BilletHead

I thought about Mike right away. Thanks Phil.

Logs were floated down many creeks as well as fur trappers doing thier things. Would this be commercial use? This land was opened up by fur trappers. I'm talking anything that can be floated in a raft of canoe. Personally I would draw the line when all you did was drag across many gravel bars and downed trees.

Yes and I love using an old/new tool.

I figured this thread would be a good place to share this. There is something to say about simple things from a more simple time. I found a pair of waffle iron paddles for a Griswold new American waffle iron. They were one big mess. I already had the deep base. I won the fight. Turned the handles out of Osage orange. Everything finished yesterday. This morning took it for a test drive. Perfect! Found a recipe for old time waffles. It has malt in the batter. VID_20250728_115405273.mp4 VID_20250729_070031290.mp4 VID_20250729_071944621.mp4

That's a fact!

Not too shabby yourself John! Can we have a dang,

Great write up trip report! Congrats on the new species. Chalk them up to researching so well. Pat and I say HI LIVIE 😆.

Been there done that many, many years ago. Works great!

Brunch! Actually I had a BLT for breakfast but another meal a brunch a bit later. Oven baked Brie with Rosemary and Thyme Chanterelles. Oh my goodness. We have found a new favorite way to use the chanterelles.

Nice @dpitt! We love cutthroat and the West slope is a favorite. Caught them in glacier Park, near the Canadian border in grave cree in Montana also. Then in the North fork of the Clearwater in Idaho. We find them feisty taking drys. Hoppers and trudes especially. Thanks for sharing your fishy outings. We are in a holding pattern after Alaska but are planning a trip west in August..

If funds would let us we would do this again despite not liking to fly. We would recommend to anyone this type of trip. By now we are pretty much recovered but reliving the trip still daily. Dave and Mike stayed a couple days longer. Caught some nice grayling and bigger rainbow before they came home. We still all have a group text going on and hope it continues to stay going. Good bunch of people. For those that don't follow Duane he's still working hard getting the place spruced up and in top shape. Thanks for letting Pat and I share the trip. We sure enjoy others posts on outdoor activities.

Next morning was the day we departed. Did our flight in the afternoon which was late by a couple hours. Before we took off up to the village Dave showed us the non lethal bear deterrent. I think the bear might die laughing. VID_20250716_070929020.mp4 We loaded up the boat with our stuff, Duane our captain took us to town and Dave and Mike came also, VID_20250716_112430371.mp4 Looked around town and visited the post office. Store was open. Not much in there and what was priced high as expected. Checked out the community building. Sat down and waited for the plane. Mike decided to nap again. VID_20250716_123011778.mp4 We finally told the three amigos to head back and go fishing after finding out the plane would be late. Last hugs given off they went. Tiny coffee shop in the waiting room. Young lady showed up and we got a hot drink. Raining again. People in and out. Most greeted us and were friendly. One woman came in with two little children. She tied a dog outside. The kids with the barista made their own drinks. Woman told us that the dogs name was stormy. Stormy would be on the flight with us to Anchorage. She belonged to her aunt and needed to go there. Plane landed we and Stormy got our stuff in the plane and flew to Anchorage. There we headed to the Anchorage airport to wait for an extra hour because that plane was running late. Split an elk burger with fries and a couple of blueberry sodas, Flight at Chicago layover was on time but layover was short because we were late. Neither one of us could sleep on the plane. That sucked big time. Trying to land in Springfield was interesting because we dropped down, landing gear down pilot tried twice to land and then pulled up because of inclement weather. We were routed to Bentonville airport for an hour. We even offloaded there. Right back on and back to Springfield. A couple hours later home to unload, get showers and to bed where we actually slept for 11.5 hours. We have never slept that long before. Guess we were tired.

Tuesday the 15th time is getting short for Pat and I. Work day. Find a leak in a boat on the water plus get a boat with motor on a trailer flat on the ground and get it launched. First pumped water out of leaking boat. Trailer on back of a four wheeler. Backed that in and loaded up leaking boat. Parked an went to work. I peeked under the boat. The keel had been damaged. Like in a strike sideways. It was bent out of shape and sheared off a rivet. Put water in the boat to find that. Everybody had an opinion, VID_20250715_094232292~2.mp4 Scaveged through the tool shed. Found a stainless steel nut and bolt. Had some epoxy. Dave did some body work. Dried everything up applied epoxy and tightened up nut and bolt. , VID_20250715_094601601.mp4 While that was drying took a break. Not sure how but Dave put a hook in the palm of his hand. Doctors Duane and Marty working together did the string/monofilament trick. Popped that hook out and Dave didn't shed a tear. , Put boat back into the water and tied to the dock. No leaks now. Next get boat on trailer. Duane backed the trailer to the nose the boat and attached the winch strap. Dave is a beast he began to crank boat started lifting onto the trailer and ATV lifted at the same time. VID_20250715_113854277.mp4 Duane, Pat and I got on the ATV rear end it went down. Dave started cranking again as Mike pushed the back of the boat with motor. Got it on the trailer. Tried motor after fresh gas and a battery. Launched and tied off. Yeah! The three stooges geared up and headed to find new braids and creek to fish. Sadly Pat and I did some packing and watched our waders and boots dry. VID_20250715_135209299.mp4 We walked to the braid and fished a bit. Had a greyling and rainbow on but that was it. Back at the lodge before taking rods apart I messed with a few sculpin. Did not have a hook small enough for stickleback but big mouth sculpin chomped on an egg pattern. This is for the multi species guys. The contraband iris starts,

I just checked the gauge at igiugig. There it's 19,000 CFS. Lots of figuring for water depth etc to convert to mph. I might give Duane some homework. I think there is some GPS units in the lodge. See if he can figure out how to use one. Float down the river in front of the Lodge in his boat.

It really is pretty swift.

Needs to more sets of wading shoes for that!

Afternoon, Dave, Mike and myself took off in the rain to revisit the same morning spot. We had actually left Duane's net on the bank. Trying to save face and not hearing for the rest of our life we had lost Duane's favorite net we thought it would be a good thing to get it. We ran out of rain but could look back to the lodge and seen it pouring. Back at the braid we fished more. I caught a greyling and a couple small rainbows. We had another Bear spotting that afternoon. A big one. Couldn't get the picture before the bear went straight up a bluff bank in just a couple strides. We motored to the bank to see if we could see it. Mike screaming all the way saying no,no,no that Bear could get us. As we got to the bank and looked up that bear was standing brodside looking down on us and just disappeared in the bush. Big I'm telling you. All along the banks and everywhere you looked there were Irises. I looked it up and yes Alaska has a native iris. Pat and I took four starts back with us. Planted one here and sent the other three with my sister that has a commercial iris garden. Surely she can keep them alive and get a bunch growing. Boat riding back to the lodge Mike was napping. That guy can snooze anywhere, VID_20250714_165459493.mp4 Made it back to the lodge and another guide flew out with a client, VID_20250714_131919053.mp4

Monday the 14th AM, Time for exploring Dave, Mike, Pat and myself headed downriver looking again for potential pike. Got out of the boat following braid sloughs and backwater. Again seen two tiny ones. No follows, no hookups. Then we went to braid that looked interesting. As we got closer I seen a fish jump. We beached the boat and grabbed five weights and drys and hoppers. We all spread out on the upper end of the braid. I caught a decent rainbow, Pat and Mike caught some greying,

Kinda my thinking to Ronnie. Reading more on test running they did get 20 mph on it. That would be kinda sketchy on something like that. Maybe liability cut that speed down.

Rush hour on the Kvichak, VID_20250724_131139.mp4

Sunday meal. Salmon how many ways? Brother Dave got with it. Duane smoked salmon on the grill. Dave made salmon dip with some of Duane's grilled fish, he also made cervechi and salmon rolls. Salmon rolls had either raw or cooked salmon. Note this was prepared with previous frozen raw salmon. Salmon like other freshwater fish have parasites. Do not eat raw. Even though some ocean fish can be eaten raw salmon should not. All good but will be hard to really like the ceviche to me. It might grow on me. That evening Pat, Dave and I were flossing salmon again at the closest place trying to fill our limit.

I do and have been looking at recipes. Duane has been doing some after we all left. Of course he has been sending pictures. We will be doing some.

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Sunday morning day 6, Up early again and heading towards the town beach and more salmon. The three amigos in one boat with Pat and I followed in another boat. Sunrise over lake Illiamna on the way to the beach, We spread out and went to fishing. We stayed a little longer than the day before. We started seeing other lodges float planes in the air coming in. Then boats of guides and clients coming up river. One boat came bye looking for places to fish. They pulled into shore above us. Duane being Duane put down his rod and went up to them. Then they begin to push back out. I know what you all are thinking but it's not that way. Duane told them there is plenty of room. We will tighten up and everyone can fish. So that boat went down and bleached. Spread out just below us. This was the area they had fished before. Right away fish were being caught. We caught more and called it a morning. Back to clean and process salmon. The sockeye are stacking up! VID_20250713_122943174.mp4 Some stickleback hanging at the back of one of the boats. For a second there is a sculpin in the bottom of the video. VID_20250713_103716812.mp4 Something else to tell you. No on got a picture of this but we were sitting in the lodge looking out the window. A duck kept flying out front and landing somewhere right by the boats. Leaving and coming back every few seconds. We thought maybe she had some young somewhere. Finally Duane went out to watch. This duck even landed on the gas grill on the deck right out the window. I got a good look and it was a hen GoldenEye. Duane said there was a bunch of dead stickleback down there. She was getting those. This next thing relates to that. I was texting Ham one morning. We were chatting so much better I just called him and rested the fingers. We discussed the stickleback. He said there is a parasite that those fish get. When getting afflicted more the fish become sick and swim to the top and eventually die. The birds eat them and as the parasite evolves that bird is the next host. They become effected and pass it back into the water for the stickleback to pick it up again and repeat the process.

Yes and the think is this place is a bargain. I can't stress enough how fun this was and will be for anyone that wants to take advantage of the best price around. I say to anyone to take the dream trip and do it if you can.