Summers in Alaska are magic. Why else would anyone endure nine months of dark and cold in the great white north if not for the near limitless potential for adventure and recreation come summer time. Nothing seems to come easy here though.

Incredible as the summers are, they go by far too quickly and this year has been no exception. It seems like yesterday the last of the snow was melting, water levels started to climb, and the first real fishing opportunities were being realized. Now, the dark is starting to creep back in, the temperatures are cooling, and just today I have seen the first few leaves drop signaling the leading edge of fall.

Rewind the clock a week and change. Staring down the barrel of an increasingly busy work schedule and with summers finish line growing closer by the day I was feeling the need for little time in the deeper in the woods and a something a little more adventurous. At more or less the drop of a hat I grabbed the wife, rolled up the raft and left obligations in the rearview mirror to spend a week on a little wilderness crik not too far from home.

I couldn't conjure up much in the way of grand stories to tell. For the most part it was business as usual. Super scenic setting, highly engaging rowing, excellent fishing, spotty weather and good company. I will try and insert a few anecdotes and mini-stories amidst batches of photos and it might take a day or three to put it all together. With marginal weather for most of the trip I didn't pull the big camera out much so you'll have to make do with mostly point and shoot photos.





The plan had been to catch a float plane flight to the lake where this particular trip starts. The weather was pretty iffy on the morning of day one and we wound up turning around about halfway there with clouds being on the deck. Between weighing in twice and the false start we packed and unpacked all of our crap in my rig 6 times. It was getting old by the time we finally reloaded at the airport in a wheel plane and made it to the lake not too long after we had hoped to be there.



Rico would be proud.












The de Havilland Beaver, workhorse of Alaska.












Beaver triple 7 Tango on the slide
















Take two. After a failed first attempt to get in, we regrouped at the airport, unpacked and repacked again, and set off in much better weather later in the day.




























Adios Chris and thanks for the ride.






The lake's outlet and start of the floating, 55 miles through tundra and several canyons would lead us back to the big muddy rivers and hopefully a ride home at the end of the week.




The float starts at a super scenic little lake tucked into the hills at the base of the Alaska Range. On a clear day, Denali, Foraker, and other peaks and glaciers of the range dominate the skyline.






More to follow.

More more more!

+1
More more more . Floated the Kobuk a few moons ago and loved it. 10 day trip.

King

Perfect time for a HQ Coley post, bring it.



c/22

Bring it on Coley.

Liking what I see so far.Bring more.Good luck,


SZ

Sorry for the delay, had to run out and bonk a quick limit of silvers. Tis that time of year.

Back to the trip report.

So, there we were on the banks of a beautiful lake with a huge pile of gear, not a soul in sight, and really only one thing that could be done, crack a beer and line the wife out on blowing up the raft I am kidding...for the most part.






Our welcoming party, small schools of fire engine sockeye were cruising the shoreline. The lake, as do most in the area with fresh water connections to the salt, hosts a healthy run of reds. Fishing for them in the lower creek can be awesome at times but we were at the tail end of both kings and reds with silvers being the next fresh (tasty)fish to show up. We were hoping to run into a pile of bright silvers at some point but didn't know if that would happen or not.


So before I get too far ahead, a big part of the motivation behind this trip was to introduce my wife to backcountry float trips, something that I have spent the majority of my free time doing over the last handful of years but something I have yet to pause and introduce my wife to. In the past, it has always been a couple of good buds, a cooler full of beers, and more or less no worries. This time around I was definitely worried about a few aspects of the trip. Less about how my wife would cope, as she is about as solid as they come, but more about the remote aspect of the trip, the technical nature of the rowing, bears, and what would happen if things went wrong with just me to solve the big problems should they arise. In the end, things went off without a hitch, but I will definitely admit that it was hard to relax out of fear for her safety and comfort at points, let alone work the fishing rods, cameras, and keep the boat going in the right direction. More on that topic later.









There are definitely a few gaps in the photos so you will have to fill in the blanks to some degree. From the strip it is a few miles of frog water through the outlet of the lake before the creek gets rolling along. I have done this float once before, going on 6 years ago now, and the last time around I remember rowing through this section and seeing lots of trout feeding on the surface late in the day. This time around with the water volume being about half what it was 6 years ago, much of the outlet and first mile or two of the creek was shallow, uninteresting, and devoid of life minus sockeye on their way to the lake of which there was plenty.

Soon enough the creek picks up gradient and necks down and starts to become quite a bit more interesting from both a rowing and fishing standpoint. A fair number of kings on their way up were still hanging out in the deeper holes and at times it was hard to keep them off the #2 spinner my wife was tossing for trout.



Lara battles a king in the upper creek. Never pass up good firewood on this float. It is hard to come by.




Pretty typical terrain on the upper part of the creek.


Most of the good fishing is concentrated around the mouths of several substantial tributaries, the first of which is about 8 miles into the float.




I began the trip swinging the Dolly Lama which was magic last time around. White seemed to be the color of choice, but fairly quickly we started running into spawning kings and I switched to beads. Shortly after doing so it seemed as though more fish were interested in my bobber than the bead under it and so there was really only one option, put the mouse on.



Overachiever grayling


Mouse eating rainbow, or, rainbow eating mouse, or, however you want to say it.




A fair amount more to come, gotta pull some fish off the grill first.

always love your photos and stories!

This creek isn't known for large trout. Once upon a time it was and it may well be again now that it is catch and release only, but as was the case with many streams in Alaska's early days the rainbows in and around this system were harvested nearly to extinction. At one point in history there was even a statewide bounty on dollies and rainbows for fear that their fry munching habits would ruin salmon runs.

There are big fish here, but not many and you have to hunt far and wide to find them. Hog Johnson swims here but few get to meet him. Twelve to fourteen inch rainbows abound though. You get tired of catching them actually. If you put in enough time in the right spots you can break the 20-inch mark a handful of times or more on a trip but the larger fish don't come easy. Fortunately, wading through a ton of smaller to medium trout to find them isn't the most boring thing in the world, and you can quite literally catch as many of them in a day as you care to.


Typical rainbows from the upper end of the creek.

My iPhone doesn't do this thread justice.

ColeyG:

Pictures and story telling is well above the norm......great job and thanks for posting.

Love the small head, fat body rainbow shot. Why is your firewood in the raft still growing green?

Love the "overbite" bows! Much better on the work computer.

Great work, nice trip! glad the wife enjoyed the trip.

Awesome... I'd love to do a trip like this one day.

It's all been said. Thank you.

Yes, thank you.

How did you wife enjoy the trip?

Your prose and pic.'s are top shelf ColeyG.....I kept expecting to see that George Clooney look-alike pop out of the bushes in one of your photos

I try to keep Stam as far away from my wife as possible.

Thanks for the kind words guys. I'll try and get the next leg together this evening.

X 100!