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Kenai, Quartz Creek, Russian River

Alaska – Part 4

By Tom Burnett

Kenai Peninsula Week

Day 24:  Back to Anchorage

While our time at Alaska West had ended, we still had to get back to Anchorage to meet up with fishing buddy James Kelley to start our Kenai Peninsula leg.  To do that required  the reverse of how we got to Alaska West….. Step 1: boat ride from the tent camp to the native village of Quinhagak.  When we got there, the tide was at a crazy high at 14.2 feet up, meaning our guides navigated the jet boats through a scattering of native’s boats, and up a road that was well underwater.  It was funny seeing the guides looking at one another, wondering what was the best way to go.  But…. we made it out of the boats and after a short walk, we boarded our “school bus” for a short ride to the Quinhagak airport terminal.  

What you have to understand about the Quinhagak terminal, is that it’s a small house, with no “security”.  We didn’t see any TSA agents, only a native selling trinkets and wolf hides in the “gift shop” area of the small terminal/house.  It was raining, of course, as we walked out to our small, 8 passenger single prop plane and took off down the runway with a large “bump” in it.  Luckily, the plane had lifted before we hit the bump (we hit it on landing a week earlier).  

After a short flight from Quinhagak to Bethel, we located our luggage and fish boxes (yes, we brought out 100 lbs of salmon).   We proceeded to “formally” check in at the Bethel terminal, have our bags weighed, lamented how our bags were left behind last time on this leg and waited.  Finally, we boarded a Dash 8 and took the 1.5 hour flight to Anchorage…. where we found James waiting for us at baggage claim.  We grabbed our rental car and headed to the Kenai Peninsula and the little community of Cooper Landing, right on the Kenai & Russian Rivers.

Barb and I celebrated our 46th wedding anniversary with James by having dinner at the Kingfisher, a local restaurant and bar located right on the water.  After a good meal and lots of story telling, we headed to our cabins for the night.

Day 25:  Quartz Creek Stomping

We met Matt Marchaund at Alaska Troutfitters and headed out to Quartz Creek for the day.  Barb and I had fished with Matt on the Russian earlier on our trip and he’d talked about how Quarts Creek was ‘coming into shape’ and might be a great option.  After parking at the Crescent Creek campground, we fished our way upstream through several holes, hooking into a fish here and there.  It was still early for the Quartz, but, we were encouraged seeing a huge King salmon.  At some point eggs would be laid, and some would drift downstream to waiting trout and dolly varden, but not just yet.  Still, we found several willing fish to hit our egg beads.  

We had lunch, sitting on the bank of the river before heading downstream to fish a few holes.  We crossed over Crescent Creek, which was flowing strong, before hitting a couple of really nice spots and hooking into more fish.  We’d had a great day fishing with Matt and headed back to our cabins and dinner at Sacketts… pizza!

Day 26:  #100… CHECK!

This was the day…. our chance to fish the Kenai River, which would be the 100th river on the TU list we’d been fishing.  We met our guide for the day, Simmons Adickes of Mystic Waters Fly Fishing, in front of our cabin and headed off to the Sportsman’s Landing launch.  After putting on our life vests, getting our safety instructions, launching and getting our fishing instruction, we started.  Within 15 minutes we’d landed (Barb, of course) our first of many Kenai River fish, a feisty rainbow.  

We fished through the “Refuge” section with really good success, picking off rainbows and dolly varden with regularity.  We’d also seen eagles (bald and juvenile) around every bend in the river.  Simmons told us how one bald eagle, Frank, had bombed his boat when we was landing a fish for a client.  Frank literally flew down and plucked the fish right from the net, and proceeded to fly away with it.  We were laughing so hard as the story continued…. turns out, the fish was still hooked by the angler, so as Frank flew away, the fly line was screaming off the reel of the angler, but, it was 40’ in the air as Frank was taking the fish to his nest.  Just like bears always win when it decides it wants your fish, so do bald eagles.  Frank got the fish (with a hook still in its mouth) and the angler got his line back, hookless.

We went through the “canyon” section with less fishing success, but it was absolutely gorgeous.  The rapids were large (Class III) so we sat a lot as we rode them out, but fished some gravel bars along the way.  At the end of the “canyon” section, we emerged into Skilak Lake where Simmons turned on the motor and we started our 6 mile trek across the lake.  About 2/3 of the way across, we encountered some big waves caused by a westerly wind which made us a bit nervous, but Simmons navigated us safely across.  We even saw a small black bear perched on a ledge along the lake.

When we landed at the boat ramp, and exhaled having successfully crossed the lake, we smiled as we remembered that today, we’d crossed off river 100.  While our quest to fish (and land a fish) in each of the TU Top 100 trout stream, we still had more days to fish.  

Day 27:  DIY

This was our DIY day, with the three of us heading off to fish both Quartz Creek and the Russian River on our own.  We started on Quartz Creek by hiking up a trail from the Crescent Creek campground for about 1/2 mile.  After bushwhacking our way to the river, we found good spots to drop in and proceeded to fish our way downstream, hole by hole, back to the parking lot.  

Barb was on fire, picking up beautiful dolly varden in most every hole, but James had the “hook up” of the day.  He hollered at me to come help and when I got there and looked into the water, I saw a huge sockeye salmon fighting James line.  Now understand, James had hooked into numerous sockeyes when we fished with Matt a couple of days earlier, and Matt had showed him how to point the rod at them and get the hook out.  You really don’t want to fight a sockeye with a 6wt rod you’re using to catch rainbows and dolly varden.  However, there was more than met my eye.  

When I looked closer, I saw that in reality, James had hooked a nice dolly, and in the process of fighting it, the line had crossed through the mouth of the sockeye, and he was fighting BOTH of the fish.  We had a small trout net with us that was of no use in landing the sockeye/dolly combo, so we tried to work it out of the sockeye’s mouth.  After a few minutes, the sockeye turned, the line came out and we landed the dolly successfully…. whew!

We grabbed lunch at our cabins as we were heading over to fish the Russian River.  We parked at the Grayling lot and headed down to the river.  When we reached the banks, looking both up and downstream, there were salmon anglers everywhere.  We decided we still had to fish, so, with our trout rods and dry flies at the ready, we began fishing.  At that same moment, a black bear decided to grace our fishing spot for a few moments, pausing to notice us, but walking away quickly.

We worked our way upstream, dropping into holes that looked ‘fishy’ whenever we could, but the salmon anglers were still everywhere.  I was able to snag a nice dolly tight line nymphing, but the real highlight of the afternoon was still to come.  

As we were walking downstream, back to the Grayling parking lot, we encountered anglers talking about a bear.  When we got to one of the angler access points, we saw a couple standing there with bear spray out and even a knife at the ready.  We walked out onto the small deck they were standing on and proceeded to watch a grizzly, slowly making his way upstream, pausing periodically to take a few bites out of salmon that had been caught and filleted by anglers upstream.  The anglers had tossed the remains of their catches in the river and the grizzly was feasting on their discarded salmon.  He put on a good show for us for about 15 minutes before heading back into the woods.  

Day 28:  Mystic Waters 

When we began planning our Alaska leg of our River Ramble, we worked with the folks at Yellow Dog Fly Fishing.  They’d recommended we contact Stacy at Mystic Waters Fly Fishing for our Kenai river adventures.  We met Stacy at 7am and prepared to embark for our second Kenai river trip.  First, we had to decide what section to fish…. remember, our Skilak Lake crossing the last time with Simmons had made us think about not fishing the “canyon” section which required the 6 mile lake crossing at the end.  After checking the weather conditions for the day and talking with Stacy, the fact he’d been guiding on the Kenai for 20 years, we headed back to fish the “Refuge” and “canyon” sections again…. really great decision.

We hooked into a lot of nice fish early on the trip, but it really got “hot” when we pulled into several back eddies.  The rainbows were hiding in the slack current of the eddies still awaiting the big drop of eggs from the king salmon and later the sockeyes.  We took turns fishing these spots, and each landed fish when we dropped in.  Fun!

At the end of the day, when we got to Skilak Lake, it was so calm and clear.  The reflections off the water of the clouds and the rock cliffs surrounding the lake were incredible.  We’d had another banner day on the Kenai fishing with Stacy and decided right then, we’d have to come back.

Day 29:  Upper Kenai

Our last “fishing” day in Alaska started with packing up and getting ready for the drive back to Anchorage.  However, we wanted to fish more, so we set off with Mike of Alaska Troutfitters on a 1/2 day float along the Upper stretch of the Kenai, a stretch we’d not fished.  While the calm, slow water at the launch site at Cooper Landing was comforting, the wave fishing we’d be doing later was a challenge that we met head on.  Mike said “the Kings make their redds here, so the big trout line up behind them”… and we were fishing for big trout.  Go big or go home was our motto.  

After fishing for a bit, we pulled into a couple of backwater areas and fished first for trout and next for silvers.  James had success at both, hooking into a nice trout as well as a big sockeye.  Mike was a great guide and coach for us along the way, but of course, Barb was schooling us both…. most fish, biggest fish, you name it.  

When we reached the boat ramp at the end of our float, it was a bit of a bittersweet feeling.  This was our last fishing day in Alaska, and the last fishing day of our TU Top 100 River Ramble.  It’s been an amazing adventure and the memories will last forever.  The stories we have will continue to be told forever as well.  So while we were excited for achieving our goal of fishing (and catching a fish in) the TU Top 100 trout streams… we were also somewhat sad it was “over”.  

Day 30:  Saying “Goodbye” 

We said goodbye to James as he headed back to Nashville and then spent one more night in Anchorage.  Waking up early, packing everything up, grabbing our 100 lbs of salmon from the hotel freezer and heading to ANC, our last day in Alaska was another day of travel….  But wait, we’d already talked about coming back to Alaska in 2020 to fish during prime time on the Kenai and Russian Rivers… and…. we’ve talked about going back to Maine, and our newly minted state of WeNoCarNoGaEaTen (aka. Western North Carolina, Northern Georgia, Eastern Tennessee), California, Pennsylvania and our home waters around Montana, Idaho and Wyoming…. it seems line our Rambles will be continuing.  Alaska simply confirmed our passions to continue our fishing adventures.

Ramble On!

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Kanektok

Alaska – Part 3

By Tom Burnett

Kanektok Week

Day 17:  Lost Luggage

After taking the hotel shuttle to ANC, we dropped our bags at the Ravn Air counter and proceeded to our gate.  As we found a spot to sit, we couldn’t help but overhear everyone’s stories of the upcoming fishing trip.  It turns out, if you’re flying to Bethel (AK), you’re either a local native… or you’re going fishing.  As we listened in, we heard JEB Hall’s name mentioned.  JEB was our guide during year 1 on the Davidson River in western North Carolina.   When we turned around, there was JEB, sitting there, headed to the Kanektok for a two week stint of guiding.  Small world indeed.  

When it was time to board, we walked out onto the tarmac to our Ravn Air Dash 8 aircraft, boarded, found a couple of seats together and settled in for the first leg of our trip to the Kanektok.  As they were about to close the door, a ground agent boarded the plane and told everyone that we were overweight, and several bags were being held off the aircraft.  You can see where this is going already as indeed, we were the lucky losers whose bags got held off.  But no problem, they’d be on the next flight out.

We arrived in Bethel where they confirmed it was our bags that got bumped, but, we were assured the bags would be on the next flight to Quinhagak (AK), our last flight leg before we’d be boarding jet boats for the 30 minute trip upriver to camp.  The skies were getting somewhat ominous but we took off from Bethel for Quinhagak.  When we were descending to the Quinhagak runway, if you can call it that, we couldn’t help but worry.  The ceiling was so low, the pilot was motioning and talking with the co-pilot saying “I think it’s over there” as he pointed to about 10 o’clock off our heading.  We couldn’t see the ground at all, but we knew we were getting pretty low.  

As we watched the altimeter going down, down down…. it reached 300 feet and was still going down when finally the ground appeared.  The pilot made a slight left turn and we landed almost immediately.  When we landed, “Chick”, one of our camp cohorts asked the pilot what his “ceiling” was before he wouldn’t land and he told us…. 300 feet.  We were VERY happy to be down.  What’s even crazier, is that the only reason we didn’t fly direct from Anchorage to Quinhagak is that the runway has a “bump” and would only accept smaller planes.  When we landed, you could see the “bump” clearly in the runway and the pilot simply bounced over it, tilting the plane and all of us to the side before setting it down.

We were met at the plane by the guide staff of Alaska West, who took our luggage…. oh wait…. our luggage wasn’t here.  They took us to our boat for the ride upstream to camp.  It was pouring rain, and our raingear was in our luggage… so… we wrapped ourselves in trash bags and jumped in our boat for the ride.  What we didn’t learn until later, as we were waiting for our luggage to arrive on the next flight into Quinhagak, was that there wasn’t going to be a next flight… they’d closed the airport due to weather conditions.   We were shown to our tent, in fairly soaked clothing.  Luckily, there were great heaters in the tents and the beds had numerous blankets on them, so, knowing we’d be wearing our same clothing the next day, we disrobed, hung our clothes to dry and jumped into bed.  What was so funny to Barb and me was that every time Jason, the camp host/guide came to our tent to give us an update about our luggage, we were practically naked laying under the covers.  Priceless!

Day 18:  Kanektok Intro

We got word around 10am that our luggage was indeed on the way.  Everyone else was already out on the river fishing at 8am so Barb and I did get to sleep in and since it was raining hard, we stayed dry for the time being.  Our luggage arrived around noon, we grabbed some lunch, wader’d up, and headed down to the “beach” to meet Jason and go fishing on the Kanektok.

We landed our first “Silvers”.  Silver Salmon are the main event at this time on the Kanektok River.  They are big fish for sure, but what makes them so special is their feisty nature.  When you hook into one, they run and jump like no others.  During the week, I got taken into my backing numerous times by these acrobatic salmon.  We had a blast.

Day 19:  Silver Mania

A “typical” day at the Alaska West tent camp begins with hearing the generator turn on at 5:45am.  It’s not that it’s really that loud, but that it’s really that quiet here.  We’re miles and miles by boat from the nearest “civilization”, the small native village of Quinhagak, population 600, on the Bering Sea.  At 7am, the breakfast bell rings and everyone heads to the dining tent.  By everyone, I mean about 5 staff members, 10 guides and 16 guests.  After a hearty breakfast, everyone waders up and heads down to the boats to meet their guide for the day and heads off up or downstream.  

Our guide this day was Eric, from Crested Butte (CO) who we learned in addition to being a fishing guide here, was a ski patrol member at Crested Butte.  We had great conversations and fun with Eric all day as we were on a quest to catch our “limit” of Silvers, 10 for the day.  We fished several holes for silver salmon and had our limit by noon.  After dropping off our bounty of Silvers and grabbing lunch in the boat, we headed upstream to fish for trout and Dolly Varden’s.  We caught some beautiful rainbows but it was the “Dollys” that blew us away.  Eric called out, you’ve got one “clowned up”, which simply meant the orange and green highlights on these Dollys were in full regalia.  The moment we caught our first, we were quickly becoming Dolly addicts.  

Around 5:30pm we headed back to camp, taking a great ride downstream in the jet boat, enjoying the views of tundra everywhere.  As we arrived, we couldn’t believe the day we had and how it could possibly get any better.  Hors d’oeuvres were awaiting us around 6:30 and we’d brought a 12 pack of Alaskan Amber and a bottle of tequila for our cocktails.  7:30 brought dinner and afterwards…. SLEEP!

Day 20:  Limit by 9am

We were in “rise and repeat” mode each day, so breakfast, wader up, boats, go fishing was the order every day.  However, this day was something absolutely insane.  We met Cole at the boat, launched and arrived at our first hole to fish for silvers, aptly called, “Bay of Pigs”.  First cast, silver on, landed…. I look over at Barb and her rod is also bent… silver on… landed.   Keep in mind, the time frame from “fish on” to “fish landed” with silvers is often 5-10 minutes.  These fish don’t give up early…. EVER!  They run, jump, let you bring them close, before they run, jump over and over… when they see the landing net, you know what they do…. again… and likely again.  By 9:00 we’d caught our limit, which is truly rare given you often will hook these gymnastic masters but not land them because every jump brings the chance of losing tension on the line and the fish swimming away with nothing but loose line in your hand.  

We looked at each other…. Cole, Barb and I…. and said… “well, what do we do now?”  Turns out that’s a very silly question because we could continue to catch silvers, we just couldn’t keep anymore, we’d “limited out”.  We drove up to camp, dropped off our 10 silvers, and headed upstream to fish for trout and dollys.  Now it was about more than just catching dollys;  we were going to have a shore lunch, and NEEDED to catch a few dolls to filet and enjoy.  Turns out, it didn’t take too long, so we set off to gather wood while Cole did the filleting, seasoning and cooking.  It was so special to catch and eat lunch like this; on the river, middle of nowhere, no one around.   

Later on, Barb hooked and landed a 24” dolly which was the biggest of the day in camp.  We also found a nice 20” rainbow among many smaller ones.  Great day… back to camp…. appetizers, drinks, dinner… and sleep.

Day 21:  Getting our “Bering”s

Each evening, our guide for the next day would come by the dinner table and ask us what we wanted to do that day.  When Lucas came by, he had some ideas of what we might enjoy and asked us… “Have you been to the mouth of the river? To the Bering Sea?”  We were so excited to embark on this adventure we said yes in a heartbeat.  So, Day 21 began with a boat ride downstream, past the native village of Quinhagak, to the mouth of the river where we stared out at the Bering Sea.  It was really breathtaking and awe-inspiring realizing where we were sitting.  We sat there and talked for about 20 minutes, about life, shared anniversaries and how small we felt in that moment.

After a brief ride upstream, we started our daily quest for silvers.  At about the third hole we fished, we’d reached our limit and headed upstream, but not before Barb had landed her biggest silver of the week.  The routine continued as before, drop off fish for Doug to do his magic on them, and head upstream to fish for trout and dolly varden.  Before we started to fish, Lucas took us all the way up to the Togiak National Wildlife Refuge boundary…. so cool.  We then found a sweet run on a braid of the river where Clear Creek flowed into the Kanektok and it was game on with landing bows and dollys.  Of course, Barb landed the biggest dolly of the week at this point, 28”.  

Lucas is an accomplished photographer and took tons of photos of us during the day.  A few are above, but, when we get back home and can do it properly, you’ll see even more of his amazing photos!

Day 22:   Tom Tom

Tom was our next guide who took us out hunting for silvers, rainbows, dollys and more.  We landed silvers of course, but also chum and pink salmon.  What is amazing is that Tom took us to parts of the river we’d not yet seen.  This fishery is so vast with braids everywhere upstream.  The highlights of the day were Tom finding more “holy” rocks and I got a beautiful grayling which seems like a prehistoric fish of sorts.  Tom indicated he’d not seen a grayling this big this season and it was likely 25-30 years old.  Tom also introduced us to the term “Tundra Turd”.  

At the end of the day, we’d request to fish for some silvers, so Tom found a good hole and we proceeded to hook into a few.  Tom asked if we’d mind keeping these so the chef could make some salmon dishes for dinner and of course we agreed.  It was going to be special knowing we’d caught dinner for the camp guests and crew.   

Day 23:  Kanektok Krazy

Every day we’d say “It can’t possibly get better” or “I feel sorry for our next guide given what our guide yesterday put us on”….. yet every single day we were amazed with the fishing experience each guide at Alaska West gave us.  When we found out Cole was again going to be our guide for our final day on the Kanektok, we wondered how on earth he could top the day we limited out by 9am…. but read on.  

We started the day fishing poppers for silvers at a hole called the “Silver Hilton”… yes, most big holes on the river have names.  After hooking into several silvers on poppers and streamers we decided to head upstream even further to fish for rainbows and dolly varden.  We decided to eat lunch first before grabbing our rods and beginning to fish.    

We were standing on this huge rock/gravel bar that ran on one side of the river which made an almost horseshoe bend.  Cole put me at the head of the run and walked across the rock/gravel bar about 40 yards with Barb which put her about midway through the run.  If you’d followed the river between us, it would have been more like 80-100 yards.  On my first or second cast, boom!  My strike indicator jerked down, I set the hook and had a good sized fish on.  Most of the time, we never know what we’ve got until it jumps or until we get it closer to us.  Unfortunately, Cole was over with Barb 40 yards away with the net so I hollered, he saw my rod bent and came running across 40 yards of rocks to help net a nice 20+ inch dolly varden.  About this time, we hear Barb and her rod is bent good, so Cole high tails it across the 40 yards of rock/gravel bar to help Barb.  I’m guessing by now you see where this is going and my emphasis on 40 yards of rock separating Barb and me.  This went on so long we’d hear Cole yelling “Can you wait a sec…. keep it wet and I’ll be there soon”.  It was so crazy that one time I had a really big fish on and waited for Cole to help get a big dolly off for Barb before yelling for help with the net.  He called back, “What is it?”…. and I knew he was thinking…. if this is another dolly, I’m going to take my time…. but it wasn’t.  You should have seen his eyes light up when he saw it was this huge, 22” leopard rainbow.  He sprinted the last 15 yards with the net to help me land it.  

After countless trips back and forth, Cole taught both Barb and me a trick to help us get our fish off the hooks more easily when we had a big fish on and no net to land it.  It worked great and I’m sure Cole regretted not showing us this trick before he’d run enough 40 yard sprints to equal a mile easily.  Finally, Barb decided to walk over to where I was fishing and watch for a while.  This obviously relieved Cole from his back and forth exercise but not from continuing to help land fish.  At one point, I cast six times and caught six fish…. hence Kanektok Krazy, but it got even better.

At this point, we were laughing so hard and having so much fun we decided not to push our luck and call it a day early.  However, since this was our last day, we wanted to each catch one more silver salmon before calling it a day.  The first spot we stopped on the way back toward camp was one we’d fished earlier in the day and had landed several silvers.  This time, nothing…. not a bite, not a tug…. nothing.  But we were on a mission, so we jumped back in the jet boat and headed to another spot.  On my first cast out, boom, fish on and after a moment, there came the jump and it was a silver.  I looked over at Barb with a big smile on my face and as I was just starting my fight, I see the line snap tight on Barb’s line and then a huge jump out of the water.  We both had silvers on…. if only we could land them both, this would be epic.  After about a 5 minute fight, Cole netted mine and we both looked over at Barb to see she’d coaxed her silver in close, but it had a couple more runs and jumps before it ultimately surrendered to the net.  Two huge silver salmon in the net Cole was holding.  We snapped a picture of these two big, beautiful fish in the net and was ready to say goodbye to them and call it a day before Cole said “NO WAY!”  He was determined to have a picture of us holding our fish together.  Now realize, we’d always had our guide hold the salmon for us…. they’re huge and we knew we’d drop them.  But again, Cole was determined to have this picture.  He taught us how to hold them and hoist them up for the photo and lo and behold, they cooperated.  We had a double walk off silver picture.  What a way to end our last day of fishing on the Kanektok.

That night, we had a special celebration where everyone shared their pictures courtesy of Lucas, one of our guides for the week.  He had some great music playing as the background for some incredible pictures from everyone’s cameras and phones.  I promise when we get back to Bozeman, we’ll put a bunch of the pictures from Lucas and others up to music to celebrate our time on the Kanektok with Alaska West.

The third leg of our Alaska adventure had ended, but the fourth leg was about to begin, and we were so excited because James Kelley was joining us to fish our 100th river of the TU Greatest 100 Trout Streams.  It was hard saying goodbye to the Kanektok, which is absolutely one of the most amazing fisheries in the world.  Only one member of our group got the “Super Slam”, which is catching 8 species of fish in one day; king salmon, pink salmon, chum salmon, silver salmon, sockeye salmon (that’s the “Slam”) – AND – rainbow, dolly varden and grayling.  Throughout the week, Barb and I had caught all but the King.  The Kanektok will always hold a special place for us on our River Ramble.

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Alaska, Denali, Russian River, Talkeetna

Alaska – Part 2

By Tom Burnett

PROLOGUE: For Days 1-2, visit “Air Crosswords of the World”.  For Days 3-8 visit, “Alaska – Part 1”.

Day 9: Kenai Peninsula Travel Day

After sharing a cab with Ferdinando and Eleonora from Iliamna Air Taxi to the airport, we picked up our Hertz car and headed for…. ok…. we headed for Chinese food.  We had spent 7 days being fed incredible meals… and no internet…. so we each luxuriated over a two-item plate at an Anchorage Panda Express and relished their hi-speed wifi connection.  Both were sublime.

After our two hour lunch / internet fix, we headed for the Kenai Peninsula and our cabin in Cooper Landing (AK).  We were staying with Alaska Troutfitters (ATF) in their “Eagles Nest” cabin which was comfy, roomy, equipped  and had a gorgeous view of the glacial blue Kenai River.  We walked down to their dock and were in awe of just how beautiful the water looked.  Dusty, the owner at ATF, had set us up for this stay as well as when we head back on August 12th for our full “Kenai Week” (Part 4).  We headed further down the road to Gwin’s Roadhouse for dinner (fish and chips!) and a few Alaskan Ambers before calling it a day.  Travel days are always tough, especially given our day started with walking to a boat dock to get on a float plane to Iliamna Airport, transferring to another plane to get to Anchorage and then a two hour drive to Cooper Landing.  

Day 10:  Road Trip to Seward

When I was booking our travel, I was intrigued by how close we were to one of the “deep water” ports in Alaska, Seward.  Cook Inlet, on which Anchorage sits, is too shallow at low tide to allow large ships to enter and stay in port at Anchorage.  So, the closest deepwater port to Anchorage is Seward.   We’d decided a “Road Trip” to Seward was in order and that IF the weather was cooperative, we’d consider taking a 4 hour “cruise” in Resurrection Bay and beyond to perhaps get a glimpse of calving ice, killer whales, puffins and other wildlife.  When we arrived, it was cold, windy and we found a great brewery right on the main street in town, aptly named, Seward Brewing Company.

We sidled up to the bar, grabbed a couple of stools and proceeded to get a flight of their beers; Japow!, Red 6 Rye, Summer Skool Sesh IPA and Pinbone IPA.  As it turned out, all but the Red 6 Rye were quite “hoppy”…. not our favs, but we still found the bottom of all 4 glasses.  We were told this was a great place for food as well, but we were on a food quest at that moment, looking for salmon patties.  We’d had them twice during our stay at Intricate Bay Lodge and our cravings had returned.  

We proceeded to walk up and down the main street in Seward, popping our head into stores, snapping some pics of some “signs” (some humorous, some reflective) and reading every single restaurant menu on the street looking for salmon patties.  Alas, we struck out but slowly learned that salmon wasn’t really “king” in Seward as it was in Cooper Landing, but Alaskan crab and halibut were.  OK…. so the “quest” turned into Alaskan crab cakes and we headed down to the “port” area of Seward where we saw a huge Holland America Cruise ship and a couple of nice seafood restaurants right on the water.  As we perused their menu’s, another menu trend emerged…. on the water, very expensive…. and furthermore, they were loaded with folks just off the cruise ships wanting a “fine dining” experience.  If you’ve not noticed in our previous posts, Barb and I search out the “locals” places and the “dives” with great food.  We were lucky and found one on the side of the street away from the water.  We ordered a seafood basket of halibut, rockfish, salmon and calamari and went to town on it.  YUM!

After dinner, we headed back to Cooper Landing to get ready for….

Day 11:  Russian River

The Russian River is one of the TU Top 100 Trout Streams and would be number 98 of the 100 we’ve fished.  It was billed in the book as “great for sockeye’s during summer”, which translates to “combat fishing”.  Imagine a thousand anglers lined up shoulder to shoulder…. also, as John Ross, the author of the TU book puts it “Imagine a coxswain calling out this rhythm: ‘One, Two, Three, CAST! Drift, Drift, Drift. Ready. Set. Retrieve!’ ….. It’s not about fishing – it’s a trip to the circus.”  Fortunately, this is NOT what we came to the Russian River to do.  

We were fishing for trout, and had the pleasure of fishing with Matt Marchound of Alaska Troutfitters, who wanted to show us his river, the Russian.  We were staying at Alaska Troutfitters so all we had to do is walk up from our cabin to the fly shop to meet Matt.  We jumped into his Subaru and headed for the Pink Salmon Parking Lot along the Russian River.  We proceeded to hike upstream, sometimes on a trail and sometimes in the water, fishing holes that seemed “fishy”.  To Barb and me, it ALL looked fishy but Matt steered us to spots he felt really good about and spots that were away from other anglers.  Most people we encountered were fishing for sockeye salmon but we’d had our fill of “flossing” for sockeye, so we continued to target trout.  I fished dries most of the time while Barb was alternating between dries and a nymph rig.  We started catching trout regularly in the 10-14” range… and on a 4 or 5 wt rod, in fast water, it was lots of fun.  

Of course, we encountered bears, but this time they were all black bears.  We saw two solo and one mom with a cub in tow.  Lucky for us, they were always on the other side of the river from us, but the river was only 20’ wide typically, so we were still pretty close.  At one hole, one of the solo bears decided to jump in the water and began swimming toward us.  Matt quickly said “reel ‘em in” and proceeded to escort Barb away from the bear, which was swimming directly at them.  As it turned out, the only thing the bear wanted was a piece of sockeye salmon that was floating downstream.  

Remember earlier, I’d mentioned that most of the anglers in the river were fishing for sockeye salmon.  They weren’t in “catch and release” mode like we were, they were in full on catch, filet on the spot and keep mode.  Therefore, there was often chunks of salmon floating downstream that was attracting the bears to an easy meal.  They weren’t actually having to catch live salmon in the river, but were scavenging angler’s scraps.  Smart bears!

After fishing and hiking our way upstream to the point where the falls came in and sockeye anglers were lined up “flossing”, we stepped out of the river and began our journey back to the parking lot.  Matt took us up a beautiful “short cut”, which required a little climbing…. which didn’t seem to be on a path, but on a long, uphill rock strewn runoff bed which they called Highway to Heaven.  We climbed and climbed, finally reaching the “Falls Trail” and had a nice, DOWNHILL walk out.  All told, Barb’s watch showed we’d hiked 4.78 miles, much of it in the river.  Honestly, this may be one of our favorite things to do….. creek stompin’ fishing.  

After we got back to Matt’s car, we headed back to Alaska Troutfitters.  We had one more thing to do, a “Guide Talk” with Matt.  He had the perfect spot for us, the floating dock down on the Kenai River.  Stay tuned for that post, Matt was awesome! 

Day 12:  Road Trip to Talkeetna

When we booked our stay at Alaska Troutfitters, the owner, Dusty, asked where else we were going.  When we told her Denali National Park and Preserve, she immediately said we HAD to stop in the little town of Talkeetna, so we booked a couple of nights there for some sightseeing and hopefully fishing.  Further, when we told Chace Booth, the head guide at Intricate Bay Lodge about fishing near Talkeetna, he immediately said we had to stop in at 3 Rivers Fly and Tackle in Wasilla, which was on our way.  This road trip was becoming an adventure, just as we like it!

We pulled into Wasilla, found 3 Rivers Fly and Tackle, took a pic to send to Chace to let him know we’d made it.  We met Mike, the owner, inside and told him Chace had recommended we stop here and Mike just smiled.  Turns out Chace and his brother, who grew up in Palmer (AK), a few miles away, frequented Mike’s shop a lot…. and Mike had experienced seeing Chace and his brother grow up in the area.  We told him of some of the stories Chace had shared with us…. to which Mike replied…. “and they’re  ALL true and MORE!”.  It’s funny, we knew Chace was a special guide who not only knew his stuff but had lived it.  Mind you, Chace is a young man…. but has spent his life fishing and hunting in Alaska.  Hearing Mike talk fondly about knowing him and his brother only made our memories even greater.

Mike also tried to find us a guide in the Talkeetna area, but we’d waited too long and all were booked.  This was pretty awesome customer service and it got even better. Mike said, “I’ve got a place you can go on your own”, and proceeded to tell us how to access Montana Creek near Talkeetna, and even set us up with the flies and leader/tippet we’d need.  If you’re ever around here, stop into this shop…. some of the most knowledgable and friendly people you’ll find anywhere.

So, we headed for Talkeetna, fly boxes full and excited about fishing again.  I can’t remember the exact spot where it happened, but as we came over a hill, the skies had cleared…. and right in front of us was Denali.  We were over 100 miles away from it, but there it was, looming over everything along the horizon.  We were quite in awe of it as we took the Talkeetna Spur turnoff and headed for town and our home for the next two nights, the Swiss Alaska Inn (coincidently, run by Dusty’s brother).  We arrived, stowed our gear away in our room, loaded back in the car and headed for a vantage point.

We drove to a nearby resort on a hill not only overlooking Talkeetna, but with a breathtaking view of Denali, the Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge.  We parked quickly, grabbed our cameras, strolled innocently through the hotel lobby and out the back doors onto an observation area and again, WOW!  There it was, big, majestic, snow covered Denali.  While we took some great photos, we just stood and looked at it for the longest time…. soaking it all in.  

For dinner that night, we took a back way from the Swiss, through a forest, across the Alaskan Railroad tracks (secretly), and into the little village of Talkeetna.  What a trip!  Here we found the coolest restaurants and shops as well as the Nagley Store where the mayor of Talkeetna once hung out.  Thing is, the mayor was a cat…. Stubbs, who passed in July 2017 after serving as mayor for 20 years.  And we thought Austin was keeping it weird.  We settled in at the Denali Brewing Company’s original location, now the Denali Pub, and had a great dinner and even better beer.  Afterward, walking back to the Swiss, we passed Shirley’s Ice Cream and of course, had to sample her wares.  

Sometimes travel days can be boring and exhausting.  This one was filled with fun, majesty, wonder and of course, great beer.

Day 13:  Montana Creek & More

The next morning, we woke up, had a hearty breakfast, made our PB&J’s for lunch and headed for Montana Creek.  We followed the directions Mike had given us…Talkeetna Spur to Yoder Road and park next to the bridge.  We decided downstream was our best bet, geared up with Dali Lama’s and headed out.  The very first hole we hit… Barb gets…. tug…. tug…tug….. FISH ON!  She landed a nice rainbow and we had visions of an epic fishing day.  As it turned out, our numbers that day weren’t great, but our fishing was still epic.   What happened was…

We stopped in a hole that seemed filled with sockeye salmon, and hoped that the rainbow trout were hanging below them waiting for eggs to drop.  On the second swing through the hole, I felt a huge tug on my line and realized quickly, this wasn’t a trout.  As I watched the fish dart directly away from me, peeling line off my reel, I realized it wasn’t a sockeye either.  So, what had I just hooked into?  

The real problem was, I was using a 6wt fly rod/reel combo, which is tailor made for trout fishing, but a couple of sizes too small for landing sockeye or a fish of the size I’d hooked, whatever it was.  Also, we’d planned on catching 12 – 16” trout, so we didn’t have a net.  The battle was on, and what a battle.  I was fighting the fish for a while and realized that Barb might not be able to grab the fish and get it off the line if I could get the fish close enough to land it.  So…. I handed the rod to Barb and let her fight it while I prepared to grab the fish when she got it close.  Finally, the fish tired, Barb reeled it close in, I grabbed the tail…. and we’d caught a Chum…. a member of the salmon family.  Whew! 

We sat and enjoyed our PB&J’s sitting on a log on an island in the river, each of us looking in an opposite direction, just in case a bear wandered by.  We always talk about the “team fish” we catch at times, with one of us catching the fish but the other netting the fish.  We laughed as we thought about the one we just landed.  

After fishing, we headed back into Talkeetna, got cleaned up, and headed back to town for dinner, this time at Mountain High Pizza Pie.  It turned into our favorite trifecta after a long day on the water….. great food, great beer and live music.  We just caught the end of one band’s set before The Holler! from Ft. Collins took over.  I’d describe them as a “Jam Band” in the spirit of a Dave Matthews type, and the audience was responding to them in kind.  Of course, after this perfect day’s fishing and dinner experience, back to Shirley’s.  

Day 14:  Denali Bound

We’d decided to stop on our way out of town to get a “sweet” for breakfast and dropped in on the Flying Squirrel Bakery and Cafe.  When we made our way to the bakery case, we were greeted by an employee but our eyes were focused on what was behind the glass… Pumpkin Pecan Coffee Cake, two types of Rugelach, Morning Glory muffins, …. is your mouth watering yet?  We grabbed coffee cake, rugelach, three cookies and hot coffee to sustain us for the two hour drive to Denali National Park.

As we later learned, only 30% of visitors to Denali actually get to SEE any of the mountain.  Most often, Denali is shrouded in clouds caused by the winds and shifts in temperature as moisture approaches the mountain.  This day, it was invisible… this giant 20,310 foot mountain was no where to be seen.  As we drove closer and closer, we were hoping the clouds would lift, but not this day.

After checking into our hotel, we did a quick stop in Denali National Park just to get our bearings for the next day when we were going on a bus tour.  Once we’d found where to meet the bus and had enjoyed the Visitor Center movies and displays, we headed to our lodging for the evening.  About an hour later, as we were thinking about heading to our restaurant on site, the power went off.  We weren’t in the dark, as that doesn’t happen here until about 11:30pm, but the cafe was dark as well. So on to Plan B.

We drove back to another area outside the park that had several restaurants and settled on The Salmon Bake, better know as just “The Bake”.  We decided to sit at the bar for dinner, Barb with a margarita and me with a beer of course, a Baked Blonde Ale from 49th State Brewing.  Why that beer?  The pic above the bar spoke to me.  

After dinner, we headed back to our cabin.  The lights were on again, so the heat worked and we nodded off fast.

Day 15:  Denali

We were up early to catch the 6:50 “Tundra Wilderness Tour” bus for our trip 63 miles into Denali National Park and Preserve.  The road actually goes back 92 miles on the “Kantishna Experience Tour”, but a 7-8 hours round trip “Tundra” tour was plenty for us.  So off we went in something more than a school bus but less than a motor coach.  The day called for clouds all day, so we’d set our expectations accordingly…. likely no Denali sightings but we were ready for animal and bird spotting.  The “Big Five” in Denali are: moose, caribou, wolves, Dall sheep and of course, bears.  We got them all… amazingly, although our moose sighting was actually the day before…. one inside and one outside the park.  We also saw golden eagles and the Alaska state bird, the ptarmigan, among our bird watching.  While the rivers looked fishy from the roads, we learned that there weren’t any fish in them beyond some tiny ones.  We’d packed our rods/reels in our rental car for post-“Tour” IF we’d heard a better fishing report.  

When we got to the Stoney Hill Overlook stop, we all piled out of the bus, but no Denali.  The clouds engulfed the area where we were told it was.  Nevertheless, many people had their pictures taken by our tour guide with the clouds in the background.  We can all just imagine Denail was there.  

What makes Denali look so huge, other than the fact it IS huge, is its prominence (not to geek out too much).  While Denali is the tallest mountain in North America in terms of elevation, it doesn’t even crack the tallest 100 mountains list.  But if you look at the measure of “prominence”, Denali is the third most prominent mountain in the world.  So when you do see Denali, as we did from Talkeetna, it looks just surreal.  

After we’d written a few postcards, we headed back to our cabin to start packing for our trip back to Anchorage on Saturday, Day 16.  When dinner time came round, we decided to treat ourselves to a gourmet meal at… “The Denali Doghouse”…. Barb with a Chicago dog and me enjoying a Coney Island.  Perfect ending to our Denali excursion day.  

Day 16:  Back to Anchorage to Get Ready for Tent Camping

We kept looking out the rearview mirrors of our rental car to see if by some miracle Denali would show itself, but to no avail.  We’d had our look from Talkeetna and now it was time to drive the four hours back to the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, return the rental car and check into the Long House Alaskan Hotel.  

We dropped our bags at the hotel, returned our rental car and caught a cab to the movies since we couldn’t check in to the hotel until 3:00pm.  We saw Mission Impossible: Fallout… good summer movie that was at 97% critics and 92% audience on Rotten Tomatoes.  After an Uber ride back to the hotel, it was laundry, get organized for tomorrow’s flights to Alaska West and get some needed rest.  

We know that we’ll likely not have any internet access at Alaska West as its a remote tent camp along the Kanektok River.  The closest village is 30 minutes by boat and that native village is only 669 people.  We’re back to Anchorage on Sunday, August 12th to meet up with James Kelley and head back to the Kenai peninsula.  Until then…

Ramble On.

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Alaska, Intricate Bay, Katmai National Park

Alaska – Part 1

By Tom Burnett

PROLOGUE:  We are just back to a spot where there is wifi and cell service.  We’ve been in a “remote” location for the past week and honestly, we have limited wifi/cell now as I write this post.  Since we talked about this being our “30 Days in Alaska” trip, I decided to share our day by day adventures in that way.  Also, with such limited wifi/cell, it’s impossible to post the kinds of videos, guide talks and highlights we’ve done before.  We’ll update everything once we have strong wifi/cell, with some amazing video footage we’ve shot here so far, but for now, we’ll share some favorite pictures (hopefully) that dovetail with each part.  Here goes….

Day 3:  Intricate Bay trip begins

After a quick stay in Anchorage, we continued our journey with a flight in a 10 passenger single prop plane from Anchorage to a small native village, Iliamna (pop. 109), which sits on its namesake, Lake Iliamna.  It is the largest lake in Alaska and the third largest lake entirely in the US with an average depth of 144’.  However, we weren’t to our first fishing stop just yet.

We were met at the Iliamna Airport by Brian Harry, the owner/operator of the Intricate Bay Lodge (IBL) which would be our home for the next 7 days.  He brought a large passenger van up to the door where we loaded all our gear and took a two mile drive to a lake, where our next transport was waiting…..  not a boat, but……the “Dirty Girl”, officially known as a “de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Mk.I Beaver”…. yes, a float plane.  

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I’m going to pause here, and do some reflecting…. Barb and I have talked about ultimately writing a book about our “River Ramble”.  Neither of us are writers, as our high school english teacher Mrs. Seiter would definitely tell you, especially me.  I mean, our senior paper which was our “final” and counted for much of our grade was to be on our favorite author…. you know…. Chaucer, Shakespere, etc….. So of course, I wrote mine on those famous authors Charles Shulz and Walt Kelly.  It was titled “Peanuts, Pogo, People and Politics” and while I thought it was EPIC…. Mrs. Seiter disagreed.  I did pass Senior english, but barely.  The point of all this is, after this last week, we’re now committed to writing a book about this adventure and as I write this post, I’m finding myself starting to write it….. SO…. since this is a blog and not a novel, I’m going to try and hold back a bit…. ok…. a lot.  Now back to our abbreviated blog stories!

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We flew over Lake Iliamna, landed in Intricate Bay and taxied to this beautiful lodge where we were met by the entire staff;  we felt pretty special (and relieved we’d survived our first float plane ride).  After settling in, we threw on our waders, headed back to the dock, jumped in jet boats, and headed for the Copper River, one of our Trout Unlimited Top 100 Trout Streams rivers.  (Note to self, brevity in blogs… you can do it!).   The ride to the river was an experience that can only be told in video, so stay tuned for later (see Prologue). 

After landing a few nice rainbows, our guide for the day, Monte, took us to a great looking hole and just as we were about to jump out of the boat and start fishing…. BEAR!  Yes, a young brown bear walked up along the bank, staring down into the river exactly where we were going to cast and began searching for fish.  Ultimately, he dove into the river, ran up and down the “run” we were going to fish, tried unsuccessfully to get a fish, decided to “snorkel” for fish (yes, it’s a real thing they do, snorkeling for fish) and then run over onto the same gravel bar where we’d docked our boat, at which point Monte grabs his bear spray and begins to scream at the bear.  We learn over the course of the week, step 1, scream…. step 2, spray with bear spray…. step three, pull gun.  Honestly, step 1 did the trick all but one time when step 2 was deployed, and never step three, but it was always an option as each guide was always “carrying”.   I share all this now, so that in later days writings, I’ll just say “bear experience” to encapsulate these moments.  Bottom line of the day:  We checked off our 96th river in our quest to fish the Top 100 Trout Streams in the US.  

After more fish, we headed back to the lodge for dinner.  Thank goodness they had a keg of Alaskan Amber, we needed it.  We also got our itinerary for the next day after dinner, written on the chalk board….  7am breakfast, 8am shove off, Copper River, guide… Chace.

Day 4:  More Copper River adventures (pic 1)

We had a full day on the Copper River with Chace, who was the “head guide” at IBL.  Again, we had this amazing jet boat ride to get to and then up the Copper River, having a mama duck fly directly in front of our boat part of the way.  We learned that the boat, which was flying upriver, came near her babies and she flies away in front of the boat to lead us away from them.  If only she’d known we were going fishing she could have chilled out instead of flying like crazy ahead of us.  

The day was much like Day 3’s fishing; we’d move upstream finding great “runs” to fish, hook into some nice rainbows and move.  It was all using the jet boat to move from spot to spot, we never fished from the boat, we always got out and waded a section of the river.  Which lead us to another “bear experience” here and there.  Actually, on both day 3 and 4 we saw 8 bears along and in the river.  We were fishing a “run” when Chace said “turn around”.  When we did, we saw this huge bear “snorkeling” down the channel right behind us.  I’ll never say we got “used” to being in such close proximity to bears (within 10-20 yards), but we’d come to realize that with hundreds of thousands of sockeye salmon in all the rivers in the area, they weren’t really the least bit interested in us, unless of course we were in their favorite fishing hole (see Day 3 above).

At the end of the day, we decided we’d like to try fishing for some of the sockeye salmon that everyone else was actually fishing for…. as we’d been targeting rainbows all day.  You really aren’t technically “fishing” for sockeye as the guides called it “flossing”.   Essentially, you’re throwing out a line with a small fly/hook on the line and dragging it through a mass of sockeye just holding in a spot.  Eventually, the line will go into….. wait…. brevity Tom…. write more in a book…. onward.

Day 5:  Moraine Creek (pic 2)

All of our guides asked “Why isn’t the Moraine on the list?”  Truly, I don’t know why.  I think it was in the original 1999 version of the book, but for some reason, not the 2013 version we are following.  In any event, the “Dirty Girl” landed in a spot called “Pothole” where we carried rafts, paddles, fishing gear, dry bags, lunch bags and more up a ridge where we staged everything before going back down the ridge and into Moraine Creek.  Whew!

This day was pretty much like the other days, so far, except for two things:  we were in a raft floating downstream and…. the “W” was happening.  The “W” was howling at a steady 30mph with gusts to 40+.  Our guides were fighting it all day to keep us in good drifts.  Oh, and I didn’t mention it was raining and a windchill that was ridiculous with that much “W”.  All that said, we caught lots of gorgeous rainbows, had a bear encounter that was a bit too close, but ultimately it only lead to “step 1”, although “step 2” was out and ready.  I think our guide Chace was ready for a massage after rowing us down the Moraine.  Everyone was exhausted as we awaited the “DG” to come back and pick us up for the trip home.  It was fun seeing her land directly ON Moraine Creek, then “sail” back down to pick us up.  It’s one thing watching drift boats and rafts coming downstream in the current toward you, quite another seeing a float plane doing it.

Day 6:  Alagnak River. Battle Creek. Moraine Creek and HOME! (pic 3)

We could easily write a short novel about day 6.  Let me try and summarize it.  From IBL, we were the first to even fish the Alagnak  this year and probably ever, but T-Bird and the “DG” got us there along with our guide Hayden after we’d dropped off two other guests and new friends from Italy, Ferdinado and Eleonora, at the Moraine.  However, when we landed in Kukaklek Lake,  whose outflow is the Alagnak River, one of the TU Top 100 trout streams, T-Bird said “We may have to fly out of here soon.  If the waves on the lake get too high, we’ll be stuck here”.  

OK…. no pressure…. we’re wading downstream into the Alagnak River, our pilot has warned us that we may have to leave at a moment’s notice…. and we HAVE to at least get a fish out of this TU Top 100 trout stream.  In 15 minutes, swinging a Dali Lama stream, tug…. tug…. tug…. SET!  Got’em!  We netted a small rainbow, documented the catch and then, hightailed it back to the “DG” to get out…. mission accomplished.

So, with all this excitement, dropping off a group, then flying to the Kukaklek, snaring a rainbow from the Alagnak and racing upstream back to the float plane, it was only about 10am.   Where to next?  We debated a lot, and for the sake of time, we decided to head to Battle Creek and in this case, it was the first time this season that anyone from IBL had been to Battle Creek.  We fly in, land and begin our taxi toward the mouth of the river and find ourselves in shallow water until ultimately, the “DG” runs aground and cannot move.  It was the first trip of the season to this spot and the river channel had moved…. as it turned out it was about 40 yards away.

Long story short (I can do this), we fished Battle Creek, I caught the biggest rainbow of our time there (25” and VERY fat), we fished about two hours, came back to a “beached” boat and found out that we didn’t have enough gas to make it back to the lodge.  T-Bird calls the lodge on a sat-phone, finally gets hold of Mark to bring us gas, but Mark hasn’t been to this location, so we’ll need to fly to the Moraine pickup spot.  At this point Barb politely asks “Do we have enough gas to get there?”  After assurances from T-Bird, the adventure continued.  

We now had to move…aka… PULL the “DG” about 40 yards across shallow water, literally dragging it over the gravel in about a foot or two of water to get it to the new river channel so we could take off.  We landed at our Moraine River takeout spot, Mark landed soon after, we loaded about 15 gallons of fuel into the “DG” and with perfect timing, here comes Ferdinando and Eleonora with their guide Chandler.  We grab them and head back to the lodge.  Again…. WHEW!  But Bottom Line:  We crossed off the Alagnak River…. we are now at 97 of the TU Top 100 Trout Streams…. and most importantly, we’d had the most adventurous day being first to the Alagnak AND Battle Creek.

Day 7:  Gibraltar River…..ummm… No.  Moraine…ummmm…. No.  Battle Creek…. YES!!! (pic 4)

Our day was supposed to have been a nice, short float plane ride to the Gibraltar River for fishing.  However, when we flew over, the Iliamna Lake was getting swells that caused T-Bird to go into “Plan B”, the Moraine.  When we got to the Moraine, the weather actually worsened to the point we couldn’t land there either, and T-Bird had to go to IFL navigation…. “I Follow River”.  We got an amusement park ride at this point as T-Bird literally didn’t just follow the river but flew low over it, below the worsening cloud cover, weaving and banking left and right until we were able to get some clearing.  We then went to Plan C, back to Battle Creek.  This was good, because now that we did our “recon” the day prior, we knew where the channel was and easily made it to the river and had 2 hours of great fishing.

When the weather cleared a bit, we got back in the “DG” and flew over to the Moraine and repeated what we did on Day 5, albeit with no rain and slightly less wind.  We were fishing all day with Chandler who it turned out worked in Bozeman for a time at Yellow Dog Fly Fishing as well as at one of our favorite fly shops in Livingston, Sweetwater Fly Shop.  Great day and a great, uneventful ride back to IBL.

Day 8:  Gibraltar River… YES! (pic 5)

To get to the Gibraltar, we ferried over in IBL’s “big” boat, towing a smaller jet boat behind.  We beached the big boat, got in the jet boat and headed upstream to fish.  We’d fished a few holes, caught a few nice bows and lots of smaller ones when Chace, our guide, decided he’d walk the boat downstream and let Barb “nymph” a bead through a run from the boat.  I was to follow down, wading and swinging a leech.  The picture of Barb drifting down with Chace guiding her was too priceless not to capture, so, I got out the camera and took a picture.  I put the camera away, took my rod back to cast and proceeded to fall into the Gibraltar.  

The Gibraltar is not a big river, in fact, where I fell in, I’m guessing its only about 20-25’ across.  When I fell into the river, I immediately did what you’re supposed to do and got my feet downstream.  Barb and Chace turned and saw me, so Chace pulled Barb to shore and started up to help me.  However, this one day I had forgotten my wading belt.   Unfortunately, this allowed the river to completely fill my waders with water and begin pushing me downstream.  I dug my heels in, but I was no match for the river.  Little did we know at first, I was really in a bad spot, unable to move at all and ready to head downstream weighing about 400 pounds with water-filled waders.  Chace comes and I grab hold of his legs.  I am in the river, arms wrapped around him as he literally drags closer to the bank.  We had to unbuckle my waders to get the water out of them to get me “light” enough to continue pulling.  When he finally had me beached, I stood up, stripped down to my skivvies, and contemplated what’s next.  We were a few miles upstream, there is no one around anywhere, and I’m standing nearly naked on a gravel bar.  Of course, both Chase AND Barb wanted pictures of me now….. LOL!

Chace went downstream to the big boat to get another rod since I’d lost mine in the river.  Luckily Monte had an extra fleece, which while two sizes too small, I managed to fit over my head and was thankful to have it and Chace had an extra pair of socks which helped me to stay warmer.  I pulled on my base layer pants, which were still soaked and cold, put on my waders and boots, and we continued to fish, of course.  

Not only did we continue to fish, Barb had an over 30 fish day and I caught some massive rainbows.  We lunched on the banks of the river;  told stories and laughed hard.   At the end of the day, standing in the middle of the river in about 3.5 feet of water, Barb and I had a double of beautiful rainbows.  What a way to finish the day.

Retrospect is a wonderful thing.  At the time of the fall, I wasn’t worried, I figured that I had Chace, Barb and a boat downstream of me and I’m a good swimmer.  However, I’d never swam as a 400 pound guy, wearing a water sock set of waders in fast moving water; it was like having bricks tied to my feet.    As I reflected on it, and as Chace and Clair told me later, I was in serious danger in that moment.  There is a reason you always wear a wading belt.  I’d simply forgotten mine at the lodge and assumed I could make it that day.  After I had the “accident” I took the belt off my fishing pants I’d been wearing beneath my waders and securely pulled it tight around my waders.  

Day 9:  Heading Back to Anchorage

After saying goodbye to all the IBL staff, we all got back on the “DG”, flew to Iliamna, unloaded then reloaded for our flight back to Anchorage.  At this point, we said goodbye to our 7 new friends we’d shared the week with at IBL: Arturo, Arturo, Jr., and Raquel (Mexico);  Ferdinando and Eleonora (Italy); Hadley (NC) and his son, Sherwood (San Francisco).   It was an experience we shared and we’ll all never forget… the “Alaska Experience” as we’d heard it said… but more on that in another post.  For now, it’s time to continue our “30 Days in Alaska” and….

Ramble On!

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Alaska, Anchorage

Air Crossroads of the World

By Tom Burnett

Our trip from Bozeman to Anchorage via Seattle on Day 1 of our trip went off without a hitch.  Flights on time…. clear skies… soft landings… and spectacular views, especially as we approached Anchorage (pic 1).  We even got a glimpse of Denali in the distance.  What was amazing is at 10:30pm, when we arrived at our hotel, it was still daylight, and stayed that way until 11pm.  

We planned Day 2 of our Alaska adventure as a “get acclimated” day in Anchorage.  Travel days when you fly for 6 hours and have a 3 hour connection in Seattle are exhausting…. not to mention the two hour time difference from Bozeman.  We also needed to pick up a few things and headed to a local store to grab some essentials like waterproofing spray for our boots and head nets for mosquitos and no-see-ems (pic 2).  

After waterproofing our hiking boots (we’re expecting a bit… no no… a lot of rain) we headed to downtown Anchorage for a trolley tour and some sightseeing.  The trolley tour was actually a hoot.  Our guide/driver was a former Miss Anchorage and had her own live variety show in Anchorage.  She also won $10,000 from America’s Funniest Videos a few years back.  We learned a lot about Anchorage and laughed a lot!  We enjoyed the “forecast” board (pic 3)we encountered highlighting a sunny day for 18 hours!  This was a ‘hot” day for Anchorage, but again, we’ve looked at the forecast and have our rain gear ready.  

Anchorage bills itself as the “Air Crossroads of the World” as you can see from their sign downtown (pic 4).  It also boasts the largest concentration of single engine aircraft in the world.  We found out that Anchorage high school students actually study flying starting at 14, do their first solo flights at 16 and by 18 are carrying passengers.  Day 3 is going to find us on both a single engine plane and a float plane as well.  We’ll share more about that experience next week.

When we asked people where we should eat in Anchorage, the one recommendation that kept coming up time after time was the Moose’s Tooth Pub and Pizzeria…. so off to dinner we went!  They brew their own beer under the Broken Tooth Brewing label (pic 5)…. and of course, we sampled some of their selections.  We can now add our names to the chorus who recommend this place for beer and pizza.  

We walked over 4 miles on Day 2 getting to know Anchorage…. and walking off dinner.  Ready for a good night’s sleep and the adventures that await on Day 3…. Lake Illiamna Air Taxi here we come!

 

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Alaska

30 Days in Alaska

By Tom Burnett

When we started out on this three year “River Ramble” to fish the Trout Unlimited’s Guide to America’s Top 100 Trout Streams, we knew we were saving the five rivers in Alaska for last.  The other 95 were “easy” in comparison, as we were able to drive to every one of them.  Alaska posed a bit of a different problem as you can see from our cover photo for this post.  We have to fly, on float planes, to get to several of these last 5 rivers.  So on Friday (July 20), instead of firing up the SaraLinda and heading out, we are headed to Bozeman-Yellowstone International Airport and heading north for “30 Days in Alaska”.  

We’ve been advised by all the places we’re staying in Alaska to bring the usual…. rods/reels, waders/boots, polarized sunglasses, fav fishing hat, comfy clothes and necessary meds/toiletries.  Additionally, we were told to bring…. a mosquito net for our heads, 95% DEET bug spray and, of course, we’ll have bear spray with us.  While our guides will likely be packing heat, we’ll definitely be packing bear spray.   

As we’ve been planning our trip, we got out the maps to see just exactly where we’re going.  Alaska is our largest state in land mass and our most sparsely populated.  As you can see from the map (pic 1 above), it’s bordered by two Canadian provinces to the east (British Columbia & The Yukon), the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Pacific Ocean to the south, and to the west, it shares a maritime border in the Bering Sea with Russia.  Remote seems an appropriate description.  But it’s also the home of our highest peak, Denali, and some of the most breathtaking scenery and wildlife on the planet.  While it’s definitely a fishing destination of anglers around the world, “It’s Not About the Fish” applies here as well.  

We’re really breaking up our time in Alaska into 4 segments (pic 2 above), each with its own unique character.  After a short stop in Anchorage, we’re off to Intricate Bay on Lake Illiamna for a week of fishing in which we’ll check off two of the five rivers, the Alagnak and the Copper.  But just to get to fish these two rivers, it requires a “normal” plane ride from Anchorage to Illiamna airport followed by a float plane (pic 3) to get to our lodge at Intricate Bay.  Fishing the Copper River will be easy as the lodge is located near where the Copper flows into Lake Illiamna.  The Alagnak is more of a challenge… aka… a float plane once again to get there.  You’ll also notice on the picture, Katmai National Park and Preserve (Brooks Falls in particular, see pic 4), which we’ve been told is a “must see”, along with yet another float plane trip to get there.  You can see why the SaraLinda just wasn’t an option.   

Segment two is all about sightseeing (along with a little fishing of course) along the road between Cooper Landing and Denali National Park and Preserve.  After we get back from the Katmai/Lake Illiamna area, we’re back to Anchorage, then driving down to Cooper Landing to fish the Russian River (one of the Alaska 5) and do some sightseeing in Seward.   Then it’s back through Anchorage and up to Talkeetna, which began as an Alaska Railroad town.  It’s also a “basecamp” area for exploring Denail and fishing a creek that was recommended to us, Montana Creek.  Yes, we’re definitely fishing MORE than just the five TU Top 100 trout streams in AK.   Then we’re off to Denali National Park and Preserve for a full day of sightseeing.  We’re keeping our fingers crossed the weather will be good and we can actually SEE the mountaintop.  After Denail, it’s back to Anchorage for…..

…. Segment three, which requires a flight from Anchorage to the small town of Bethel, another flight to the even smaller native village of Quinhagak and finally, a 30 minute boat ride up the Kanektok River to our next basecamp at Alaska West (pic 5).  So far, we’ll have been staying in a room, with four solid walls, but not at Alaska West.  Here, we are staying in “tents”, with floors, but basically canvas stretched over a frame that has two single beds inside, a lantern and that’s about it.  The bathrooms are “out houses” strategically located around the tent sites.  There is a dining tent, a drying tent (for waders/boots), a lounge tent and a shower tent.  You can see why they call it a “Tent Camp”… LOL.  This is truly an Alaska bush experience, at least as “bush” as we’re willing to try.   However, the camp is located directly on the Kanektok River which means, no float planes, just getting into jet boats and moving to various sections of the Kanektok, which is the only river we’ll fish this week.

Segment four begins when we boat/fly back from Alaska West to Anchorage.  We’ll meet up at the airport with dear friend James Kelley who is coming to Alaska to fish with us for a week on the Kenai Peninsula.  Once we grab our gear from baggage claim, we’re headed back to Cooper Landing to fish the Russian and Kenai Rivers, both on the TU Top 100 list.  We’ll be floating through the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge fishing the Kenai and hiking along the Russian River.   We’re staying in Cooper Landing in cabins along the Kenai River and enjoying all the “fishing, food, friends and fun” we can.  

After this segment, we head back to Anchorage to catch flights back to Bozeman (Nashville in James case).  Our “30 Days in Alaska” will have been complete.  However, along the way, we plan to “Blog” on our River Ramble site and/or update our Instagram feed every day (well, at least every day where we have internet access).  We hope you’ll follow along with us on our journey to Alaska.  

Ramble On!

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Lagniappe

Signs

By Tom Burnett

As I was on a 4th of July pilgrimage to find salmon flies along the Madison, I made a customary stop in West Yellowstone at Blue Ribbon Flies where a sign greeted me indicating “fishing reports” for area streams.   As you can see by the first image in the highlight video above, the good folks at Blue Ribbon Flies have a great sense of humor in their fishing reports…. yet…. if you read what they’ve said, they are spot on.  Indeed, there was no “wait” anymore on the Madison, it was full on salmon fly, stone fly, PMD, Yellow Sallie and caddis dry fly fishing.  As I walked back to the Suby, after catching a nice “walk off” rainbow, I stripped off my waders only to find THREE salmon flies INSIDE my waders with me!  Honestly, I didn’t even venture to count all the caddis, PMDs, golden stones and Sallies who’d found their way into the car.  Thick doesn’t begin to describe how much bug activity was happening on the river…. but I digress here, this post isn’t about fishing, but about the interesting, unique, funny, sometimes “salty”, significant and entertaining signs we saw along the way.  Seeing the “Fishing Report” sign at BRF simply reminded me that this was a post you all might enjoy.

Seems logical to begin with some great “Welcome” signs we encountered.   Each community we visited had the customary welcome sign, but standouts include the water town in Cotter (AK), the iconic Roosevelt Arch (Yellowstone NP), the “Best Water on Earth” in Dunsmuir (CA), the “Longest Main Street in America” in Island Park (ID), “Trout Town USA” Roscoe (NY) and the signs going into and leaving the Village of Mammoth. Of course, the “Welcome” into our newly adopted home state of Montana is great with friends, but the welcome to Ennis is priceless, they have their priorities straight.  Speaking of priorities straight, checkout the Craig (MT) sign…. it’s really just a fishing access sign, but really, that’s pretty much all Craig (MT) is….. fishing!   And who could forget our “welcomes” to certain lodging and events like the “Old Hookers” guest house or the Clinton (MT) annual “Testicle Festival”.

In traversing the country via the SaraLinda, we also found time to traverse a few trails, which without signs would have left you lost in vast places like the Pacific Crest Trail, Appalachian Trail, or even creek and ridge trails that connect to such bigger, more well know trails.  Barb did survive our hike to the Panther Creek Trail, but just barely as you can see.

Pure “informational” signs also caught our attention whether it was announcing certain historic “pools”, the Maine tradition of using old saw blades as signs and one ironic sign from a bookstore in NH.  Written in stone was “NOTHING IS WRITTEN IN STONE”.  Still makes me laugh!

Of course, the eateries we encountered had their fair share of interesting signs (and names).  We had “Love Muffins” in Moab (UT),  “SpikeBurgers” in Michigan, enjoyed “Fry Fishing” in Livingston (MT), “groovy” BBQ in Marble (CO), made a “Frostop” in Ashton (ID), found a “Cheese Corner” in where else but Wisconsin, giant cinnamon rolls at “Wheat Montana” and joined the “Breakfast Club” in Mammoth (CA) who was most welcoming to our fishing adventure.  We’re afraid to speak of what happens at the Thunderbird Inn, or even where it is….

Couldn’t resist adding the “directional” category of signs.  The first one that caught our attention was a simple pair of arrows, pointing in the same direction we encountered at a very tight mountain curve along Cedar Run in PA.   We were never really sure what they were thinking but we navigated the curve twice.

Fly fishing in the mountains, we encountered “steep grade” signs frequently…. 6% grade next 2 miles, etc….. until we started down the East Portal River Access in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison…. 16% seriously?  YES!!! YIKES!!!

On a “lighter” note, our Upper Falls view was a bit scary, the folks at Bethel Woods, where the Woodstock Festival occurred, displayed their sense of humor on their roadsigns…. and slightly associated with Woodstock was the interstate sign pointing the way to “Weed”.

The drift boats we took down the streams were often adorned with signs and stickers that made them unique.  Four drift boats that were painted stood out… Rocky Top Anglers, which while an advertisement for the guide service, was unique in its incorporation of Tennessee filled with brown trout spots… the “Casting for Recovery” drift boat with its message and mission of hope…. the “Alumaweld Boat” of Griff Marshall, well built indeed…. but taking the cake was Merritt Harris’ drift boat which had no writing on it, just spots.  Sometimes, the most subtle signs say the most… we caught a LOT of big fish with Merritt.

And then the stickers….  state bird of Michigan?  A reminder “Don’t Suck”.  And one of my favorites, a breakdown regarding “How Badass are You?”   Barb and I have enjoyed every one of these lengths. (NOTE: you may have to pause the video on this one to read it all…. LOL)

To be honest, the “sign” idea started with bathroom signs in fly shops.  We found some very unique ones along the way, including some that are a bit more “salty”….. including the “Fish Naked” series… some that spoke to why you were in the bathroom (hiccup… beer!)… and some that were instructive as to smoking and “how to”….. “Gentlemen”….”Ladies”.

Finally, “WARNING”!!!  Sometimes I wonder why on earth we fly fish given all the warning signs we encounter.  It turns out that the saying “Fish only live in beautiful places”, while so true, could also be written as “Fish, dangerous animals, rattlesnakes and raging rivers coexist in beautiful places”.  We encountered these “warning” signs everywhere… making us aware of the dangers of moose, bison, bears, hiking, swift water and weather.  My favorite is still “Grizzly Bear Area, Special Rules Apply”…. yeah… like STAY AWAY!

We really hope you enjoy our “signs” as much as we have.  Putting this together, I kept humming the Five Man Electrical Band’s “Sign” song.  However, not having the rights to use it, I created an original tune….  Ramble On!

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Lagniappe

Fishing Buddies

By Tom Burnett

OK…. so right up front let me say, I have a favorite fishing buddy, in case you’ve not noticed already.  We certainly didn’t know we were going to be fishing buddies when we met.  Our desires to fish together didn’t lead us to get married almost 46 years ago.  It is true that once our daughters ended up in different cities well over a decade ago, it caused Barb to decide that if she were to hang out with Chris (our now son-in-law), Krista and me in the Tetons, she’d need to learn to fish, since she’d lost her “hang out on the bank” partner in Kelly.  However, one never knows how a shared interest in fishing might translate into “fishing buddy” status…. but of course, you know how it turned out.

Many of Barb’s friends and family questioned her sanity when she agreed to go on our River Ramble together. I mean, it’s one thing to fish together a few times a year with family, but quite another to sell your home, live in a 200 sq.ft. RV (“SaraLinda“) and travel the country fishing for 10 months a year for two years…. but that’s exactly what we did.  And… we’re still married…. and are best fishing buds!

Now I’m not saying one needs to marry one’s fishing buddy – or – that one’s best fishing buddy should be one’s spouse.  For some, if not many, it’s a pursuit that doesn’t necessarily fit, but when it does…. it’s very very special!   When you watch the “Fishing Buddies” video above, you’ll see a pic of a couple we met along the Madison River in October 2016.  I wish I could remember both of their names, but what I do remember is that he told us everyone just calls him “Coach”.  They come to Yellowstone each October for the entire month to fish the Madison.  They are both in their 70’s and they’ve been married longer than Barb and me.  Needless to say, we aspire to still be fishing the Madison each October for the run of big browns from Hegben Lake, well into our 70’s and beyond like Coach and his wife.

The thing to recognize in this is…. it isn’t because we’re married that we’re fishing buddies, but it’s that we actually SHARE some important factors in what makes good fishing buddies.  Factors like:

Do you like to fish from sunup to sundown and beyond…. or….. do you enjoy the frequent respite for an afternoon siesta, a good meal and/or a few cold adult beverages?

Do you like to fish for a few “big” fish…. or…. catch as many fish as you possibly can?

Are you a dry fly only aficionado…. or…. a use whatever method works kind of angler?

Are you more into wading streams…. or fishing out of a drift boat/raft?

Are you into small streams… or…. big rivers?

Do you like to fish salt water…. or…. fresh water?

Are you partial to moving water…. or…. still water?

I’m sure the list could go on and on, and welcome feedback from readers on the list for sure, but I think you get the gist of things.  The best kinds of fishing buddies are those with which you share the most factors.

The tag line of our River Ramble blog really tells you a lot about us…. “Fly Fishing, Food, Friends and Fun”.  We are not the sunup to sundown types, although we’ve done it MANY times… I mean, of course “It’s Not About the Fish” ALL the time…. but there are days when all the fly fishing stars align and you just don’t want to leave the water.  We’re always prepared for such days.  We always pack enough drinks and extra sandwiches “just in case” one such day reveals itself…. so it’s PB&J for lunch, dinner and the moonlight snack driving back to the SaraLinda.  That said, if we know a great band is playing nearby, or friends are coming in that day… we’ll always choose to leave the river.

As for the fishing itself, we’re “opportunists” for sure.  We’ll fish dry flies, wet flies, nymphs, streamers whatever fly fishing tackle is working best.  Of course, whenever we can fish dries, it’s by far the most fun, watching the fish rise and take the fly from the surface…. instead of watching a strike indicator jiggle or pop beneath the surface…. or even swinging/stripping wet flies and streamers.  But in the end, we’re definitely “opportunists”.  Oh, and so far, we are moving, fresh water folks…. but we know that will be enhanced to include still water (ponds, lakes) and saltwater in our future. And we’ve found, we like to catch fish, big and small, so we’re not too hung up on the “how many” fish we catch anymore.  We’ve heard anglers go through this as they grow more experienced… first,  it’s catch a lot, then catch the big ones, then its “special” ones, etc…. but we find that fishing is an excuse to get outside, enjoy nature, share time with each other and friends, meet new people, enjoy new places… you know….

We’re in the “It’s Not About the Fish” group.   We want our guides to put us on fish if possible, but we also want them to make sure to point out geological sites, historical artifacts, eagles, osprey and of course, animals along our journeys.  We always ask them about local beers, places to eat and live music nearby so we can enjoy the community surrounding these beautiful streams.

As you watch the “Fishing Buddies” video above, you’ll see images of some of our fishing buddies including family members (and family member’s best buds), Sue Doss & Dud Lutton (Bozeman), Bill McCauslen & Ron Reed (Austin) and two who’ve been with me and with us more than anyone, James Kelley (Nashville) and Dan McCormack (Houston).   In addition to the annual trips James, Dan and I have taken for many years now, they’ve also joined Barb and me on our Ramble stops in New York, Colorado, Texas, Montana, Wyoming, Utah (“The Utah Four“) and Tennessee.   While my counting may be a bit off, I list over 25 rivers now we’ve fished together…. and we’re still planning more, including Alaska.

I’d be remiss if I also didn’t mention a few other images you’ll see in the video,  “Fishing Buddies”.  We started out our Ramble on the Guadalupe, with James and Dan of course… but also with guides, Alvin Dedeaux and JT Van Zandt, who it turns out, are fishing buddies from way back.  Watch their “Guadalupe Guide Talk” and you’ll see and hear their stories which are a hoot!  Andy Wagner befriended us along the way, and took us to “The Shanty” along Penns Creek (PA) to meet one of his “buddies”, Jeff Zim, one of a group of “buddies” affectionately called “The Shanty Posse”.   And not to be missed, our four legged furry friends (“Fly Dogs” & “Fly Dogs 2“)who accompanied us fishing, Solomon (Sue & Dud’s), Brookie (Julie Szur, our guide in Slate Run, PA), Sammy (Chris Taylor, our guide on the San Juan) and Desie (Roger & Mary Nelson, Nelson’s Spring Creek (MT)).

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Green - Flaming Gorge

The Utah Four

By Tom Burnett

Two things brought us back to fish the Green River at Flaming Gorge again… it’s a world class fishery where we’d had an epic time and our fishing buddies James Kelley and Dan McCormack.   Our mode to get back to Flaming Gorge was of course the SaraLinda and our favorite campground, Pine Forest, which was adjacent to where James and Dan were staying.   But first, back to those two things…

The Green is one of those TU Greatest 100 Trout Streams for very very good reasons.  It has some of the largest and most beautiful trout of any of the lower 48 we’d ever seen.  We’d fished it earlier with Ryan Dangerfield (“Flaming Green”) of Flaming Gorge Resort and had an absolutely stellar three days of dry fly fishing.  The yellow sallies were in full bloom on the river and fish were rising to them everywhere.   There is nothing in the fly fishing world more “epic” that hitting a hatch at the perfect time…. gives me the tingles every time I think about all the times on our trip we’ve been fortunate enough to have caught “the hatch”.   We were hoping to catch lightening in a bottle once again, but first… that second thing.

I don’t quite know where to begin about Dr. James Kelley and Dr. Dan McCormack, so I won’t.  I’ll save that for another post (coming soon), but I won’t leave you totally hanging here… well maybe just a bit.  Suffice it to say that James, Dan and I have fished together for well over a decade now and worked together for even longer.  When we’d returned from our River Ramble through the first 95 rivers in the TU Top 100, they’d asked what were our “favorites”, which is always a loaded question since nearly all of the rivers had become favorites for one reason or another.  However, the Green was one of those where we’d had the “E” time, so we decided it was our next adventure together.  They’d already joined us before on several of our stops, so we’d already had the “experience” of fishing with them, which is always a blast and full of adventure.

Our first morning, we met at the Resort, were introduced to our guides… Ryan (who we fished with before) and Dalton… and proceeded to debate just exactly where to fish.   The Green is divided into three sections:  A, B and C.   Each is a day’s float, but you can also float AB (last half of A, first half of B) or BC (you get the idea).  The “A” section is generally regarded as the most scenic, flowing through a tight canyon with towering red bluffs.  This section is also generally regarded as having more fish, but slightly smaller fish.  We decided to go “bigger” and fish the “B” section and a bit of “C” as our day’s float.  We weren’t going to be fishing dries, but a twin nymph rig of a “Neon Nightmare” wire worm followed by an “Iron Sally” nymph was our ticket.

We put in at Little Hole and within 100 yards of the ramp, Barb had already hooked into an 18” brown.  The morning continued in exactly that way, with regular hook ups and many landings.  We broke for lunch at the Tree Tops Camp on the river where we met up with James, Dan and Dalton.  There are several campsites along the river that are only accessible via water and luckily we found one empty for our lunch of fried chicken.  We shared stories of our morning, fish hooked, fish landed and after a bit of friendly “trash talking” about biggest and most fish, we headed back to the river.  

The weather was picture perfect all day and the fishing continued to be productive.  Each of our boats picked up double digit fish in both the morning and afternoon, but even more impressive was the number of 18-20” fish we landed.  At one point, Ryan rowed us back up to fish the inside of a run.  After a long cast upstream and about 4’ of drift, my strike indicator plunged downward.  This wasn’t a gentle take but an all out eat and the fight was on.  After a few minutes, a 22” brown found its way into Ryan’s net.   Later that afternoon, back at the resort, I was surprised when Ryan handed me a hat with “22” embroidered prominently on the crown.  Needless to say, I wore it later that night around the campfire to remind everyone who landed the largest fish of the day.   Of course, James would remind us that he “hooked” the biggest fish, a reportedly 24” rainbow, the biggest Dalton had ever seen in the Green, that afternoon.  But as the saying goes, until there is a picture in the net, its simply a “fish story”.  

Day 2 of our Flaming Gorge, Green River fishing adventure was a walk/wade trip along the “A” section, up from the Little Hole access site.   Dan was the first, and only, to hook and land a fish, a beautiful 18” brown trout he snared out of a mid-river riffle.  We waded several different spots of the “A” section but found that no one was getting bites that morning.  About 11am, the big “W” began…. WIND!  

We decided to head back to the Little Hole area and have lunch.  We’d packed our usual, turkey/cheese and PB&J for lunch.  After fighting to keep everything from blowing away, James and I headed back to the water for a few more casts before the wind about blew us over and downstream (it did blow my hat off which James deftly recovered with his wading staff).

Our next stop was to drive down to the beginning of the “A” section, which sits directly below the dam.  The water here was moving very fast so we carefully waded out and began fishing the inside seams of some fast moving water.  Dan was again the only one to pick up a fish, a small brown, but a fish nonetheless….. more than James and I were able to muster.  That evening, we went back to our campsite for burgers, a campfire and more fish stories.  

Day 3 was another guide day with Ryan and Dalton, but we switched it up…. James and I loaded in with Ryan, while Barb and Dan shared the boat with Dalton.   We’d originally planned on fishing an “AB” float, but the reports from the “A” section weren’t very positive regarding the quality/quantity of fishing.  We could have told them that in advance given our walk/wade fishing experience.   So we launched down the “B” section again, and once again, this time in the first 50 yards, James hooked a brownie.  

As we proceeded downstream, two things happened….. we continued to hook and land several fish in the 18-20” range and the wind continued to build.  By 11am, the wind was blowing around 20mph, primarily downstream.   While this made the casting a bit of a problem, it REALLY made the rowing a nightmare.  Both guides were dealing with winds and waves pushing them either into the bank (in our case, going down the left side) or away from the bank.   I hooked myself about 3 times as the flies on my backcast got pushed into me.  Mind you, when we COULD get our flies into the water and get a drift, we were still picking up fish.

The other reality we were facing as we were pushed downstream by the wind was that our “day” trip was quickly becoming a “half day” trip.  We were flying downstream at a very fast rate.  We passed our Day 1 lunch spot at about 10am.   When we broke for lunch at 11:30, we were only a couple of miles from our takeout spot.  At the rate we were going, that was only about an hour away.  

After lunch, we headed downstream to fish a few more riffles, but we found another diversion we’d seen on Day 1 that we wanted to explore…. the John Jarvie Historic Ranch.  In 1880, John Jarvie, a Scotsman, built a ranch on the Green to sell goods to locals and travelers alike.  It was an ideal spot along the river, where a natural river crossing was present, used by fur trappers, travelers and local natives.  The area, called Brown’s Park, was so remote, it was also a hiding spot for outlaws including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  We had a great time visiting the site, learning its history, and playing frisbee with Turk, the BLM manager’s dog.  

Day 3 had been an experience.  One rule of fly fishing is to never speak the “W” word while in the boat.  It’s considered to be bad luck and will only bring more “W”.   Anymore, I’m not sure about this custom, as while we never mentioned “wind” as we were fishing, it didn’t stop steady winds of 20mph with gusts over 30mph from hounding us.  We were exhausted from fighting it all day, but still had enjoyed a great day of fishing.   We relaxed with dinner at the Red Canyon Lodge before turning in early.

Day 4 was moving day from Flaming Gorge to Heber City (UT).   Along the way we stopped in Duschesne (UT) and fished the Strawberry River below Starvation Dam.  We were still fighting the wind but saw some beautiful water.  Unfortunately, the bends we fished had already been fished out by anglers who’d been keeping fish.  We didn’t even see a fish on the river, but we did find some other “old goats” along the river.

We arrived in Heber City without a spot for the SaraLinda.  James and Dan had already booked a room at the Swiss Alps Motel, but we’d winged it, thinking it wouldn’t be a problem finding a spot.  Unfortunately, we’d not realized that a major outdoor concert was happening at one of the two campgrounds in town, and all the campsites (and hotels) in town were sold out.  We were thinking this was going to finally be the time we’d be staying in a Walmart parking lot, but the owner of the Swiss Alps Inn invited us to park next to their garage and spend the night there.  They even had water and electricity there for us to have the same “creature comforts” of staying in a campground.  We were lucky and blessed to have found such generous hosts for the night.  

After setting up, James, Dan and I headed to the local fly shop, Fishheads, to grab a few flies and head to the Provo River for some evening fishing.  We nymph fished a couple of spots along the river while listening to the concert just up the road from us.  After getting nothing nymphing, we headed to another spot downstream, tied on a size 16 caddis, and fished to rising trout at dusk.  We were not to be shut out as this time, it was James who kept us from being skunked, landing a nice brown trout.  We headed back to our motel (SaraLinda parking spot), had dinner at the Dairy Keen (not to be missed in Heber City) and crashed.  Our day had included a 3 hour drive, fishing two different rivers and being lucky enough to have found a spot to rest.  

The next morning, we shared coffee while also sharing the images and movies we’d shot, many of which are included in the highlight video above which we know you’ll enjoy.  We started plotting our next fishing adventures, said our goodbyes, hugged and headed our separate ways…. James/Dan to SLC….. Barb and I back to home base in Bozeman.  

There is nothing better than meeting up with dear friends and fishing buddies, sharing fishing stories and other experiences…. reminding yourself its really not about the fish.  Stay tuned for more!

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Firehole, Lagniappe

Fantastic Firehole

By Tom Burnett

While I made it up to the Firehole for an “Opening Day” road trip, our first true Ramble trip in the SaraLinda began last Wednesday when we drove down to West Yellowstone.   After parking the SaraLinda at the Grizzly RV Campground, we headed into the park to check out the Firehole.  

We decided not to wader up, and instead wet-waded into the river where I’d landed a couple of fish on “Opening Day”.  We started by swinging soft hackles.  After picking up a couple of browns, we headed upstream, further into the park, to a nice spot where two large boulders created breaks in the water that seemed “fishy”.  We started swinging flies again, picking up a couple of fish, before the first rise.  Immediately we put on a White Miller Caddis and picked up even more fish, as you can see Barb’s bent rod in the video above.  

The next morning at 7am, we met Patrick Daigle of Blue Ribbon Flies, our guide for the day on the Firehole.  You may remember Patrick from “YNP Magic”, our Guide Talk with Patrick after fishing both the Madison and Firehole in October 2016.  We met early to beat the crowds heading into YNP and the bison jams that accompany them.  We parked at the Midway Geyser Basin, rigged up, and made our walk downstream along the river.  As we walked, we encountered a lone bison on the far side of the river, who would become one of our “markers” along the river.  Turns out he was there for three days straight.  

What we encountered fishing with Patrick, was a sunny and extremely windy day, two things that typically don’t bring the best of fishing and patience.  Anything hatching was getting blown off the water before any fish could possible take it, so swinging wet flies was the course for the day.  We caught and released a good number of fish, but knew we were limited by the conditions.  It didn’t stop us from having a fun day, a great stream side lunch and the knowledge of spots we might visit again….. soon!

The next day couldn’t have been more different….. cool, calm and cloudy….. aka… perfect fishing conditions.  We took a hike of about 1.5 miles to a spot that we’d thought fishy the day prior.  Along the way, we’re always looking for interesting things, including the bone Barb’s holding in the highlight video above.   And yes, we encountered our lone bison friend once again.   

In less than 15 minutes, a hatch of White Miller Caddis started… a very big, long hatch (see vid).  It wasn’t long before fish were rising everywhere and devouring the real bugs AND ours!   We lost count quickly of how many fish we were landing as browns and rainbows alike were in a feeding frenzy.   After a couple of hours, the hatch waned, our arms were tired from casting and catching, so we hiked out… but stopped stream side for a selfie of two very happy anglers.

Day three of fishing turned out more like our guide day with Patrick, sunny and windy.  Along our hike out…. we first encountered a large herd of bison…. then our lone bison about 1/2 mile further downstream, with an eagle watching over him and the river.  We decided to hike a bit further downstream and found several thermals along the river.  We very carefully traversed them, pausing at times to snap pictures and video.  While the water felt hot tub perfect, we decided not to hop in, but do what we came to do…. fish!  

While the sun and wind made fishing difficult, every once in a while the wind would die, and the fish would rise.  We tied on different flies trying to match what they were eating.  We didn’t have the epic day we’d had the day before, but we still managed to get quite a few to net (or hand in my case).   We fished our way back to our car, trying to pick off one last fish along the way.  

Sunday, we celebrated Father’s Day with breakfast at Old Faithful Inn (OFI), followed by our usual writing postcards and mailing them from the Inn.  Yes, we still buy postcards and send them to family… honing our handwriting skills vs. our texting skills.  OFI is special to us for a variety of reasons; our daughter Krista worked there and our good friend Sarah Lichte Savage, who was a manager at OFI, once took Barb and Krista up to the Crows Nest to take the flags down.  Afterward, we took a road tour around the southern loop in Yellowstone, spotting the occasional bison herd and elk along the way.  We decided not to fish because a) we’d fished and hiked hard the past 3 days and b) it was POURING rain.  Although, looking out now as I write this…. hmmmmmm…. cool, calm and cloudy…. See you next time!

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