What the Crap?!

It's as common as mosquitoes, Hondo hogging your run and bows behind the king in the land of the midnight sun.  But on Wilson's creek and just a couple weeks after season ended?  Really?  I could just see the little dude (compared to his cousins) sitting on this rock river left, nice view from the throne, pondering the meaning of life.

Hail to the Chief

Reunited with my old Kvichak buddy Steve (big Chief).  He graciously put us on to some private water on the famed Davidson River outside of Brevard, NC.  Interesting water, reminded me of the Smith River in VA, which Pablo and I fished (so called) on January 1st about 20 years ago as naive eastern newbies.  Wide with good depth in rock and sandy runs.  The depth made spotting fish difficult but the run below the "island" was gorgeous and produced nice bow's ranging 12-14 with good girth.  Amazingly the sandy run above the island yielded bows as well.  A cold weather start yielded to sun and although breezy, cool and pleasant.  Big Chief's day wasn't as productive as his first outing on this water, but with his typical class, he took it all in stride.

Feeling full of vim and vigor, basking in new water, as Steve headed back to the grind stone, figuring I wouldn't get back this way for some time, I determined to explore the North Mills River.  I was pleasantly surprised to learn there are 5 road-less miles of DH.  A beautiful stream, definitely not a river , a stream about 20 feet wide with long stretches of shallow water over slabs of exposed bed rock.  Much like the Jacob's fork, you walk between runs likely to hold fish.  With such sallow water I wanted to hunt and peck in secondary runs with a caddis, employing my surfing the current technique.  I was pretty much done after 30 minutes, just finding the little water not as appealing on that day after enjoying big (for me) water.  Walking fast, flipping infrequently, I came to a promising run, couldn't see anything do to dimming light but got in position and started dragging the elk hair caddis across the current.  Just before I was going to pack it in and head home, an unseen strike brought a fat red stripe in the 14 range.  Good fish to end the day with (although I admit I fished more when I saw another great run and took another bow - though much smaller).

Will Big Chief ever make a return to the great north?  I've become a bogart, all vacation plans revolve around the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.  But some men are less selfish than I am, and can live peacefully, if not wistfully, knowing it was truly a once in a life-time trip.  Hail to the Chief, a gentleman piscator with his priorities in tact.

2015 Sockeye Forecast

Usually it's June, fights are scheduled, gear being whored and maybe even staged, when I turn my focus to analyzing the return, the run, the spawn.  Cruising the AK fish and game website, updating charts with new counts every three days trying to surmise how this year will compare to past years and when the run will peak with steelhead in tow.   Well it's not even Thanksgiving and look what came across my network.... Visions of rainbows dance in my head!

State fisheries biologists are forecasting a run of nearly 54 million sockeye salmon in Bristol Bay in 2015, which is 40% more than the last 10-year mean of total runs.

Read more here: http://1.usa.gov/1uzCY3t