungled the uncoiling of the line in my hand. The fish ran free with little or no tension to keep her on the line.
“Get the fish on the reel,” hollered Jeff, “get her on the reel or she is gone,” he added.
I foundered awkwardly for those first crucial seconds of a take. Holding up the rod in desperation and pulling back as the fish whipped back and forth. She charged hard upstream and flipped to the middle before turning sideways to make herself heavy in the current.
“It’s huge,” I yelled back. “An absolute monster.” I did not want to lose this one.
Finally, I secured the line with my index finger and began reeling in the fish. The Winston rod was bent over and the drag whined but I was able to get control and angle her close to shore. At last she was in the net.
Two things stunned me.
One was the beautiful chrome flanks of the rainbow trout. They glowed and shimmered as she moved in the net. The only other color, her pale pink cheeks and a tumble of dark black speckles on her head and back.
The other surprise – she was tiny. The fish that fought like a king salmon was only 11 inches long. I quickly dislodged the hook and took a picture before releasing her.
“Great fish,” offered our guide. “It’s your first Alaskan Rainbow.”
“She is so small, I thought for sure she was five pounds.”
“That’s Alaska fishing man.”
The author with a wild rainbow which fought well above its weight class.
He was right, and over the length of the trip the most amazing thing that I learned about fishing here was everything fights like a rabid grizzly bear.
The biggest fish I caught was 18 inches, comparable to a mid-sized Lake Ontario steelhead, but here in the wild it was an epic battle unlike anything my fishing grounds had to offer. I hooked her twice on consecutive casts behind an island. I lost her in seconds the first time and then secured her the second.
She was angry and hot headed blowing in and out of the fast current intent of breaking the 12-pound leader or yanking the rod out of my hand.
I knew I was never going to land her without a net and called for one of the guys to bring the net.
Nobody came.
I yelled again and even angled myself so I could be better heard over the roar of the water.
Still no luck. The fish fought on.
By chance, Jeff came wandering down the bank watched for a time then upon my request carefully netted the rainbow. She was beautiful as she was aggressive, a pure pink stripe washed over her lateral line against the bright silver side. Hundreds of black and olive speckles covered her back. In seconds, she was free and back in the river leaving me with only a few moments to appreciate her.
I caught and released her on the morning of the final day of the trip. It was one of almost forty fish and she certainly was the best. A superb fish which encompassed everything I was looking for in Alaska – alone in the woods I engaged in an epic battle with a surly fish. While there was no grizzly to fight I still was able to come away with my prize and the incomparable experience of fishing the Alaskan wild with a bunch of friends.
The final fish of the trip.