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Show Fishing AlcasEtcan wrfetrs is experience v a li'sef ime By Hartt Wixom, Vernal Express Outdoors Writer TOGIAK, ALASKA What is it like to fish a stream full of oversized king, sockeye, calico salmon, grayling, rainbow rain-bow and Dolly Varden trout, 50 miles from even the nearest tiny village and any angling competition? I found out last week after literally fishing day and night with Ron Hyde Sr.'s Alaskan River Safaris in southwestern Alaska. Salmon fishing started right out with an exploding kind salmon just minutes after casting a large orange spoon into the tail of swift water. That one proved to be a "small" fish of only seven pounds. The next one weighed 30 14 lbs. and required re-quired nearly half an hour to land with the help of a large boat. Before finishing for the day I had hooked nine and landed seven salmon averaging about 24 lbs. apiece. Several were beached from a bank where I had to run far down-river to avoid undue stress on 350 feet of 15-lb. test monofilament. Several days later I lost two salmon the guide figured at about 35 and 40 lbs., respectively, a mile below the riffle where they were hooked. It was obvious they would feel better about being back in the ocean, and that is apparently where they took my lure. However, I spent more than half the week fly casting to trout and grayling. They were more frustrating, requiring the right fly in the correct place. My first evening out I garnered no immediate im-mediate strikes near camp with a selection of feathered offerings which had been successful a few days previously on Idaho's Henrys Fork. Ron Hyde Sr. showed me what I needed: need-ed: two flies he carries locally which I found to really turn fish on: a white and red "wiggle tail" for deep water feeders, and a large muddler minnow for the surface. While the latter is fished fish-ed as a minnow in the Lower 48, usually usual-ly deep with sinking line and strip-pull technique, I found a unique phenomenon here. Both rainbows and grayling averaging 18-22 inches would take it on the rise as a floating fly. Upstream from camp I made a cast into heavy current, and let the wiggle-tail wiggle-tail bury in a side eddy. Then I began a slow retrieve. The line tightened, and I didn't think I was down far enough in six feet of water to be snagged. I raised the rod tip. My answer was a leaping and very stubborn rainbow, beautifully black-spotted and crimson from gill cover to tail. This 221 2-incher was landed on 4-lb. test. However, later I discovered that even in the air-clear shallow riffles I could entice strikes with 6 or even 8 lb. test leader. For casting distance and better accuracy the leader was tapered up to heavier strength. If you can't buy about 10 feet of tapered, you can build your own by tying about Vz feet of material testing 20, 15, and 8 lb. test. These rainbows hit without hesitation wherever they were located in lairs behind cutbanks, boulders, and snags because they had rarely, if ever, seen an artificial before. One evening, keeping my shadow off the riffles at 11 : 30 p.m., I found a nest of big grayling, landing several in the 20-inch class. These were purple, black-etched and turquoise, but more bronze than those I have caught in Canada's Northwest Territories. These fish were often welcome relief from hooking the huge kings where a fish could mean battles of up to an hour and a half or more. I also caught several Dolly Vardens to eight pounds, a powerful and too often under-rated fish of the North which can lie in packs like wolves ready to pounce on a large wet or nymph in shallow glides below deep holes. But the most exciting fish for me were the leaping, frenzied sockeye. Hooking several in a holding water where two currents converge, I undulated un-dulated a size 00 Mylar (tinsel wings with black and green body) in their faces. They responded by "eating and running." I was not prepared for the 8-foot broad jumps they took directly at me when hooked. After that, it was a downstream run into the pounding current. After fly-hooking nine sockeye, the score was salmon nine, angler zero. Then I connected on one which headed head-ed downriver toward the Bering Sea with no hesitation whatsoever. I soon realized he was not coming back up. But first, I had to go with him quickly, quick-ly, or I would be out of line. In the five seconds required to ambulate my chest waders around 8 foot deep waler I came to the end of 1.7) feet of line;. The sockeye was scarcely slowed as he took it all. Afli-r thinking it all over for a few minutes, I decided to try j.-iin with my reel of floating line. But I first planned how and where I would try to land an exploding sockeye which fright run VI 15 lbs, As luck would have it or perhaps an absense of sinking sink-ing line, I could only hook two more that evening. They threw the hook. It was now sockeye 12 to zip. Happily, the next day I did manage to land a 13-lb. salmon on another Mylar fly, although it was a calico, or dog salmon, not a sockeye. The calico, many fish guides feel, is vastly underrated under-rated for its brute strength, although not quite the leaper of sockeye vintage. Returning, I would gear for this fish which goes berserk when hooked, by casting with at least 300 feet of (combined) (com-bined) weight-forward casting line although long distance casting is not always required for salmon with 8-10 feet of 15 lb. test leader, and a stiff steelhead of salmon rod, and a mapped map-ped out route where to sprint downstream with my adversary. One of my proudest accomplishements I thought more of it after being humbled by the sockeye was landing an 18'2-lb. king on a little ultra-light Browning trout rod, Browning Mitchell reel and 6-lb. test line and a pork chop-shaped spinner. spin-ner. After subduing the beast, I pulled pull-ed gently at the mono just above the lure. It parted almost like thread. One evening within a few feet of the boat dock I also managed to hook and land all of 10 nice rainbows hooked. Two other Utahns along, fly specialist Jonathan Olch of Park City, took many trout on flies, as well as king, sockeye and calico salmon on light tackle. This is Olch's ninth trip to Hyde's Alaskan camp. Also taking many of these same fish on flies was Park City angler Lori Filacheck, on her first trip there. Between Bet-ween us we released hundreds of big fish to grow even larger, and in the case of the salmon, to spawn before dying. If you would like to have more information infor-mation on fishing Alaska, contact Ron Hyde Sr. (his son Ron Jr. lives year-round year-round in Togiak and is an excellent guide) at 4909 Rollins, Anchorage, Alaska, 99504, tele. (907) 333-2860, or veteran Alaskan angler Olch at 3087 American Saddler Dr., Park City, Utah, 84060, tele. (801 if outside Utah) . 649-8640. |
