I received a call from my friend and fisheries biologist at the Togiak National Wildlife Refuge, Dano the Mano in January. He invited me to come help him with a rod and reel population survey of wild, native rainbows on a remote, restricted access river in far SW Alaska. I told him to to name a date and I'd be there with my waders on
So....on a snowy mid-April morning I kissed my girlfriend and Park City, UT goodby and headed north. I arrived in Dillingham and spent several weeks preparing the gear and setting up the logistics of getting our guys and gear out to the river as soon as the ice cleared out. The rainbows spawn right after ice out and the plan was to find them bunched up spawing, making the fishing easier. Eventually we got a call from a bush pilot that flew over the river and said the ice was gone. We loaded all our gear on a "caravan" and headed to Togiak, a native alaskan village.
From there we hired a float helicopter to carry us to the mouth of the river where we would set up camp. Dano had stashed 2 boats there and the end of the previous summer.
We set up a weatherport to cook and hang out in and all had seperate tents for sleeping. All of this was surrounded by a solar powered bear fence. I've had a lot of experience with brown bears and I'm pretty certain this would not stop a bear, but it would probably make him yelp loud enough for me to raise the shotgun I slept with every night. When the fishing started it was a little tougher than expected. The water was high with spring run off and a bit stained. However, with shear brute stupidity and the desire to catch the fish of a lifetime that I knew was there, I kept casting.....and casting. I fished with my 9 wt fly rod the whole trip with no exceptions, everyone else was using spinning gear. We fished 8 hrs a day, 6 days a week for 5 weeks. The fishing was never fast and furious but when it was all over I had caught my fish of a lifetime, several times over. The following pics are some highlites of the big 'bows and Artic Grayling that I caught. If you are not familiar with Grayling, let me assure you that this is as big as they get.
A word on my ridiculous faces in the pictures......it was a joke at the time to make a stupid face when you caught a nice fish. It's not really funny now.......but bear with me
As you can tell by the duct tape on my fingers, all the casting shredded my hands. So, the theme of the trip was tape and super glue.
The rainbows are all native and are covered with black spots, a trait only found in SW AK.
The next pic is the same fish as above, close up. You can also see the jet foot to the 50hp Honda 4strokes we ran up the river in the background.
I caught this next fish at the end of a long, cold, wet day, dredging a deep pool. I thought I had hung to bottom, then it started shaking it's head.
Another pic of the same fish up close
This fish was a tough one, I was fishing third in the group, walking the boat down river. My partners had both worked this run with spinning gear and picked up one small 'bow. After that, I fished thru with the fly and picked up another small 'bow. I thought I had seen a large rise in the middle of the run and something told me to walk back up and fish it again with a different fly. So I tied on the ugliest fly in my box, a huge white and orange egg-sucking leach (yes, that is the name of the fly). I dredge thru the hole again and on the 4th cast to the same spot where I thought I had seen her, WHAM, hooked up.
If you look close, you can see the tags we were placing in the fish behind their dorsal fin after measuring them and trying to determine the sex.
This is the big boy of the trip, I was so excited I held it wrong for a good pic, but i wasn't thinking straight.
The survery was a great trip I will remember forever and even stands out from some of the other adventures I've had in AK. My feet and toes were numb for some 5 weeks after I got home. Dr said it was from exposure to the 30 degree water in waders for such extended periods. Oh well, it was all worth it. And the man the made it all possible for me, Dano the Mano.
