You can see Siberia from here.....
It has been a tough fishing season so far…..doesn’t help that my dang rod holding wrist starts killing me after a few hours of fishing. To add insult to injury the doctor tells me in May that I am now a Type II diabetic….and I worked sooooo hard to resemble a beluga whale. At least it got my rear in gear and I’ve lost 35 lbs……shoot my waders actually are comfortable again and don’t feel like spandex biking shorts.
Anyway, enough self pity, this is a multiple trip report….am I getting old and lazy…plus a few trips didn’t have much to tell. Started in late May with a trip to the Kashwitna River looking for spring spawning rainbows. Switched around to several spring patterns with no takers. Thank goodness for the old spring smolt pattern to nail this grayling so I didn’t wear the skunk stripe.
Took great expertise….was wading across the river dragging the fly and the little bugger grabbed it and wouldn’t let go. After awhile the wind started blowing so the waves were running upriver…not good for flyfishing so I hoofed it on home. Hey….Alaska’s fishing isn’t always fantastic, believe me.
After this sterling beginning it was a few weeks before I could hop up the valley to get after the trout. Just my luck it rained heavy the day before. Arrived at Mike’s place with him chomping to go….
We had planned on fishing Willow Creek but when we got to it the water color was a nice milk chocolate. So we kept driving north to the Kashwitna…….this was more like 70% dark cocoa…not good. Several miles further north we approached Sheep Creek anxiously….nope…..fricking mocha latte cappachino murkarino. This took us finally to Montana Creek….huge flow but only a week tea color….yippee. We were planning on floating but too much water so we just shore fished for awhile. Found one nice hole where we got several rainbows….this was the pick of the litter:
After that there was a couple of hours of fruitless flycasting and we called it a day.
Decided after that to wait a couple of weeks for the waters to clear then floated the lower Willow. The weather was great….river flow was okay and it started out fairly well with this beautifully colored bow:
Unbeknownst to me this day happened to coincide with the last open day to catch (and keep) kings on the Willow….made for lots of traffic on the river. The guys looking for kings kept racing past each other to make it to the next big stretch holding fish…..was kind of amusing to watch.
I had brought my 8 wt rod also….so when we got to a good stretch of water holding kings we decided to quit molesting the rainbows and give them a few casts. Problem was everyone was molesting kings in the obvious holes…..we finally found a little run no one was paying attention to but was holding 15 to 20 kings:
They were laying right in front of the dead tree falls. It only took Mike about 3 casts and he was hooked up and within 3 or 4 minutes he was gone down river chasing his king. Took me another 5 minutes before I hooked up. About 10 minutes into playing my king I tried to get some video……didn’t work so well:
Don’t have a catch picture as about 20 minutes into wrestling the beast he managed to wrap me around a submerged tree. Mike was trudging up around the bend then with his 20+lbs king. My wrist was throbbing so bad I looked at Mike, while putting my 8 wt back in its case, and said, “Just rainbows for me the rest of the day…” another king would have done me in.
Did fair the rest of the day on average rainbows with a couple of nicer ones with great color:
We ended the day seeing a lot more kings up the Willow than last year….nice to see as the kings have had very poor returns everywhere in Alaska the last 3 years.
A week later we fished the upper Willow for the first time hoping the kings had made it up and started to spawn……….wrong!! I was excited to be hitting the upper again…starting with the ubiquitous white, bug-eyed fly tied by Mike that he affectionately refers to as “The Marty Feldman” (that will be too long ago for you young uns….):
They were some kings up river but none actively spawning (which concentrates the trout). So the fishing was very scattered, mostly small and not to frequent. This was the best bow….slacked bellied due to being recently up spawning:
We came around one bend under the cold-eyed stare of the famous Alaskan White-headed Woodpecker:
Near the end of this trip I caught a very nice little grayling….never get tired of looking at those funky dorsal fins:
A few weeks later Mike and I headed back up to the upper Willow knowing the kings would be spawning.
It was time to be fishing beads again and it wasn’t long before the trout started moving:
The fishing was not overwhelmingly but pretty darn consistent throughout the day…..it got to 80 outside and we were beginning to melt:
About midmorning I wandered into an inadvertent king who sucked up my bead and we were off to the races on the 5 wt. Managed to get him in okay…he posed then was off to the spawning bed again:
Any of you guys want an exclusive cabin in Alaska….I can get you this one at an extremely reasonable rate (lesson here…..don’t build right on a river that frequently gets extremely high water):
We stopped for a quick lunch then caught some really nice fish going out….here are a couple of the nicest:
That last one was a hoot…..Mike pulled the raft over right at a big log hole due to the need to be sure the local bushes had enough nitrogen (he had to take a leak). I watched the deep water right in front of me and the bow started darting out….grabbed the bead dropped it in and he ran right out and sucked it up….so much fun to watch.
We were running late so we headed back the shortest route, through a skinny little side branch……this is a man walking his pet raft:
All told this day wasn’t too bad…..about 2 dozen rainbows for the day…..
Brian
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Originally Posted by old pudd fisher
You are a LUCKY man Doc. 
