Alaska 30. Road Warriors August 8

It was still raining pretty steadily in the morning.

And we had learned we weren’t all that close to our meeting point with our guide: NOT Jason, who’d promised us he’d be taking us out himself, but Mark. Jason (the Minnesota guy Dave learned about from the United inflight mag), explained to us that he gives priority to repeat customers and we totally understand that. But we were disappointed. 

But that’s just life in the big city. We got over it.

We needed to meet Mark at a spot 30-45 minutes away, so we left. Giving ourselves a little 30 minutes to get there.

That’s how we roll.

And that’s why we are ALWAYS LATE.

Cuz we also, you know, wanted to pick up some snacks… and coffee… and maybe a delicious chorizo breakfast burrito.

Check. Check. Check.

So now we were REALLY late.

So Dave had to drive REALLY fast.

Check.

We got to the landing 12 minutes after our agreed upon time of 7 am. Where we met Mark, all of TWENTY ONE YEARS OLD, who didn’t mind at all.

He was fricken adorable.

But we did sort of wonder what wisdom he could impart on these wizened bones of ours…

But, as a seasoned veteran of four years of Alaskan guiding, he had PLENTY of wisdom to impart. It was all simply fascinating stuff. 

The takeaway? I don’t think I would come back to Alaska to fish for trout — except maybe in the late fall. They just have too much “flesh” to eat in the way of salmon eggs and carcasses to eat in the summer. I truly don’t care about catching “giant” fish. At least not at this point in my career. I care about the experience. And I like to dry fly when I can. ALL the trout fishing is subsurface. Good LORD IN HEAVEN: I do that all winter long in Colorado. No thanks.

Plus, with all the rain in summer, the rivers get high and blown out and then you can’t fish. I guess that’s why salmon is the name of the game, obviously. And, truth be told, we DO want to catch some salmon to ship home. We relied on Mark to guide us: both literally and figuratively. What would HE do?

It was a match made in heaven, because sweet Mark was very (VERY) tired of killing fish. He was tired of clients hopping on the boat, their only goal being to slay as many sockeye as possible in the least amount of time. Yes, yes, we too, wanted some fish, but we were also looking forward to floating and catching them. We had the unique experience of being able to troll for Sockeye vs “flossing” them. I won’t go into all the details, but think of it this way: when you troll, they bite. When you “floss” you snag them. One is fishing, the other is harvesting. We weren’t so keen on flossing. 

It rained most of the day, the morning being particularly rough. We stayed just warm enough. I was thankful that the temp went up a degree or two from when we started because I was starting to get the whole-body shivers and that can be hard to recover from that. Bone chilling.

We learned a lot from Mark. For those of you who care:

1. Sockeye salmon typically do NOT bite on flies or lures. The one exception is when they are defending their spawning area and is relatively rare.
2. 99% of sockeye caught (that are not dip-netted by locals) are caught by flossing. Or “flipping” as the guides say. Which consists of throwing a heavily weighted hook a few yards into the current letting it drift and then setting the hook, regardless of whether you feel anything. If your hook and line happened to float between the jaws of a fish, as you set that hook, it will lodge in the side of the mouth. And you “catch” your fish.
3. The other tiny percent are caught on “plugs” trolling. That was what we did. These are like the old Lazy Ike artificial lures. Some local guy figured out 15 years ago that he could get sockeye to bite in this particular spot of the Kenai river and now there are always several boats trolling. Mark likes this better and so did we.
4. I was one hundred percent WRONG when I said I was sure you could eat the fish we caught. You only want to eat light colored females. Technically, the males would still be good after they turned red, but generally speaking, the lighter the fish (the more silvery) the better. Score ONE for TEAM DAVE.
5. There really isn’t any dry fly fishing for trout in Alaska. Not down in this area at least.
6. King salmon should be on the endangered list. They might be as early as next year.
7. Too many fish are taken. There is no set limit on how much fish you can take home with you. (There is a possession limit for the day, which is very generous.) People just get gluttonous. And it makes these guides sad. They have to kill and fillet these fish. They have to hit the fish on the head with a mallet several times after they are caught. Our guide said “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry…” with each hit. And I, frankly, really appreciated that. 
8. Silver Salmon (starting soon) will bite. They are fun. And it is pure chaos in this area once that run starts because you aren’t just standing in a line flipping. (Although Mark didn’t say that, we heard it the next day on our boat tour. You get amateurs driving boats over whales… lots of just irresponsible fishing.) 

After we got six sockeye, we started fishing for trout. But we knew not to expect too much with the high water and the well-fed trout. We caught several Dolly Varden (I finally caught one) and I think one rainbow trout. 

As we prepared to head over to the take out spot the skies opened up again, just to keep us humble. And wet.

We headed back to get the camper because tonight we were staying at GRIZZLY RIDGE. A cute little cabin, right on the highway. 

We took our filets to a nearby processor and shipper and headed to our cabin.

I can’t say it was peaceful (road noise). But it was a nice reprieve from the rain. And it was cute and clean and comfortable. We dried out, watched our first Olympics (we are so sad to have missed them), and cooked some FRESH SALMON (also our first of the trip). The salmon was as good as I remembered. *Phew* — I have to admit: I was super nervous. I’m not a salmon lover at all. But I remember just loving the stuff Dave brought home probably 18 years ago from a trip he took with Charlie, Wes and Hank. Those were Silver salmon, though. Sockeye is more red and — depending on where you are reading — either way better or way “stronger” or “fishier” or “salmon-y-er.” So I was kind of worried. 

No longer! It was fabbie. 

It was nice to sit on a couch. It wasn’t even that comfortable of a couch. I have sat in three places since leaving home more than a month ago: the car, the camper and my camp chair. 

We showered and crawled into bed, watching the Olympics. Luxurious!