Back-Up Plan
By: Marcus Weiner - Provided By 'Fish Alaska Magazine'
Fishing in Alaska, you'll eventually learn that every outing is just an idea, a good plan maybe, but not a reality until you actually show up. In other words, you haven't arrived at a destination until you've wet a line.
Unlike most of the contiguous United States, where schedules move with the precision of a military marching band, Alaska operates more like a beer-league softball team. A lot of guys are late, some never show up at all. One of the greatest contributing factors to the hallmark flexible scheduling is unpredictable weather. The other, of course, is the fact that most of Alaska can only effectively be reached by plane.
I always get a chuckle when a visiting angler tells me that they looked at the forecast and that it will be sunny for the next week. My advice is to look outside for the best weather update and to realize that the only predictable events are the sun rising and setting (and during the height of summer, even that is up for debate, though you can be reasonably sure the earth is still rotating).
A recent trip illustrates the point. Last year, George Large, VP of product development for Rapala Corporation, came to Anchorage to join me on a weeklong fly-fishing trip to the Karluk River on Kodiak Island. We made the trip easily to the city of Kodiak and promptly sat there for two full days waiting for the weather on the west side of the island to break. Unable to fly through low visibility conditions, we could not travel to Larsen Bay and headed back to Anchorage to execute a backup plan on the Kenai Peninsula.
Since George and I still wanted to come tight to a King Salmon on the fly rod, we arranged to try the trip again this year. A week before our arrival at the destination, I e-mailed to confirm our trip and found out that the Karluk River was closed early to king salmon fishing because the run was low. There were loads of sockeye in the river, but it was a no-go on kings.
With a few days to spare before George's arrival, the staff at Fish Alaska set to task to find a suitable alternative. Realizing that the king run in western Alaska should have been in its prime, we talked with Tim Vial at Tim's Alaska Adventures and arranged a three-day trip to Togiak. We'd fished the Togiak before at Togiak River Fishing Adventures (January 2005 issue) and knew that the river could be spectacular.
Hopping a Pen-Air flight to Dillingham brought us to the connecting flight to Togiak. Tim met us at the strip and after showing us our sleeping quarters, we gathered gear and headed out to the river. Based in the village of Togiak, it's but a short ride upriver to fishable water. There were clearly plenty of fish, with chum, sockeye and Chinook salmon rolling everywhere. Tim brought us to a deep, slow run that he'd been scouting as a fly-fishing spot and George and I got to work. I threw a 250-grain sink tip line on a 10-weight rod and reel. After trying a variety of weighted streamers, I switched to a Fat Freddy and even added some split shot to get the fly down. This is an atypical set-up to dead drift a fly, but I was getting a decent drift and just about the moment that Tim started to goad us about not catching a fish on the fly, I hooked up. Ten minutes later, a 20-pound hen came to hand.
Catching a king on a fly rod is not an easy task. The next time that I return, I'll come loaded with heavier sink lines and I will bring a Spey rod. Editor Troy Letherman had equipped me with the entire Spey package, but I was so overloaded with other gear I left it in Anchorage. Predictably, this was exactly what I needed to fish the lower river effectively on the fly.
We eventually settled into a variety of other techniques to catch kings and were very successful. Side-drifting long slots of deep water with a small Spin-N-Glo and eggs proved to be the most effective. Switching to a Worden's Bob Toman spinner in orange/white and keeping it moving enough to have the blade spin also resulted in fish. George was able to catch kings throwing a Blue Fox M oz. Pixee while we were on anchor. At the same time, I caught several nice kings back-bouncing from this position. I even hooked and landed a few fish back-bouncing just the Spin-N-Glo.
For the aspiring fly fisherman, fishing to chums is a good way to get some serious practice landing a big fish on the fly. Using an 8-weight rod and reel and floating line with an 8-foot tapered leader, George and I caught many chums on pink leeches. They would grab the fly at just about any time, fish hooked on the drift, swing and strip.
We had a great time fishing with Tim and thoroughly enjoyed our time on the Togiak. Conservative estimates would be about 25 kings and 20 chums landed. One nice touch was cooking a fish on the river each night for dinner. With a liberal smothering of lemon pepper and butter, it seemed to me that the king salmon we ate was among the most delicious that I'd tasted.
We fished from July 15 through July 17 and in talking with Tim, I found that his favorite time to fish kings is the end of July, as the largest fish of the season are in the river and the silvers are starting to show. I think that next year I'll schedule to go back and fish the Togiak at the end of July. Of course, I'll also need to come up with a backup plan.
Check out: Tim's Alaska Adventures
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