White River

The White's been fishing well despite the downright hot temperatures we've been having and just about everyone's catching fish. One of my clients, Michele, was kind enough to send some of her pics from her family's trip last week. They put the hurt on the pinks and hauled in a few pigs. Great job guys, I hope you all had as good a time as I did. Oh and Bill, I hope you remembered to brush your teeth.

Droppin' Bottom

The pursuit of rockfish has taken us to new lows. Literally. We've gone beyond the limits of fly gear and started plumbing the depths for new sea monsters. What will you find at 300' down? All sorts of wacky stuff. It seems 300 feet is a great depth for yelloweye rockfish, also known as red snapper.

There's a few halibut down there as well, lucky for us this one wasn't much bigger or it would still be swimming and we would have a few repairs to do.

We also found out that if you are in a big school of salmon in shallow water and want a bigger tug on the line, just drop some big dead herring looking thing on the bottom and hang on. Way to go Jo, you wrastle that doggie.

Poundin' Pinks

It was finally playtime today, with an afternoon off and the pinks going bonkers. There's a big variety of fish in now, from freshies still carrying sea lice (not really as gross as it sounds) to some of the earlier arrivals that have started to hump up and.....change. It really is freakish how fast they go through an extreme body modification from this:

To this:

I mean, it's shocking. I put that fish down in the water, picked it back up, and that's what had happened. Ok, not really. That's really a matter of a week or so in fresh water, and they're not done yet. Anyway, more to follow on that. The action on these fiesty buggers has been hot, with the right moves you can't keep them off your line and there's plenty of bang for the buck. Given enough room, some of the freshies are stripping my 7wt. to backing and earning every inch of it. The 3wt. has seen some action as well, although after popping a few on it I had to give the arm a break. It's a hell of a lot of fun, I highly recommend it.

It's back to the ruckus again tomorrow, with every guide booked and ready to rock 'n roll. There'll be flies zingin' every which way, bears divebombing schools off the banks, and plenty of busted knuckles. We've got more fish moving up by the minute and pretty soon we'll be just about able to two step across 'em they're stackin up so thick. Saddle up pardners, it's time to rodeo.

It's On!

Finally, after waiting much too long, they're here. The pinks have arrived in good numbers and while they're not quite smashing flies, at least they're biting enough to entertain with a lively fight. I've been out the past few days with some great folks, some of whom have never seen a salmon before, let alone hooked up with one. They had a blast and between the fish and the bears everybody's left with a smile.

Why don't you come down here and chum some of this shi...

Enough of this trout nonsense. I wasn't leaving the creek yesterday until I caught a salmon. So I did, then I left. Being Sunday and rather nice out, every goon with a rod was out flogging the water into submission. Not surprisingly, nobody that I saw was catching much of anything in the way of trout. It seems that when they get pounded over the head all day they stop eating. Imagine that. It was time to up the ante. Launching my own shock and awe campaign, I swung giant streamers at the chums that have moved up until I connected. For the unfamiliar, nobody fishes for chums. There's a number of reasons for this: they're not lively fighters, they don't strike often, and they're no good eating. Hence the name chum. As far as I'm concerned, they're 20 times bigger than any of the trout in there, they're actually challenging, and they're gorgeous. Maybe it's the carp chaser in me, but it just had to happen, even the losers need some lovin from time to time. After working this fish for a good twenty minutes, he finally got agitated enough and slammed his jaws shut on my fly. He then proceeded to take off downstream and made me chase him a good hundred yards or more, right through the hole that a couple of dudes were letting tiny trout embarass them in. One of them got quite a kick out of the fact that I'd actually gotten a chum to eat, let alone land the thing. The other dude seemed a bit miffed that I wrecked his hole. What he didn't seem to realize was that he had no chance to begin with, being the 4th person that I'd seen pound that spot in the last hour. He didn't look like he had a clue what he was doing anyway, when I interrupted him he shot me a nasty glare and simply turned around and started casting his dry fly straight downstream. Awesome. Sorry pal, I'm not breaking my rod for you and there was no way I was going to break off that fish for your sake. Combat fishing rule number one: there are no rules. My only problem at this point: one handed camera work with a seriously pissed off fish in the other.

Rock Fish

The salmos (ok, oncorhynchi technically) are still being stubborn and not coming in so I headed out this afternoon with Lance (Minnesotean extraordinaire) in his Zodiac to go find whatever we could find. We motored a few miles up the coast to check out a creek that I'd eyeballed on Google Earth and proceeded to find nothing but crab pots. Being in a clump of islands, we figured there had to be fish around somewhere and utilizing the latest in ultra techy fish finder gear we were able to find fish of some unknown species in 60 to 180 feet of water. Yesssssss. I know what you're thinking, and yes, that's a hell of a lot of water to drop a fly down. Lance had no qualms about dropping a big fish-shaped chunk of lead or something and proceeded to nail what we think is a Quillback Rockfish.

The AK G&F rockfish ID guide is pretty poor, so "we think" is about as close as we're getting on this one. Not to be outdone, and of course packing my arsenal of piscatorial terrorism for the trip, I rigged up the 300 gr. sinking line and started plumbing the depths. In a matter of a few minutes we BOTH limited out. Yep, you read that right, I used the phrase "limited out" when referring to myself. Unfortunately for us and the fish, the rules up here require you to keep all non-pelagic rockfish because of a fun little physiological quirk. The swim bladders in these guys don't adjust very quickly, and when you bring them up they tend to experience a bit of decompression, aka internal hemmoraging from which they probably won't recover. Soooo legally you've got to keep them. The only real problem, as I later discovered, is that being a non-resident, I can only keep, and therefore only fish until I catch two. Yep, two. This is a problem for three reasons. One: It makes me stop fishing. Two: They're damn good eating and I want to eat more. (I'm of the opinion that AK just hates non resident types. Don't believe me? Check out the regs some time.) And three: It's going to take me a long ass time to catch all the different species of these things if I can only catch two fish on any given day. Laaaaaaaaame.

Another fun factoid: Rockfish are equipped with spines on their dorsal fin which pack a nice little surprise. Not only are they extremely sharp, they have a nice toxin in them that burns like a bastard if you get stuck. They're also equipped with spines on their other fins and gill plates that don't pack the same punch but will tear you up.
Tomorrow's plan: rock fish.

Let the chaos begin....

It's officially guide season here and the past week has been going pretty well. Well for the salmon not being in yet, that is. It's been trout for the time being, with a fly out and some on-island trips this past week. Native cuts and rainbows are smashing flies and I've had the pleasure of getting some rookies hooked up for the first time. It's business as usual in the fly world here, man does this job suck. I just hate playing with fish in some of the coolest settings on earth. Hehehe. Come on out and play, the only way to get 'em is with your fly in the water.