When you are flying to King Salmon there is something very reassuring about watching your bags go into the cargo hold of the airplane while you sit there waiting to push back from the gate. There mine were first the big red dry bag, then the big black duffel of fly tying stuff and fishing gear and finally my two spey rods which don’t fit neatly into my travel tube. I set my ipod to “Hustle and Fish” the Alaska segment to be exact and watched Apple catch dolly after dolly and fish the gravel bars of a Western Alaska river until we pushed back from the gate. The plane banked as it headed for the clouds and I sat and watched civilization fade into the clouds. Soon the city of Anchorage was just a speck in a sea of mountains, plains, deltas, and mudflats and we powered through the clouds to 30,000 feet. The flight is a short one, forty minutes or so flying down the spine of the Western Alaska Range on a clear day it is spectacular, volcanoes, mountains, lakes and rivers. On this day the clouds didn’t break until we were over lake Illiamna Alaska’s largest lake, and one of the most amazing places in the world. An inland sea filled with salmon, a population of freshwater seals, huge trout, pike and according to some a caribou eating monster. There it was grand and pure, then back into the clouds. Finally we descend into the town of king salmon. I step off the plane into the air walk to the office to pick up a truck for the baggage. Its flat here, no tree taller than twenty feet, the “city” consists of an airport, a bank, two restaurant/hotel/bars a few float plane operations and a post office.
I’m informed that we’d be leaving for camp tomorrow, good, no waiting around here. I put my things in the bunkhouse and go for a run, down to the creek which is high and off color and a long run than I remember. Tomorrow’s gonna be a tough day, so I go to bed after catching up a bit with the people I see for a week every summer.
There’s something special about stepping into a trout stream for the first time that day, that trip, that year. Your feet slip through the surface and your mind just starts cranking out scenarios. The day is fresh, full of hope, the trout have not left you jaded or humbled or any of the emotions one gets when he catches to few fish, too small of fish or even too many fish in some cases (although one shouldn’t complain about that). Its kinda like meeting a woman for the first time, only you can step into the same stream and over the same rocks and it feels like the first time because rivers behave different, as do trout, as to women. Its not the same though stepping into a trout stream for the first time that day, and meeting a woman again, even after years, the second meeting is somehow less unknown than the second fishing trip.
Over the years I’ve become intimate with a river, one that hundreds of people have as well over the years, and yeah I feel dirty a little, and yeah it somehow feels a bit wrong, especially when landing fish with torn up mouths and seeing old line everywhere hanging from every tree. I chase trout in this stream, not salmon like everyone else though. Opening night I stumbled around in the dark probing every bit of water I knew. This stream does not change as much as some of the others, and holes that held fish ten years ago hold fish right now. I know every boulder, every rock every cut bank, every spot that I’ve caught trout from I remember. On this night I poke my fly under the surface at all of these spots, but catch merely a single trout, it feels good though being on this river again.
Soon it got too dark to fish, yes it does that, even here. For about two hours I waited on a gravel bar for the sun to return, and when it did I fished my favorite hole since I started fishing this river and proceeded to catch every fish in the general vicinity. Most were small, which I suppose is good, more small fish will grow into bigger fish and soon there will be more big fish, yeah there were big fish too, but the small guys kept me bent and happy. Smiling and whooping with nobody around to hear. Working my way up my favorite stretch catching fish everywhere I should catch fish, but catching four or five instead of just one out of each little seam.
The sun got strong, and the people came, disappointed in the lack of salmon, looking shock when asked how many I caught I replied “Oh thirty or so” neglecting to tell them my dirty little secrete, that salmon are meat, not toys and should be treated as such.
The day before my birthday I went back to that river, despite my swearing it off, despite the people and what was sure to be poor fishing. I spent a few hours on a beach which I love, partly because it looks like this
and mostly because of the memories from it, drinking beer by the campfire, doing stupid things like swimming naked in the 38° water, and fly fishing for lake trout that, lets face it weren’t gonna hit a fly 40 feet out. Tonight my friends were all off having lives of their own, working stiffs I suppose, two are engineers, one joined the Marines, one lives up in Fairbanks now and so on, the careless nights of youth are behind us I guess, the mortgage payments and responsibilities all ahead still. I got up late the next morning, and biked to the river so I could avoid paying the salmon pimps the $11 parking fee. The fishing was pretty slow I only caught a dozen or so, which I guess is pretty good considering, most again were small, but I was happy, the sun was shining and I was on this river that I love, doing what I loved to do. My life isn’t perfect, but its about as perfect as it can be relying on just myself.
Two days later I found myself on a different river, doing the same thing but in a different way, first with a friend, who is excited as anyone about fly fishing, he has a long way to go, but he’ll get it sooner or later, I’m sure I fished like that when I was just starting. At any rate he happens to own a boat
I strung up the switch rod and threw a skagit line on it for the second time and just fell in love with the casting stroke and the power, and the sink tip, which of course yielded a few trout (including my first on the swing with that particular rod)
We finally made the take out it, we had throughly decided, was not warm out wet and cold we disassembled the raft and drove home in the dying light, stopping at taco bell to eat way to much junk food. It was a good change of pace, the water almost new to me, as I hadn’t seen it in about five years, since the big flood that changed everything. It felt good to be somewhere else, to be alone, to be on a river that in a lot of places one could not cross on foot, but small enough to fish effectively. To double spey, not like a pro but good enough, to make that mend and live through the end of the line feeling my way down to the tailout of the runs. Feeling the tick of a strike, trying to wait for the fish to be hooked, and the disappointment of it leaving. Catching unscarred fish it was a good evening, worth going out and doing.
So in a few hours I’m getting on a plane and going to work, my job is simple. They drop me and two others off on a river, we set up towers made of scaffolding, and when a fish swims by we click a counter. Thats pretty much it, we also catch and sample some fish and have to keep ourselves alive and relatively happy. Its basically the perfect job for the trout bum because endless light and 8 hour shifts means something close to Orvison’s “Ideal Schedual” of fishing 14 hours a day. Of course I don’t fish that much, or even every day, but its nice to know I could. Every year there’s twinges of fear, not knowing who I was gonna be living in a tent with for the next month, wondering about bears and where they’d hang out. Hoping the river isn’t too high, and doesn’t get to low and warm. All of these thoughts don’t matter much, we do the job in rain, darkness, and I bet at least once sometime out there snow, if we have to. The fish will come, and we’ll be there to count them. I won’t lie, I’m excited, its really all I ever wanted. Siddartha found his enlightenment when he sat and stared at a river, and I do to, only I get paid to do it. So I’m stepping out for a while, dropping out of communication leaving the everybody else’s world and slipping into mine. I couldn’t sleep tonight, its like Christmas Eve. I guess I’m lucky, I can’t sleep a lot of my life cause almost every night in the summer is like Christmas Eve, because I get to step into a trout stream for the first time the next day, and if I’m lucky, hold nature in my hands for just a little bit.
This I can confidently say is the best summer ever, and its only the first week of June, and its only gonna get better.
To bad for my reader (there’s gotta be at least one of you) but I’m no longer depressed, the bad thoughts have either worked their way out of my system or meeting someone special destroyed them like a rainbow destroys a mouse. Either way I am happier than I’ve ever been, so don’t expect me to come up with some crazy universal truth about fly fishing and love or whatever I’m trying to do half the time. Here’s what I have to say to all of you, if it feels good do it, and if you don’t have responsibilities enjoy every minute of your life, don’t let anyone or anything tell you otherwise, its not worth it.
The end of school was the usual craziness, moving out, drinking to much with friends I won’t see for another summer, saying some sad goodbyes, uncertain if I’d ever meet them again. I drank and fished too much to do any school work, I had written it off this year, screw it, living is too important to deal with trivial things like finals and term papers. This is stupid of course, but hey whatever, I’ll finish up everything next year and not be seriously depressed and eat right and study like its my job and all those good things. This spring was all about the fun.
Early in may I caught a couple of those sea going rainbows known as steelhead, that alone was enough to make the month awesome. I continued with some dollies in the salt and sun on my face. The weather was amazing, all sun, no rain, pretty much exactly what you don’t expect every in a place like Juneau. As spring became summer I worked two jobs to make a little extra cash, but a lot of one of those jobs was spent tying flies and eating cheetos. I’d fish in the evenings if I felt like it, but I didn’t often feel that ambitious, I’ve caught enough dollies, also I secretly didn’t want to catch a big dolly cause I wanted J.B.’s to remain the biggest of the year I’ve seen. Most of my fishing involved helping new folks start to fly fish I’m especially proud of this kid
side note, take your kids fishing. Seriously, some the best people I’ve ever met had their parents take them fishing, mine sure did (even though they didn’t really ever fish themselves) and look how well I turned out.
Anyway soon it was time for me to leave, I could tell because I was on my third couch, and my clothes were starting to smell, as living out of ones car for a month might do. So one day I hopped on the ferry and cruised down the highway to Fairbanks, unfortunately a motor broke and my plans for Esox domination was ruined however a few of these were willing to play
I left Fairbanks in short order and drove home. Back to familiar places, even though I’ve lived five years in Juneau, there’s something about it that foreign, and coming across the Alaska Range and seeing the mountains I grew up with put me somewhere special. So I took some pictures
Once back the first order of business was to climb a mountain, which somehow living here for 18 years I’d never actually summitted until now
The second order was to catch some rainbows
Then finally some pike, even little ones are fun
So in the last two days I’ve hiked over 7000′ feet and over 10 miles all for two turns in lousy snow and some little pike. Soon I’ll be back in Bristol Bay… I’m really living the good life.
I choose to live in a place that it rains most of the time. Until you live in a place like this you don’t know what rain is. Lets put it this way, I love to go to Seattle because Seattle has hot dry weather in the winter. We have maybe sixty miles of roads, all leading to nowhere, thirty thousand or so people, a few good bars, a small university, three chairlifts, and four months a year on average that the fishing is truly spectacular. This place is small isolated and dark. Its defined by ephemeral industry, government in the spring, tourism in the summer, with despair and rain taking up the fall. All and all it can be one of the most depressing places on Earth. Every year I live through winter is another year stronger I grow. It is hard, really hard, all I want to do is sleep and eat and sleep some more, probably some ancient instinct buried deep in me to deal with winter. Days like today make it all worth it.
Today wasn’t some special day, I didn’t go on some crazy fishing trip, I didn’t catch a steelhead, I didn’t to much of anything, today was a normal day. I got up and went to work, I fixed a flat tire, ate a costco hot dog. After work I had an hour to kill so I went fishing. The ability to go fishing for an hour is why I love it here, there’s no big trip, no expedition. I just pull of the road throw on my waders and walk to the water. Today I even caught a fish, a nice little rainbow on a wooly bugger. And the mountains, oh the mountains, standing there surrounded, Islands to the south, ancient granite to the north and east, Chilkats to the west. Sun kissing the glacier with light so orange it makes snow warm to the touch. You know how in the movies when the main characters finally kiss the camera circles them and its just a spinning feeling, thats how I felt today, only it was just me and the river and the mountains, and a lone blacktail curious as to what the stick I was waving meant for her. This bit of wildness so close, so easy, so simple, like wilderness is meant to be enjoyed, simply, deliberately, without excess. To think I almost forgot this sense is painful. Thanks for showing me again, you know who you are.
Well another gorgeous day in Juneau, sometimes I forget that it rains for month on end here, so much so that all I want to do on a hot day like this is sit inside and tie flies. It of course doesn’t hurt that I can sit inside and tie flies while on the clock at my job. Its been gorgeous here lately, but I’ve been taking evenings off because the tides are at bad times for me, and well I’ve caught a lot of dollies in my life, and I mean a LOT. Also I’m out of flies… Time to reload.
Otherwise I’ve been doing some photography
Barbeque’s are always fun
And today I’m thinking about my next move… Which will involve a detour to a jet boat that will take me to pike and lake trout.
I gotta say, I love fishing its awesome but lately I’ve been lucky enough to share my passion with someone who actually gets it. And without sharing joy, joy is worthless.
Thanks JB you really show me what life is about
Of course I’ve been doing some fishing myself… its been pretty damn fun!
Today was the best day I’ve had in a LONG LONG time. Lets recap shall we?
6:00 AM alarm goes off, snooze button engaged
6:09 AM alarm goes off again, snooze button
6:14 am put my feet on the floor stumble into shower
7:10 arrive at ____________ start walking
7:10 to 7:50 I’ll just let you wonder what I did, to protect the innocent
7:50 see fish
7:51 Blow cast
7:52 Blow hookset
7:53 hook up fish
7:53:30 laugh like a man possessed while screaming “Fuck Yeah, Fuck Yeah!” at the top of my lungs
7:54 land fish, take pictures, release steelhead
10:06 Start fishing for dollies
10:31 See 15 pound steelhead in saltwater, blow presentation
11:00 get lunch
3:03 pm pick up friends, drive to brewery
3:47 pm drink free beer
4:03 free samples at costco
5:14 turn on TiVoed Bruins game
7:17 watch Bruins win game two in the third
10:00 pm finish “work”
10:17 go to ex girlfriend’s apartment to my friends, her roommates
10:18 realize my ex sucks compared to these people not give a shit about where I am
1:08 write this shit
So yeah, I caught a steelhead today, yup it was small, yeah I blew a lot of shots, and confirmed my place in the books of world’s shittiest fishermen, but I caught one, after five years of trying on the road system. Countless hours built up in my head, days longing for the tug. Weeks tying flies. Classes, neglected. Hundreds of beers consumed and fish stories told. There they were, right where they were suppose to be, taking what they were suppose to take. It was brilliant, it was amazing. It was the culmination of years and years of thought, of longing. And tonight, I closed a chapter of my life, I feel free again, free from pain, from anguish, like nothing can touch me. I feel like every bit of weight that was ever on my shoulders has been lifted off, like all my cares and worries, mean nothing. So to everyone who was there for me in the dark times, thanks! I’ll be here for you now. And to anyone who wants to know where I caught a steelhead, fuck off!
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