AK

It's June in southeast Alaska and it's a bit of a change from dusty Wyoming. As I sit and eat breakfast I can look out the window and watch the cruise ships rolling into the harbor. Pretty soon the float planes are buzzing about and the docks are crawling with tourists despite the intermittent rain showers. I'm able to see all this because the house I'm in is on a really steep hill. It's so steep in fact, that our "street" is actually just a wooden staircase that runs several hundred feet up from the bottom of the hill to our parking lot at the top. We have intersections on this street, other similarly styled "streets" with mailboxes and trashcans and such, complete with street signs and everything. It's a bit of a departure from what I'm used to, as I said.

With the shop getting geared up for trips as well as our private areas opening up soon I've been prepping base camp, repairing gear, getting licenses sorted out, and checking out new water. Somewhere in all the chaos I've found the time to get into some coastal cutthroat and even a few gigantic sculpins. Actually they're saltwater rockfish, but they look just like monstrous sculpins if you ask me. The trout are keying up on the salmon fry that are recently hatched as well as a variety of stoneflies. The rockfish seem to be more interested in whatever furry bunny strip concoction you can put in front of them on a sinking line. Finding time is a bit of a joke around here, with somewhere around 19 hours of light to work with you can get a hell of a lot done in a day. Like fish in the rain or eat crabs. Lots of crabs.


The Cohos are staging in the creek mouths and it'll just be a few days now before the first fish make their run up into the fresh water and all hell breaks loose. Until then, I'm going to try to catch as many different species of rockers on a fly as possible. I know once the salmon really get thick I'll forget about the saltwater species for a while so now's the time. There are lots of them, so it could be interesting.

A Little Piece of Paradise

I know of a place that is the stuff of legend. I often think of it when I’m fishing my usual waters, wondering how it is. Surely, I’d be doing much better if I was there. After a long day on the river I sometimes yearn to get back there and redeem myself for my mediocre performance today. The water is clean, cold, and gin-clear. Stalking the banks holds endless sight-fishing opportunity with hordes of rainbows and browns in every riffle and pool. You’ll rarely find yourself crowded, in fact some times of the year you can be the only soul for miles on this beautiful river. Sheer red walls plummet hundreds of feet to meet the deep emerald water. Monsters lurk in the shadowy depths and even in the coldest months countless noses lazily sip insects caught in the surface film. It may truly be a trout angler’s paradise.

Preparing for a trip there involves checking every piece of gear, tying a bunch of new flies, and setting the coffee pot for some ungodly hour. The pre-dawn departure is accompanied by hushed excitement, the anticipation of epic fishing growing with each bleary-eyed sip of coffee. The dog knows something good is coming, she can feel it. She may not know where you’re going, but she knows the truck is full of gear and that can only mean one thing.

With an arsenal of rods, flies, and other miscellaneous gear strapped all over, you’ll head down the footpath to the water and suddenly remember just how damn hard this place is. In all the daydreaming, planning, and driving you somehow forgot how badly you were beat down last time. Those hundreds of fish sipping lazily didn’t want anything to do with whatever you were throwing. Every fly you had with you was ten times too big or too small, too flashy or too dull. Every piece of fishy-looking water produced nothing but frustration, tangles, and lost flies. Your footsteps on the bank spooked fish from forty yards. You fell in the thirty-seven degree water miles from the truck. You went through every dry, nymph, and streamer on hand and the one bug that consistently got takes failed to hook up every time because the hook had broken and you never thought to check it.

Never mind all that, you think, this time it’ll be different. I’m ready for it now, bring it on. So you creep along the bank, keeping the dog far from the water. You spot the day’s first rises gently breaking the surface long before you notice any bugs. You can make out the shapes of trout just below the glare, feeding on nymphs or the occasional dry. So you’ll tie the smallest emerger you’ve got onto the longest, lightest leader you can put together and pray that just one of those fish wants it. Moving ever so slowly, you’ll creep up to the edge and make the most gentle presentation the world has ever seen. The drift will be perfect, right down the alley. And that’s how it will go all day; creep, cast, curse, repeat.

Eventually you’ll have to sit down and ponder just what the hell you’re doing here. It’s frustrating, demoralizing, and enough to drive you mad. But sit long enough and at some point you may realize that this truly is a trout angler’s paradise. Not because you can go and beat up on fish all day but because you’ve got to be dialed. This isn’t the stocked pond behind the golf course. It’s unforgiving and will shut you down more often than not if you let it. But the more you fail, the more you learn, and at some point the 7x doesn’t look so small, the micro currents become more obvious, and the 14 incher is every bit as rewarding as the 22. Well, almost.

I won't be able to get back there for a long while, Alaska is a bit too far to drive from. While I'm sure the ridiculous fishing up there will be a ton of fun, I'll be looking forward to another beatdown when I get back.

Small Fish, Big Attitude

I met up with Colter Bennett today to head down to Fontenelle Reservoir and stare at water all day. We did eventually get into a bunch of smallies that put up an insane fight for their size which was a nice bonus to add to the nice weather that has finally arrived. Aaaah yes, there aren't too many things I enjoy more than hammering fish on the 7wt. Hopefully I'll have time to get back out before heading north, but we'll see.

Blackfoot Carp Classic 6

After leaving Wisco wednesday night and driving straight through, Andrew and I rolled into Blackfoot Reservoir about midnight thursday. We were greeted friday morning by an excited Scott Sanchez and crew, already plotting on how they were going to get the varmint cong (chislers, not carp). Heading to the center of camp, we ran into Currier, Trey, and Bennie who were already eager to wet a line. Breakfast was already underway and the rest of the teams were gathering around the staging area, ready to go. It looked to be some pretty stiff competition with a bunch of experienced anglers who know their goldfish.

It was a pretty good turnout, about a dozen teams showed up despite the horrible weather and even lousier fishing. Within about a half hour of leaving the start, the wind picked up and soon there were whitecaps across the entire reservoir. Not exactly ideal for carp fishing. I only spotted three fish throughout the day and with the temperature dropping not many teams weighed in. Ironically enough, shortly after weigh-in the wind practically stopped and I managed to get a few shots of Sanchez and Mike Whitcomb working a pod of feeding fish.



Theeeen the rain rolled in, eventually turned into snow, and made for a cold, wet evening, everyone huddled in or around campers. There was plenty of cheer to go around though, as the grills were fired up despite the weather and the bullshit and fish stories flew until late.

Saturday. Wow. Waking up to snow on the ground was not high on my list of things I wanted to do. Fortunately the hot coffee and pancakes were enough to get us going and we headed out to get beat down again. I thought friday had been bad, but this was worse. Colder, windier, and not a fish to be had. Only three came in across the board, with tales of misery from just about everyone there. Despite the weather, folks rallied for the night ahead and the fires burned bright around camp. There's always next year, and judging from this year's turnout, it'll be even bigger than before.

Some Might Call it Epic

This past week has been a bit absurd to say the least. After many hours on the road and in the air, I finally arrived in Northeast Wisconsin last Saturday and met up with Andrew Drasch and Tim Fischer to do a little exploring on the Menominee. We'd heard it was a great smallmouth fishery that should be picking up right about the time we rolled in. It was and it did. The first night sitting around the fire, organizing gear, and fantasizing over the next day's fishing had the three of us so amped up that I don't think anyone got any sleep.

Day one started with three or four smallies and two nice pike in the first half hour and the fishing kept up consistently enough that we didn't get back to our basecamp until almost 11pm. While most of the action was from the smallmouth, there were plenty of smaller pike in the mix, so the 40lb. shock tippet was a good choice to avoid losing our perch patterns.

We spent the second day on what the Wisco boys call a flowage (the rest of the world calls it a lake) created by one of the many dams on the river. Pounding the shore with baitfish patterns was the ticket for smallies in the two to four pound range as well as small pike and even a muskie.

Working our way into a weed-choked slough that seemed perfect for largemouth, I tied on a big hairy topwater pattern and started drawing strikes in the patches between weeds. After a few fish clobbered it and didn't stick, I cut the weed guard off and proceeded to nail two bucketmouths. The violent strikes that these fish destroy a fly with are impressive to say the least, which would probably account for my big shit-eating grin in the pictures. The larger of the two was not at all happy about my fly invading his space and put on quite the show when he decided it was time to destroy.

Not long afterwards, Andrew decided it would be a good idea to break my 8 weight on the biggest smallie of the day and we got mocked by some good ol boys zipping by in a little outboard. Quote of the day goes to one of these goons, apparently totally boggled by our motorless driftboat: "Dude's rowing!" Our lack of motor notwithstanding, we appeared to be having a hell of a lot better day than those guys. Pulling off the water long after dark once again, we were already formulating our plan of attack for the next day.

We decided to head back to the same stretch of river for day three and fished it a bit more effectively, focusing on the areas that produced well the last time. It paid off big, with pretty consistent smallie action in the morning and a bunch of lively pike through the afternoon and evening.

After such good fishing and spending three days with two world class ball-busters, I had a bit of a hard time getting back on the road to head to Idaho. Little did I know just what we were in for, but more on that later. I feel I should point out that in the slideshow over on the right there, I appear in a picture with a baitcaster. I admit it, I went there. After three days of throwing an 8 weight nonstop 50 to 75 feet on every cast, my wrist just couldn't take any more and needed a break. It didn't take long before I was back on the flies, I got bored with not catching anything on it. Bait is sissy.

Three Days to Go

With just a few days before I drop kick northern Wisconsin's fish population Chuck Norris style, I did manage to get out in our now normal crap weather with Mark and find a fish. Yeah, one. Apparently it was the coolest take Mark's seen in a while, he was freakin out from his perch above the fish. My only view was downstream through horrible glare looking at an orange indicator. Even though it was one of the trickier presentations I've had to deal with in a while and I was pretty sure my cast was way off, the fish got up and charged a #10 black bugger from about 15 feet away. And then we proceeded to get rained on in 40 degree weather for the rest of the day without even a look from another fish. Oh well. Wisco, prepare for war.

It just won't stop

The weather has been staying consistently awful around these parts lately and the fishing has been a bit challenging as a result. Sustained wind in the high teens or more every day gets real old after this long. Fortunately, there are still plenty of active fish out there. The rainbows have been coming through pretty consistently and are making for some fun excursions off the beaten path. Apparently the word has gotten out on just about every sweet spot around here that involves less than a mile of hiking and the pressure has been absurd. With the snowline steadily receeding, more and more is opening up that the baitchuckers won't get into. So we've got that going for us, which is nice.