Ak Trip Report

[Phil Lilley]

Sitting here in Minneapolis waiting on my next flight to KC. I purchased an annual pass to the internet here but it won’t let me go online so I’m typing in my Alaska report on Word and will post it when I get home tonight. I have to use my time wisely… we are leaving for Port Arthur, TX tomorrow morning for Sara and Josh’s new home (our daughter and son-in-law), taking the rest of their stuff to them, plus their dog and cat. So no time to waste!

This was my first trip to Alaska in 5 years that I didn’t guide or work on cabins- just fished. It was nice and tiring at the same time. Fishing is hard work… especially when the fish are soooo big. The weather was too nice! In the 70’s the first week and some of the second with little clouds and lots of sun. I found about 7-9 pm each day I found myself thinking, “when is it going to darken” I mean it’s still bright at 10 pm! That got to me a little. Too much sun? We did get sun burned and the mosquitoes were bad. I’m coming home with more bite mark than ever. But the last 4 days were cloudy and cooler and it even rained yesterday.

The last 2 years on the Naknek the sockeye run has been huge. Last year they let 3.3 million reds “escape” into the river. They do this by closing commercial fishing for periods of time. They didn’t this year, only letting 1.1 million through, which is really about the amount they want to move up to spawn. But they run ended a week early for whatever reason. May have been the weather. River temps reached 68 degrees which is extremely rare. It usually runs in the low 50’s. They are blaming the poor King run on the water temps too. Friday, they reported a new wave of kings moving into Naknek but fishing in the river and up Big Creek remained very slow. It may get better. Other parts of AK reported very poor king numbers. I’ve heard Kodiak has virtually no kings. The Nush, which is known for it’s king run, was extremely slow. Duane and Mona flew over to Bristol Bay Adventure Lodge on the Nush so that Duane could guide all last week. I heard he reported only catching 1-4 kings per day.

Our sockeye fishing the week of the 4th was excellent in the afternoons. Vince, Paul and I didn’t have any trouble catching our limit of 5 each. Reds ran from 5 to 10 pounds and fought very hard. We caught them moving thru fast, shallow runs using shooting line and purple, olive or black wooly buggers. We’d catch a few small rainbows in the same runs. The second week we had trouble catching even half a limit. We resorted to fishing the holding pods of salmon in eddies upriver, dropping the same flies down to them from our anchored boat. Friday, along with a fresh waves of kings, we did get more sockeye and the guys at the lodge caught their limits to take home Saturday.

Rainbow fishing was pretty good, although we didn’t spend a whole lot of time targeting them. We picked a few mornings to hit the shoals, drifting leach patterns through the bigger rocks and pockets. We landed a few in the 25 inch range but the best rainbow fishing was up close to camp on 2 breaks, one just down from camp and the other up by the access. Rainbows would “crash” on the surface, feeding on smolt migrating out of the lake, through the river to the ocean. We also had a good population of rainbows in front of our dock where we’d throw our salmon carcasses after cleaning. But we would fish small dries in the evening and do well in front of the dock. Several 25-27 inch rainbows were landed by clients.

We boated over to Idavain Creek the first week and walked up to the meadow water looking for grayling and rainbows. The creek was low, very low, and the fish were hiding under the outside cut banks and wouldn’t come out even to look at our flies. We did find a few out in the open and caught a few buy it was disappointing. Only one bear encounter.

My guys our second week were alittle more adventuresome… we boated to Brooks and fished the upper river above the falls on Wednesday last week. Only one bear and he didn’t even see us. The river was very low and much of it didn’t hold fish. We picked up a few on elk hair caddis and stimulators along with swinging black wooly buggers in pockets. The last little stretch before the falls did hold a bunch of large rainbows- Scott hooked several but couldn’t land them. I got ahead of the guys and sat down at the trailhead leading to the viewing platform. We refer to this short trek at “bearastic park” because the grass is over your head and there are bear beds all through the area, just next to the falls where we counted 13 adult males. It’s pretty nerve racking for newbes. I sat with my back to the grass, enjoying the river when I smelled something, then heard deep breathing. The smell was bear-breath and the breathing was from a big male that was 6 feet behind me in the grass, stopped to pier out over the river before heading in for a drink. Of course, he let me move before dropping over the bank or he’d be right on top of me. Never smelled the breath of a bear before… smelled like fish. (2 pics)

Thursday we boated to Margot Creek, one of my favorite places. It sits at the base of a beautiful mountain with lush, green trees and plants of all kinds around the creek itself. It too was very low but because Naknek Lake was so low, the gravel bars that usually are out in the lake were exposed which extended the river out into the lake by more than 150 yards. That’s what we fished. It was full of dolly varden and rainbows and they readily took the guy’s wooly buggers. I resorted to dry flies… I fished and caught more fish this trip than any other trip in my life on dry flies. We caught dozens of dollies and less rainbows- largest rainbow was 25 inches and alittle bigger on the dollies. But they were skinny due to it being so early in the season. They’ll fatten up when the salmon start laying eggs. The bears gave us a time- there was one small 3 year old who really wanted to be our friend. He had sad eyes and would walk up to us till we’d knock rocks together and scare him off. I thought he was awfully small to be out on his own. Then there was the bear that got downwind of 3 of our clients fishing in the lake for sockeye- they and their guide, Matt, were keeping fish and had 3 in a net. The bear REALLY wanted those fish but the clients wouldn’t give them up, even after Matt told them to throw them in the lake. Matt finally convinced the bear to leave them along by throwing rocks at him. I personally don’t like to throw rock and hit a bear… never know how he will react. But it worked. I got it on video… along with other bears that walked up on us.

Friday, Scott and his dad Roger and I flew to Ugashik Narrows, 65 miles south of King Salmon. This is another favorite place for me. It’s a short area between 2 big lakes and hold lots of fish most times on the summer. I, again, stayed with dry flies. It’s not deep at all, knee deep for the most part, and move fairly slowly in a large flat area. That’s where I did the best, catching 20 artic char and 8 grayling. Char ran from 20 to 28 inches and graylings were from 18 to 24 inches. The char were skinny too but not as thin as Margot dollies. One male char ran me in my backing twice- they fight hard! The other guys fished some in the shallow area but liked the upper narrow where the water was deeper and faster. They used shooting lines and buggers and caught sockeye, char, one silver salmon and lake trout. It was a wonderful day- had it all to ourselves!!

That’s about it. I may add some more if you have questions… things I missed. They were seeing a few silvers in the lower river on Friday so here in another week they’ll have silver to catch at camp.

I will throw this out… Jim’s camp is open starting the week of September 19th – this could be an incredible rainbow week, depending on when the sockeye end their spawning run. The river is low, unlike the last 2 years when it has ran high. High water makes it difficult to wade the shoals where the salmon spawn but low water means you can wade and fish them affectively. Jim told me he’d like to book the week and he wants to offer discounts but I’m not sure what it will be yet. I’d suggest waiting closer to the week and see what happens in the run. If you’re flexible, this could be an excellent chance to get in on some of the world’s best rainbow fishing at a great rate.

No- I won’t be going back up in September… I have a grandson, my first, due to arrive in September so I’m not going anywhere except to Texas!

These images are from Brooks River and Falls.

This is the bear that breathed on me... you can see the tuff of grass I was sitting on in the pics of the bear drinking.

13 bears on the falls.

This is at the top of Brooks River overlooking Brooks Lake. Great view.

These images are from Margot Creek.

The following pics are from the Naknek River

In front of camp.

Small jack salmon.

This is upper Shawback's shoal. I took it to show Bill how shallow the river is right now.

These are the new cabins and shower/bath house being built next to Jim's place and used by the camp. Very nice. Flushable toilets and showers.

New dining hall floor set in by Duane really improves the look of the place.

The following pics are from the Ugashik Narrows:

Images put together for a big view of the whole narrows.

[Danoinark]

One word....Amazing

Dano

[Clay Goforth]

Great Shots Phil! I am sitting here reading Ozark Anglers and looking out the window at the Togiak River over here on the southwestern corner of Alaska just off Bristol Bay. Today was our first day of fishing. This morning was incredible for kings with us (Jeff and myself) tagging out on a 25lb, a 26lb, a 30lb and 31lb kings. Since we tagged out we moved to fishing for Chum with a flyrod which was some of the most fun flyfishing I have ever done. There are estimated to be close to 200,000 chum in the river at this point and there is a spot, literally directly across from the lodge, where they are stacked. I have some photos but don't have them loaded into the computer yet. Alaskan fishing is HOT right now!!!!

[denjac]

Another great adventure Phil!

[Rolan Duffield]

Great pictures. Many thanks for sharing your experiences with us. I envy you.

Rolan

[fly2fish]

Great pics and fish, but just one question Do you really need a fly box as big as that guy in the background.

F2F

[Phil Lilley]

Actually, he was taking salmon carcasses out in the river to dump. That's why the rainbow fishing was so good in front of the dock. Throw a handful of salmon roe out and you wouldn't believe the size rainbows that'd fight for them! But catching the big ones wasn't easy. The smaller ones- yes they'd bite anything.