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DocSpotty
08-04-2008, 10:51 PM
Haven’t been fishing much this season…..combination of less than ideal weather here in Alaska and being out of town on vacation. Can’t remember when was I only able to fish 2 days the entire month of July. My lack of July fishing actually started in June when I went with my wife and two daughters to a national and world cup dance competition held in Richmond, British Columbia….just outside of Vancouver. There is nothing (except maybe a total psychotic break) quite like spending 6 days in a “guiet” resort with 1,300 girls between 5 and 18…okay there were probably a couple hundred boys thrown in there also just to cause trouble. My wife developed a “convenient” illness that kept her in the bed for three of these days while I attended dance competitions from 9 am until 10 pm almost every day….I did have the privilege of being named team mascot by all the girls from my daughters’ teams. It was actually fun….my 18 yr old took a 2nd in the national competition (there were horribly out choreographed by teams from big cities…) but surprisingly my 12 year olds’ team took a 2nd in national and won a gold medal for 1st in the world cup competition (there were 14 other countries represented…..it took me a while to convince the younger team that the girls staying in the room across from them from Turkey, were not “Turkeys” but “Turkish”…….ah, to be young again). So I was a proud papa.

From there we went straight to family vacation in Montana where the wind howled for about 8 of our 10 days…..lousy summer there too. Consequently I stayed with the family all but one day to help “entertain” them….yeah. But for my 53rd birthday on July 13th I went fishing all day on the upper Missouri River. It was a nice day on the water, highest it has been in years. And due to my shoulder rehab from December surgery I was limiting my fly fishing and so took the spinning rod and rapalas, etc.. I stopped fishing about 3pm when I hit 50. I was by myself so pictures were limited and took them only of brown trout…..I don’t know why….just because……and a little scenery.

Starting fishing up in a little side water above below Holter Dam which has been dry for several years before now….it is very calm and the brownies love it back there. I was greeted by the ever present white pelicans:

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/Missouripelican-1.jpg

I could see several nice fish in the water and promptly caught my first:

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/brown3.jpg

This was quickly followed by another:

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/brown2-1.jpg

And had been taking great care to move as little as possible to not spook the fish when I heard a noise behind me and spotted this doe obliviously feeding behind me:

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/deer.jpg

There were two or three rainbows caught….then another brown:

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/brown.jpg

As I worked down the side stream to the main Missouri….two deer quietly walked across in front of me:

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/deercrossing.jpg

When I got to where the deer had been there was a small herd of rainbows holding there. About 11 am I decided to go try another backwater which I knew would be very fishable due to the high water. This required a drive back down through the booming metropolis of Craig and up a dirt road to this beautiful parking spot:

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/backwaterpark.jpg

Even though it was the middle of 90 degree day the water was very cool and the fishing was just short of phenomenol. This backwater produced a couple of dozen great brown trout from 14 to 22 inches. Here are a few…. “exciting” water shots (only had one hand):

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/waterbrown-1.jpg

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/waterbrown2.jpg

My final good brown was a beautiful buck:

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/sum08brown.jpg

Decided soon after I was sunburned enough and headed back home…...to a summer where it had been raining for the previous 2 weeks in Anchorage.

July continued on its rainy theme and I had to cancel a few fishing trips due to small streams with chocolate colored water. Finally I was able to keep a guiding date on the Kenai River on the 25th of July fishing for king salmon. I am including this report just to asure you guys that fishing is not always fabulous here in Alaska. If you had to pick a single week to hit the largest number of king and sockeye salmon in the lower Kenai it would always be the 3rd week of July. Well the runs were weak this year and after spending nearly 12 hours backtrolling on the river with a 4 or 5 hundred off our closet buddies with their closest buddies we had only a single fish to show for it….a big pink salmon I caught right before lunch...so we at least had fresh salmon for a shore lunch. The entire day we saw maybe 20+ king salmon caught for probably 3 or 4 hundred boats working the lower river…it is a zoo of unbelievable proportions and reminds me why I only fish the Kenai River for kings once every 3 or 4 years. I kid you not when during the peak of high tide there were at least one hundred boats in the one hole we worked many within a yard or two of each other all the time…you could virtually hop across the river on boats without getting wet. Anyway here is the picture of the lone pink
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/FreshPinkKenai.jpg

Was finally able to get up north of Anchorage fishing on the Willow River yesterday….the kings have been laying eggs and the rainbows are on the “bead” bite with a vengeance…it was a very nice day although my first time flyfishing in 5 weeks has me pretty sore today. We put in at an upper bridge:

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/willowstart.jpg

Not long before we were into rainbows:

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/bow.jpg


http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/raftfish.jpg

This picture of my friend Corby is just downright scary:

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/corbybow-1.jpg

It was pretty much bendo most of the day for us:

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/bentrod.jpg

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/corbyfight.jpg

Not sure how many fish we caught but it was more than a few:

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/waterrel2.jpg

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/shorebow.jpg

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/firstbow.jpg

When fishing this time of year you have to target immediately below where there are kings actually laying eggs…there were a lot of kings in the water and as we drifted through a deep whole I hooked up on this critter with my 5 wt:

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/redsubmarine.jpg

It took about 15 minutes or so to work him into shallow water…where he was much larger than I thought:

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/kingrod.jpg

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/coloredking.jpg

We finally took a break for a great shore lunch of Copper River king in one of the better holes where we caught a couple dozen trout before moving on:

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/bowwaterrel.jpg

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/mikebow-1.jpg

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/fatsobow.jpg

Here’s one pretending to be a mount:

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/posingtrout.jpg

Then a couple more nice ones before we pulled the raft out of the water:

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/lunchbow-4.jpg

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/bowrod.jpg

All around a great day…there should be many more as the trout fishing is just heating up.

Brian

cjschock
08-04-2008, 11:00 PM
that is truly beautiful, must have been fun

Troutman65
08-05-2008, 07:49 AM
Another outstanding report !!!

Maybe Team 57 can have an event your way some Summer?:Big Grin:

steve092
08-05-2008, 01:49 PM
Awesome report!

That king did look smaller compared to the rod, but when you held it it looks huge!

one_leg
08-05-2008, 02:52 PM
There is nothing (except maybe a total psychotic break) quite like spending 6 days in a “guiet” resort with 1,300 girls between 5 and 18…okay there were probably a couple hundred boys thrown in there also just to cause trouble..

Brian

So the female to male ratio is something like 6.5 girls for every boy?
I thought it was the other way around. I thought there were way too few women up there.

Oh well, great report and pics. Thanks for the effort, and Happy Belated Birthday to you Brian.

O_L

Robert trout hunter
08-05-2008, 06:17 PM
Wow great report im extremely jelous

slief
08-11-2008, 07:22 PM
Wow. Now that is a great report! Photos are nothing short of spectacular! Thanks for taking the time to post. Looks like you are living the trip of a lifetime!

G Spot Tuna
08-13-2008, 02:41 PM
Great pictures. It was a pleasure meeting you on Randa's ride. Giant tuna next month in PV. I'll update you with some pictures of me "herding the cows."

Tight lines, Doc

DocSpotty
08-13-2008, 10:33 PM
G Spot buddy.....hey nice to hear from you. Didn't mention that the company was great on the fruitless Kenai king fishing trip. Met a couple of great guys from down there in the lower 48......G Spot and his buddy.

Let me know how the tuna fishing goes.....I wanna go.

Brian

Wingnut
08-14-2008, 12:07 PM
Man Doc, you are one lucky man! Awesome stuff, thanks for sharing. :Big Grin:

troutdog
08-14-2008, 11:14 PM
Reading your reports always makes me feel like I just took a vacation:LOL: Thanks for the awesome report and pics Doc.


TD

Ronira
08-15-2008, 06:54 AM
Now that's what rainbows are supposed to look like, just beautifull photos. Thanks for the great report.

sky
08-17-2008, 07:25 AM
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j32/DocEsox/coloredking.jpg

What kind of fish is this?

sky

DocSpotty
08-18-2008, 10:22 PM
Sky....it's a king (chinook) salmon in full spawning colors....never targeted while fishing this particular river but a big incidental catch sometimes.

Brian

CoffeaRobusta
08-18-2008, 10:50 PM
All I can say is wow! Thanks for sharing. great report.