Fishing the Alaguchik

This posting is for all my friends who like to fish or who like hearing me talk about fishing. I managed to put my school work down for a few hours on Sunday and go for a little hiking and fly fishing adventure. I loaded all my fishing gear up in my big pack and started hiking out towards the airport, about 1 1/2 miles from my house. Then I turned onto a fourwheeler trail over the Tundra, which are everywhere. Following this trail/road down to the river I just started hiking up the river to a place where it looked the fishing might start getting good. I changed into my waders and rigged my 7 wt. rod up and felt my heart start beating a little harder. It had been about 3 or 4 weeks since I had been fishing and I was ready.

Hiking up the river, I saw a couple of Silver Salmon hanging out next the bank or just above a rapids. I made a cast to them and they emediately darted away. They are really hard to sneak up on. I had heard that there were Dolly Varden in the river as well and that they were sucking up Salmon eggs like a hoover vacuum, but all I saw was tiny, tiny fish attacking my egg pattern. I kept hiking up and casting in holes that looked like they might hold a fish. Again, Salmon that either saw me and bolted or stubborn Salmon that would watch my egg float right by them and not budge. Really frustrating!

After about an hour and a half, I got to a bend in the river that was deep right against the bank and a nice tail out from the rapids above. I made a couple of casts and felt a little bump. I set and much to my surprise, I hooked a 17 - 18 inch Dolly. Thinking that I had stumbled onto the a rogue fish, I moved up and kept casting. Within the next 10 casts, I had hooked two more fish of the same size. Woo-hoo! This was fun. I wished I had my net, because a couple of fish shook my hook before I could get them to my hand. My 12 lb test was going to hold them no problem. All in all, 6 Dolly's and two came home with me for dinner. Pretty tasty. I even tried to cook the roe, although, I wasn't too fond of that.

I'm discovering a more comfortable life up here. Once my bike gets up here, I think I'll be set. I wouldn't mind some visitors eventually as well. Better make it quick, winter is coming. Brr!