Aniak River, Alaska— end of July, 2018
Every summer since moving from Alaska 5 years ago, (lived there for nearly 20 years), I go back for 5-8 weeks in the summer to do some dentistry and get a bit of fishing in. It allows my old partner time to go hunting for warm-blooded creatures to stock the freezer for winter. Generally, I get to fish 3 day weekends but my favorite haunt, Quartz Creek, was all messed up with its salmon runs this year and the dolly fishing there was nonexistent. In fact, the entire Kenai Peninsula fishing was all weirded out making fishing extremely unpredictable. Fortunately, my partner came back early from his bighorn sheep trip and decided we could fly out to the Aniak River for a few days of “nobody around” fishing…..this was met with great enthusiasm by yours truly. There are several professional outfits that fish the Aniak as it is considered one of the finest rainbow trout rivers in Alaska and quite isolated….actually most places in Alaska are isolated…
The weather was kind of iffy and we had to fly a few mountain passes west of the shortest route. But the stunning views of glaciers and mother nature made the time pass quickly:
To our surprise after flying for 4+ hours someone was camped where Bob wanted to put us down. So we just flew down the river about 15 minutes and put her down where there were schools of salmon spawning. We parked the plane and then set-up our base camp:
No sooner were we done and I took a spinner out to see what was right in front of us. First fish on were a couple of grayling then a nice rainbow:
About this time Bob had dinner ready so we ate and then set out in earnest to fish the first stretch of water which at the head of the run had almost all king salmon spawning…then there was a no spawner zone then thick herds of actively spawning chum salmon. I started in a little riffle no more than 15 feet from the shore with probably no more than 2 feet of water in depth BUT I could see a pair of king salmon spawning immediately above the riffle. First cast produced this nice bow:
I thought, “Yeah, this is great”……then second cast nailed this beautiful creature:
Well this is pretty good I mused. By the time I had made 10 casts in the same riffle I had caught 5 rainbows, each between 20 and 24 inches. Bucket list stuff, for sure.
After awhile of nothing more I started working down a long stretch where, at the
bottom, I could see Bob just pounding dolly varden one after another. You might notice I change from fly to spinning gear frequently due to a very bad shoulder on my rod holding arm that needs replacing, limiting the amount of time I can chuck the fly rod. I caught a few nice grayling on this stretch:
Then as I closed in on Bob I nailed a fantastically colored rainbow:
Then I was into the huge mass of spawning chums and the dollies were everywhere:
Of course the dollies were up river to spawn also (although they only spawn every two or three years, not every year) and some were getting colored up:
We stood about 15 feet apart and were catching dollies at least every 3rd cast, it was what we all dream about. We had flown in about 7 pm so by this time we were pushing past midnight….not like it got very dark this far north. Then while fishing back to camp I nailed the most gorgeous male dolly of the whole trip:
I mean that fish was so flamboyantly colored it was almost surreal. Very satisfied as he swam back off to his eggfest. We had some hot beverage and peacefully nodded off to sleep. Bob always has us set-up a bear fence around camp and it was a good thing as there was an active sow with cub in our area. Next morning we were up and Bob is a great camp cook, we had eggs with whatever veggies were left over from the night before mixed in there:
With a full belly I was anxious to get on the water again:
We decided to head downstream, probably cause it was easier….haha. I took both rods with me today as my shoulder had not fared well while sleeping. We started down in Dolly Alley where I promptly smacked a rainbow:
But then we started catching dollies all though many must have had sore lips from the night before as the catching wasn’t nearly as fast:
So we kept moving down into unfished water and it was kind of quiet for awhile. Then we hit a deep, log infested stretch that was nearly impossible to fish with a bead but it had some great rainbows in there between the snags:
Surprisingly with all the chums in the water we only caught 4 or 5 on the whole trip but they were sure pretty:
We got to a area where the river narrowed into a rapid and there were dollies all over at the head of this fast water annihilating anything that floated by…..really had to hold onto the rod when they inhaled it at top speed:
Then we came across another deep water stretch saturated with logs and wood and all manner of nasty things to snag in. There was a good deal of time spent on replacing leader and beads. Caught a few nice rainbows in there:
At the end of the deep run it flattened out for a quarter mile that was just choked with spawning chums. I finally picked one up:
We literally walked slowly down the middle of the river fishing on both sides of us, at our feet, anywhere and everywhere. A prodigious number of dollies were caught in here but I didn’t take many pictures since we were always in the water and most of the dollies were in the 12-18 inch range:
By now we had been fishing for several hours without a break and we decided to head back to camp. Bob decided to take a nap but I just couldn’t put the rod down and kept fishing around camp but I left the camera in the cook tent. That night I cooked and introduced Bob to baby scallops with brussel sprouts and baby red potatoes. We were really pooped and decided to head for the sleeping bags early for a good nights rest.
Next morning was a bit blustery but we decided to fish down past where we had the day before. Caught some nice dollies on the way down:
We got down as far as we had fished and kept going…..lots of fish but nothing really big but the wind kept increasing until by 1pm it was a howling gale. Bob was worried about the airplane and camp so we decided to head back. Now Bob is a big sheep hunter and thinks nothing about parking on a glacier and hoofing it 10 miles just to glass a sheep…..plus he is way taller than me…..plus he is in great shape. So he went fast to get back leaving me behind to meander back when I realized he had the gun and I forgot to bring my pepper spray…..aaahhhhhh! Plus I was only 6 months post heart attack—I think maybe he was trying to kill me. So I got back faster than I should have moved and avoided having to eat any nitroglycerin…..but I was bushed. Turned out the plane was fine but he had to really tie down the two tents so they wouldn’t blow away. We snacked on some stuff for lunch then Bob wanted to stay around until the wind decreased. But he dismissed me to take the spinning rod to cast in the howling gale.
I was walking downstream a bit when my bucket list trip aura was shattered by the sound of a stinking boat motor….you can’t be serious. Anyway, guide came cruising by with two older gentlemen that looked like they were going to die at any moment and he informed me mama bear and her baby were just upstream……they were from one of the outfitters and had driven nearly 1 ˝ hours upstream to disturb me. Figured I better not go too far so I waded across the river and fished a little side stream we hadn’t touched. It was absolutely loaded with dollies and rainbows and an occasional arctic grayling:
Then another spectacular hook jawed male dolly:
This beautiful bow came screaming out from under some logs to nail my vibrax…..he had several buddies who were also willing and able too:
About this time I could see two critters from the story of The Three Bears walking down the shore towards me, so I crossed over to the other side and beat it back to camp. As it turns out Bob had left probably cause the wind had died down and I had no clue where he went (there was no blood so I figured he hadn’t been eaten). Did a little casting right by camp and caught an almost spawned out king:
By this time I could see Bob coming back from upstream with a giant, smile on his face. Turns out he had run into another mother lode about a mile up which was heavy with rainbows. We fixed another dinner fast so we could head back upstream. You know what’s coming here…don’t you? Bob is screaming upstream at his billy goat pace while I am lagging way behind hoping my sucky ticker doesn’t explode. Someone needs to shorten that man’s legs. After what seemed like forever we arrived, or rather I caught up with Bob who was already fishing, in nirvana. He had found about a 200 yard run that was just potholed with massive king salmon redds….it was some dangerous wading as you’d go from ankle deep up to your chest in one step. But the fishing here was exquisite.
Bob caught this dandy rainbow as his fly reel was falling apart … it was impressive:
Bob fished upstream around the corner where later he told me he had switched to a big floating mouse and he pulled it right out of the mouth of a monster rainbow……well that’s what he told me…..I’m always honest. I just meandered around where I was catching fish as the last few days left me pretty drained. It was after midnight and the fish were still doing their thing for us:
I could see Bob upstream slowly working his way down but I was thinking the bear just might come out and eat me cause although I may be old I am well marbled, like a good ribeye. My fish count was at 99 but it took me nearly 20 minutes to get number 100:
After that release I just beelined it back to camp. I was long past ready for sleep. Don’t even remember Bob coming into the tent.
Got up in the morning, ate and quickly packed up camp into the piper cub. Bob figured we could stop and fish the Holitna River for the rest of the day….it is excellent dolly fishing. He figured we might need a little gas….he is always cautious, so we headed down river to the city of Aniak where the river of the same name runs into the mighty Kuskokwim River. Little town with a great big runway as it is a regional airport:
After we topped off on gas we headed back upriver towards the Holitna River and home. Unlike like the projected forecast some serious weather was coming in. As we were maneuvering through the mountains towards the Holitna it started raining very heavy and fog rolled in. The plane was getting pushed all over the skies and we had to make a few U-turns back the way we came because of no visibility….it got really hairy there for a few hours. Finally, knowing we couldn’t put down anywhere near the Holitna River Bob found a small stream that he followed to get us out of the mountains……good thing I went potty before we lifted off. We had to track way around to the north and west to keep ahead of the storm and what had taken us a bit over 4 hours to flyout to, took us 9 ˝ hours to fly back….oh my, did I have a sore butt. We had to make an extra landing at Port Alsworth on Lake Clark…..a small place but for some reason it has 2 runways:
Gassed up again, flew down through the pass and the weather was very nice on the Cook Inlet:
After missing out on the Holitna fishing and due to the long flight we just headed back to the barn so we could sleep in a soft bed. A few days later Bob called me up and asked if I wanted to hop over to the Kustatan River and fish for some silvers (coho) to take home. Who am I to look a fishing gift horse in the mouth? Headed out to his place on the lake and we were in the air heading for the Kustatan River. On the way we passed Mt Spurr (a volcano that had just erupted when I first moved up to Alaska in 1992):
Then as we got nearer the river, there was Mt. Redoubt, another large volcano:
The whole mountain range is just a series of active volcanoes out through the Aleutian Islands. We landed at the very short strip near the river with the lovely shack we have stayed in before:
That is a real Alaskan bush cabin. We geared up near the cabin:
Then we headed down the Kustatan for about ˝ mile to where a little creek comes into the river. Most of the rivers, like the Kustatan, are silty and covered with mud which is composed of glacial silt and volcanic ash…..it really is no fun to walk in cause it has great suction. We got to our little clear creek:
We didn’t see many silvers but finally a small group came swimming into the creek and it wasn’t long before they decided to attack:
Generally as we fish up this creek a ways we just hammer dollies and some occasional rainbows but there was just nothing upstream…..first time that has ever happened. So we made our way back to the Kustatan…..grabbed our salmon:
And headed back to the plane. Smoked up those silvers as soon as I got home. Another nice trip to Alaska…..of course I worked too…..and one great excursion to the Aniak River.
