A Disptach from Alaska

What follows is a terrific bit of writing from Mark Koide, the hero of my Ruby Springs post last year. Let's book the next trip! 

by Mark Koide

Since Greg appears to have taken a hiatus, I wanted to share a fish story, one that all dads and sons who fish together will appreciate.  The backstory is that a long time ago I had a co worker who was a hardcore flyfisherman.  He let it influence his choice of college and even where he lives - on the tailwaters in Westport CT.  The consequence of this was his son, now entering his senior year, took his avocation to a much higher level.  He attends Colorado College, a short drive to the South Platte Dream Stream, majors in marine biology and spends his summers making a buck teaching flyfishing and this summer guiding in Alaska.  I remember Max as a 10 year old catching browns to 20 inches and largemouths to 5 lbs in his backyard.

His father Ted and I parted professional ways almost 20 years ago, but have been able to maintain a semiannual fishing schedule.  This usually involves hooky from work and family since we both now have multiple teen to early 20ish kids and wives who are working and working at home.  Our fishing trips have been, therefore, of the "next wednesday might work, you in?".  Location and fishing conditions are secondary to the demands of our work and family schedules.  So we have done the best that we could in this part of the country (I live in Northern NJ) on very short windows of opportunity --  Farmington, Housatonic, Upper Delaware, and of course stripers and blues up and down the coast. 

Last year there was  a distinct shift in schedule.   Both Ted and I have reached the place where we have a bit of flexibility at work and the kids are in college with its narrow required windows and high school events where we are often decidedly not required.   So when the email or text comes across, they are now more like  “can you meet me in Bozeman, MT in 4 weeks for three days”.  Got that one from Greg last year and he chronicled our adventure here.  

Greg’s text was followed last fall by “Max and his friends’ are ok with us joining them on the South Platte in late October.”  There was the undertone of serious fishermen were inviting a dad and a friend who had better be competent in the invitation.   While I am no match for Ted and Ted is now well shy of Max and his friends abilities, we held up our end and had a remarkable experience.   One that at some point should be written up because it involved a small pool that turned up browns to 26” and rainbows to 20” on an hourly basis.  But that isn’t this story. 

This story starts with the recognition on the South Platte that Max and his friends at Colorado College have transcended from competent to gifted  with the best of all complementary traits patience.  So when the text came in May “Max is guiding in Alaska on Lake Creek for the summer”,  I immediately texted back two letters “IN”.  This was in itself remarkable because for almost 15 years, I have been stuck at 49 as the number of states that I have travelled through.   Too many years on the road for work and a childhood spent driving to visit our relatives on the West Coast and Southwest  had left me one state short.    Only the prior week, I had convinced my family that we should lock down our vacation plans to go off the grid in late August with a once in a lifetime trip to Alaska’s Denali and Kenai Fjord National Parks.   Now in my 53^rd year, I would be hitting the state twice.

PHOTO: A preview of what's to come.

To make the trip even more attractive, Ted and I were on a family rate at the lodge which meant a significant discount filling a vacant cabin.  Ted and I were to rendezvous in Anchorage on a Sunday night and fly out ion Rust’s charter plane service n the morning.  Both of us were on airline points and food at the Mountain Wilderness Lodge was all included.  Max would be our guide. 

Travel warning:  Getting to Anchorage from the East Coast on American Airlines points is a alarmingly risky proposition.   Six hours late with additional stops in Denver and Seattle (my original route was EWR to DFW to Anchorage) and a change to Alaska Air for the last leg, I made it to our room.  There I learned that Ted had only just arrived beating me by 2 hours despite having a six hour start on me.  For those quick at math it means he was 10 hours late.  It was now 3am in Anchorage and we had 5 hours to sleep before we needed to catch the bus to Rust’s.

A final thought before I continue,  my experience in flyfishing like many of you has taught me that this is the kind of fishing that has nothing to do with luck.  Drift fishing dead bunker through Woods Hole, casting into the rips off the Vineyard and even chasing funny fish with the long wand are influenced by luck.  In my experience with salmonids and flies, the skill of the angler is directly correlated with the frequency and size of the fish he/she catches.   It has to do with  strategy, presentation, accuracy, and the fight.  As I have encountered new species and aqua environments, experience is also required to land trophies even if you have been fortunate and skilled enough to hook up.  On the South Platte, we had established an order for frequency and size.  Max would lead on frequency and size followed by Ted and then me.  

After an early morning stop to pick up Max treats and toiletries from civilization we were headed up to Lake Creek which is named because it is the tailwaters of a lake that drains from just south of Denali a hundred miles north of Anchorage and feeds the massive silt filled Susitna river.  Salmon migrate up the Susitna to the clear waters to mate.  They come in in waves during the summer.  The Kings followed by the pinks and chums, cohoes and finally the sockeye.   There are a handful of these camps on Lake Creek dozens of miles off of the one highway leading north appropriately named the Denali Highway. 

On the East Coast, we have numerous of boat manufacturers Boston Whaler, Robalo, Regulator, Edgewater, etc.  In Alaska, the equivalent are planes.  There are thousands of them flying every which direction some with pontoons for rivers and lake and others with skis for glaciers and maybe winter flights.  Rust’s charters is one of the bigger outfits. 

Waiting for us on the banks of the Susitna late Monday morning was Max with full beard looking every bit like the Alaska bush fishing guide that he was.  A short skiff ride to the lodge up Lake Creek, lunch, a two mile walk up river and Max had us on Lake Creek over s stream of Kings migrating up river.  

At some point between declaring myself “in” and the trip, Ted threw me a curve.  I would have to learn spey casting.   Spey casting is a three step cast which enables one to cover 40 yards with a 14+ foot long rod.  It is effectively a complex roll cast.  We also agreed to bring our 6 weight trout rods just in case the salmon weren’t on and we ended up chasing rainbows.  Unfortunaely , watching speycasting on youtube without a spey rod with very limited time left us relatively unitiated when we arrived.    We also found out when we arrived that the 6 weights were entirely unnecessary since the river and rainbows were large 16” average and we caught up to “22 in big water.  The lodge had 10 weights as standard and we were the only two who were going to be fly casting as well as spin casting.  The other lodgers were spin casting.  

The leading fish in the lodge this season had topped off at 35 pounds.  On Monday afternoon that was hard to believe we were both initiated with kings in the 8-12 lb range missing two for every one we brought to net.  We also embarrassed ourselves with spey casting.  I more than Ted.   We came off the river at 5pm which given the latitude was about the same light as noon.  We returned to a gourmet dinner where we were informed that lodge rules prevented us from going back out unescorted.  Ted and I are cut the same way.  As long as we are awake, we fish.  This is a function of the narrow windows we typically have to fish.  Max the same.  However, we understood that an unescorted guest with a nice king salmon might be easy pickings for the bears that are also fishing the same migratory runs.  We participated in the social gathering which unveiled a father son from the bay area, a couple of guys from Atlanta on a buddy fishing trip, a couple from Anchorage fishing for winter meat, a Washington DC disabled vet and a family from Australia who were visiting the lower 48 and decided to come to the camp because they were in the neighborhood.

On Tuesday, we were committed to being the first up and out.  This would guarantee us the pick of the holes.  This meant 5am with an hour to get in position before the regulated 6am fishing start time.  What we later found out was that the father son from the Bay Area actually had their guide incented to put them on trophies.   At 4:55am, we found ourselves in a fully geared 2 mile footrace to the boats to get up the river.  The other guide was in his third and final summer as a guide and was hellbent on maxing out his bonus.  We lost the race on Tuesday and Wednesday and as our story unfolds intentionally lost on Thursday.

Tuesday was spent on a big water stretch of the river in a wide open expanse that our weak speycasting attempts couldn’t hurt.  We alternated with spin casting and caught a few 10-15 pounders with occasional breaks when it slowed to take the 10 weights and target rainbows which cooperated.  I don’t think of the dozens we caught that any were under a foot.  Ted landed a 20”+ rainbow right among the kings.  Ted as expected was hooking up with greater frequency and better landing results.  As the afternoon waned, I had a big bump.  On the other end was a big king. After a 20 minute fight and a fifty yard chase downstream we had him to net.  The king laid out at close to 45” and it ‘s estimated cube was 43#.  It was the fish of the king run for the lodge.  It was also a good foot and a bit longer than the others caught that day. 
     
The next morning we rose for our second and last full day fishing.  We would depart at noon on Thursday from the lodge.  The other father son and guide combo had moved up their start time and were 15 minutes ahead of us.  Max was interested in putting us on different parts of the river.  He had found us worthy of moving up from the beginner slopes.  Ted and I had spent part of the previous evening trying to master the spey cast and equipment.  Ted was able to shoot it, but I was in the lift and drop mode.  After an early morning well up river we moved down near the boat launch where encountered a guide trolling with metal!!  Yes trolling with metal on a modest run. I was standing within 10 yards of where he was trolling.  Trolling on this river was a lot like we do on the Vineyard rips when we are lazy   We just hold our place.  The only difference was that if any boat went over our lines in MA.  Well let’s just say no one would get to commit this violation twice. The good news was that we out fished him and his client got to watch us out fish him.    At this spot, we were also being watched by up to seven bald eagles including a couple of immature ones at a time.  While the day was good, Ted had not landed a trophy. Although by now he was more than capable with the spey. 

Max and I were  well aware when we put in for dinner that Ted had not landed a fish of note.  So he appealed to the director and was granted permission to take us back out after dinner.   Our hope was to get Max a fish as well as Ted another crack at one.  I knew that the stats said my fish had already come in.  I asked Max to outfit me with a ten weight and I would go after the rainbow.  We trekked up as rapidly as when we were racing since we had to get up early the next day we didn’t want to be late on the river this evening.  Max selected a spot where there was big water and  a run coming in that looked very trouty.  Where the stream met the river was really fast and a holding pool had formed at the entry.  We landed our boat about 50 yards up the stream a bit and spotted a couple of small kings.  Max sent me to the lower pool while he positioned his father on top of the kings. 

While well equipped for trout, I started casting and stripping in a outsized wooly bugger type pattern.  I was under trees with some submerged and had light that was beginning to fade, but something was not looking trouty about the pool.   Meanwhile fifty yards up, Max was now on the job fulltime with Ted.  They were sight casting to a couple of salmon in the same range that we had been catching. 

The pool was tricky as hell.   If a fish was caught from Ted’s position it had only to run down into the pool I was on and break off on trees that Ted couldn’t see from his position.  If that wasn’t enough,  another 20 yards and the king would now be in big water and run straight downstream.  The pool also had a current forming an eddy and the spey rod was an overly blunt instrument.   Behind us or rather at our feet was a sandbar that we were using for stability. 

The sun was now slipping even for Alaska in July , but from my position the pool didn’t look trouty it look red.  Lots of red blotches in the water.  I called Max down and he confirmed we were looking at upwards of 40 kings holding in the pool.  The couple that Ted was casting to were actually stragglers from the school that was taking a breather from the main river in this pool.  Unfortunately, we were out of time for the night with a good hour plus boat ride and trek back to the lodge.   The whole time we plotted how to approach this honey hole in the morning.   The challenge was that it was a trout stream holding salmon.  The 10 weight could do little against a large salmon while the spey would be unwieldy being almost a third of the width of the pool.

In the morning, we let the other team beat us out of the cabins and stake their claim on the river.  We dropped into our location with a spey and a 10 weight.  At six AM, we had our lines in the water.   We had until 9am when we would have to depart back to the lodge, check out and catch our flight back to Anchorage.  I’d love to write that we killed it.  However, the morning was frustrating.  We took a couple of small salmon from the pool.  The favored position was above the pool dropping our flies into the pool and then letting them swing across.  Max was with Ted in this position.  Max had me standing down the bar on the pool ready to block any hooked fish who tried to exit into the main river. 

Ted switched to the 10# which proved to be better at getting strikes but tougher to land.  The rod was simply not up for fighting 10-20 lb kings. Five salmon in a row succumbed to his presentations only to break off through a variety of moves, runs or operator errors.  They would make a long run and be gone. They would make short runs changing the pressure on the fly or shake their heads with the same result.  If Ted backed up out of rhythm the line tension might ease and the fish was gone.  Ted had to be almost perfect in his footwork, the angle of the rod tip and the pressure that he exerted. Ted frustrated and Max now equally frustrated.  After all, he had put his father on a series of fish only to have a poor result.  This happened five times.  The tension was palpable.

By now, however, we had scripted out Ted’s movements to back up onto the bar with an upstream angle on the fly and have Max net from below the fish. Ted would effectively drop the fish into the net.    By the third fish I was a spectator/cheerleader with my Iphone at the ready in case we got a fish.  Unfortunately, I partially filmed another two misses.  Finally, Max announced that we had five minutes to go before we had to depart.

One more fish took Ted’s presentation on the sweep.   The fish bulldogged to the bottom of the pool.  Ted was making absolutely no ground.  It looked like the fish didn’t even know it was hooked, it sat and sat.  The 10# might as well have been a chopstick.  The minutes passed. Ted held the line tight with an upstream angle on the fly.   Finally, the fish moved and then dropped again to the bottom and sat.  This repeated a couple of times with Ted slowly backing up as rehearsed during the previous losing battles.  Max slipped below the fish.  A couple of short runs later and Ted had made it to our targeted position with Max ready.  Ted stepped forward the fish dropped into the net as planned. Because of the way it fought, we never got a clear view of it other than it was big. 

The fish length was “55 and girth in the mid “20s.  The estimated weight was 55#.  It was a good head longer than my fish from two days earlier, the biggest of the king season and set the lodge record on fly.    Max and Ted will catch lots of other fish.  But this was the first when the father son relation was complete with Max guiding his father through his trophy salmon.   Just like Ted had once for his son on the tailwaters of a reservoir in Connecticut.