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Aleutian Cast &
Blast
by Bill Battles
Alaska is always described
in superlatives, and for good reason. For the sportsman,
there's simply no place like it on earth, and every
time I go to Alaska it's a whole new adventure. My
latest discovery is a place called Cold Bay, way down
at the tip of the Alaska Peninsula. Just across False
Pass-where the waters of the Bering Sea and the Pacific
Ocean first mingle-is Unimak Island, the easternmost
island in the Aleutian chain. During World War II,
Cold Bay's population swelled to over 60,000. Today,
however, there are but 70 hardy souls. With its 10,480-foot
runway, Cold Bay airport will accommodate anything
that flies this side of a space shuttle-including
the Reeve Aleutian Airways 727 that whisked us in
from Anchorage in less than two hours.
The climate here is rather balmy by Alaska standards,
with air temperatures ranging from the 20s in winter
to the 60s in summer. But this is no place to bring
the family: the beaches are black sand; the wind blows
20 to 40 knots year 'round; and the weather can change
from sun to rain (or sleet, or snow) in a heart beat.
So why bother? Two reasons, actually: extraordinary
fishing for silver salmon, steelhead and Dolly Varden
trout . . . and the best bird hunting I've ever seen.
I was invited-along with friends Peter Melendy, Dan
Smith and Brian Ward-to sample Cold Bay's smorgasbord
of fishing and fowling opportunities by Charlie Summerville,
the owner of Alaska
Trophy Adventures. I've fished with Charlie many
times over the years, and the little sucker just keeps
getting better! He's got a nose for finding the best
fishing Alaska has to offer, and Cold Bay is his crowning
achievement.
A major advantage of Cold Bay proper is its road
system, which affords drive-up access to countless
miles of remarkable fishing. Many creeks are accessible
from the beach well up into their high-country head
waters. Access like this would create unbearable fishing
pressure in most places, but not here. Amazingly,
fishermen have yet to discover the Cold Bay area.
In seven days of fishing a 150-mile stretch of the
Peninsula and islands above and below Cold Bay, we
encountered only one other fisherman-and he was a
bear hunter armed with spinning gear just looking
for dinner!
 Silver
Salmon
Of the five species of Pacific salmon, silvers are
tops in my book. When hooked, they spend as much time
in the air as in the water, especially when they're
fresh from the salt. And while we found plenty of
silvers almost everywhere we fished, none were any
fresher than the hundred thousand or so we discovered
in a place called Volcano Bay, a stone's throw from
the Pacific surf.
This river flows down the slope of a huge volcano,
then empties into tidal flats several miles wide.
About half the size of Rhode Island, virtually the
entire bay is wadeable. Countless chrome silvers come
in on every tide and cruise the shallow water, finning
around in pods of 100 fish or more. This is all sight
casting to tailing fish-flats fishing, Alaska style-and
it was a rare moment indeed when at least three or
four of us weren't fast to fish at the same time.
Brian Ward came equipped with a lifetime supply of
silly looking, green-and-yellow deerhair divers tied
by the British firm of Turrall Flies. And he paid
dearly for it. "Oh, right Brian, just clip off the
weed guard and it turns into a killer silver salmon
pattern!" Peter taunted. "Yeah, we can't wait to read
the headlines," I added. "Limey Bass Bug Kicks Butt
on Aleutian Silver Flats."
We all got a big chuckle at Brian's expense, but
as we soon learned, he who laughs last laughs best.
Call it unbridled optimism, call it uncanny prescience
. . . hell, call it dumb luck, but the silvers went
for that damned thing like hatchery trout during a
food-pellet hatch. It would no sooner hit the water
than three or four fish would be all over it. Figure
that one out! The only way into Volcano Bay is by
plane-small plane, that is, for the Volcano Bay International
Airport also serves as the beach. A nice, wide beach.
The kind of beach you can land on and still be alive
when everything stops moving. Alaska
Trophy Adventures has an outcamp snuggled in behind
the barrier dunes on the shore of the bay, and its
Cold Bay package includes two days of fishing and
an overnight here in silver salmon heaven.
Steelhead
Alaska Trophy
Adventures also maintains an outcamp on the Aleutian
River, a place any clean-living steelheader would
point to if asked to describe his concept of heaven.
Very few people know of this magnificent run of wild
steelies, and in order to keep it that way we're using
the pseudonym "Aleutian River."
A major attraction for me in this Aleutian Island
adventure was the prospect of landing a 40-pound steelhead,
like the one shown in the accompanying photos taken
on the Aleutian River last season. Alas, La Niña's
fickle weather put the schedule off somewhat, and
we arrived before the 40-pounders, but the 20-pounders
went a long way toward attenuating my disappointment.
The Aleutian River outcamp is equipped with with
boats, motors, guides, great food, and all the bears
you can handle. An overnight here (with two days of
fishing) is included in the standard package, but
you're free to stay at the Aleutian River outcamp
the whole week if you like.
In our travels around the lower Peninsula and Unimak
Island we came across a lot of juvenile steelhead,
evidence of any number of "undocumented" steelhead
runs in the Cold Bay area. Nobody knows much about
these runs or what they amount to later in the season,
but Charlie is now hard at work scouting them out.
 Dolly
Varden Trout
Or is that Dolly Varden char? In fact, Dollys are
members of the genus Salvelinus, making them char
and not trout. Often confused with its first cousin,
the arctic char, the two species look so much alike
that even biologists have trouble telling them apart.
Dollys spawn and overwinter in rivers (whereas arctic
char do both in lakes), and since most of the rivers
we fished did not originate from lakes, it's a good
bet we were catching Dollys. Not that we cared one
bit. Dollys take much of their nourishment in the
form of salmon eggs, and when we were there in early
October the streambeds were choked with eggs from
recently-concluded chum salmon runs. These beautiful,
aggressive, egg gobblers can grow to arm's length
in size, and they were so prolific that it was-quite
literally-a fish on every cast.
Even though you may find yourself under-gunned on
the larger fish, light, sensitive rods are necessary
to detect a Dolly's subtle take. If you're late on
the hookup, the egg is going to wind up way down in
the gullet, greatly reducing the likelihood of a happy
ending. After this happened to us a couple of times
we re-rigged with bead eggs stop-knotted six inches
back from a bare egg hook at the end of the tippet.
When the fish took the harmless bead, line tension
planted the egg hook squarely in its jaw.
The only unpleasant aspect of our otherwise-delightful
day of trouting was the climb out. In the middle of
a 300-foot-deep gorge, Charlie pronounced the day's
festivities at an end. Wearing felt-soled wading shoes,
it took me 20 minutes to ascend the wet, tundra-covered,
60-degree slope, where any slip would mean a "butt
luge" ride all the way to the jagged rocks at the
bottom. I learned two valuable lessons here: (1) Bring
the heavy, cleat-soled wading shoes; and (2) When
you give a guy a ration of crap about his silly-looking
British bass bugs, he's going tell everybody he knows
how long it took you to climb a little hill! Ptarmigan
Hunting Being a grouse hunter at heart, I was particularly
fond of our time on the ptarmigan "moors" around Cold
Bay. In their brown summer plumage, ptarmigan look
a lot like grouse, but by October they're about half
way through their transformation to pure white. They
flush and fly like quail, usually staying low and
arcing off to one side, and given their contrasting
colors they aren't hard to hit.
Humping the tundra in search of ptarmigan can be
a lot like work-it's wet, miserable stuff to walk
on, and in many places it's comprised of endless two-foot-high
hillocks. In a couple of hours of hunting the ptarmigan
moors you won't change elevation by more than ten
feet, but you'll climb half a mile to get there!
We had some great ptarmigan action, especially when
hunting over Al Spalinger's blond lab. A retired Alaska
Fish & Game Department fisheries biologist, and an
avid bird hunter, Al owns the Izembek Lodge in downtown
Cold Bay. The lodge, which very comfortably accommodates
a party of six, is the "base camp" for Alaska
Trophy Adventures' Cold Bay operation.
 Waterfowling
Eel grass is to waterfowl as worms are to fish, and
with the world's largest eel grass beds-45,000 acres
worth-Izembek Lagoon plays temporary home each fall
to millions of lesser Canada geese, brant (black geese),
emperor geese, eiders, pintails, spoonbills and other
arctic waterfowl pausing here to feed and rest on
their way south from summer nesting grounds. Izembek
National Wildlife Refuge manager, Rick Poetter, estimated
that nearly 500,000 ducks and geese were in residence
when we were there.
The best shooting occurs during the two hours on
either side of the high tide, as water covers the
shallow eel grass beds, forcing the birds to move
around. Our party split up to cover more of the lagoon-Dan
and Peter hunted from the mainland with Al Spalinger
and his blond lab; Brian and I took the boat out to
Two Box Island with our faithful retrievers, uhh .
. . guides, Charlie and Rob.
The shooting was fast and furious, and the birds
were so thick at times it was difficult to choose
targets. In what has to be the most productive shot
of my life, three brant fell to a single round of
3-1/2" 12-gauge Bismuth, causing me to inadvertently
exceed the daily bag limit by a full 50%. True to
its name, in the short time it took us to limit out
on Two Box Island I was well into my second box of
shells.It's tough to describe this experience in mere
words, so let me just leave it like this: I never
even imagined that waterfowl hunting could be this
good!
When you're ready for the ultimate big boys' vacation,
do yourself a favor and make it a Cold Bay Cast &
Blast. You can even design your own itinerary. If
you'd rather pass on the bird hunting, feel free to
spend the whole week fishing. If you just don't care
about 40-pound steelhead (!), you can extend your
stay on the silver flats, or put in some extra time
with your shotgun on Izembek Lagoon.
Article by Bill Battles fishing with
Alaska Trophy
Adventures
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