A Great Start

Well thanksgiving is the day I re-start my steel head year, so on Friday morning I decided I should head out and see what I could stir up, It was raining cats and dogs as I headed up hw 30 at 5:00 am... and it was cold... I was a little worried I was wasting my time. I arrived at river X ( too early in the season to give up spots that are fishing ) and started to fish, water was a little murky and not the best fly water.. so I started casting spinners. Started out with a brass blue fox and didn't raise anything so I switched to my go to spinner for river X a mepps glo in white and pink. I hooked two on it but lost them.. little fellers. After an inspection of the hooks I determined they were too dull and not having a stone with me decided to switch to a new out of the package tear drop spoon.. 10 minutes later in two feet of water Bam! fish on... I knew he was a good fish but after he jumped once my heart started to race, thought he was an early native and seemed like he could go 20 pounds! I couldn't control him for the first five minutes, but then out of fear I let him work down river with a loosened drag for about 50 yards to a spot I could land him.. ( by now I had determined he was a hatchery fish.. and I was really exited!) let him hold against the opposite bank for a bit occasionally pulling on him to burn him out.. walked out into the river and reached down and tailed him and he was mine.... what a day.. and what a start to my favorite time of year to fish.... winter.

Qaurtz Creek Alaska

A lot of guys love to tell the story of the trip that was a lifetime experience, we tend to tell mostly our story's of victory.. well, here's one that wasn't.

Homer was getting kind of old in august, the Anchor River was fishing poorly and the only good fishing was up towards kenai/Soldotna, so I got up at 3;30 a.m and started the drive up to the Kenai, as I got near the big river it started to rain so I decided to head up to Quartz creek and score some dolly and hopefully a trophy rainbow action, well.. the river started to swell and then cloud up, so I pulled a couple of small rainbows and a few larger Dolly and pretty soon I needed such large shot to get down I just headed off to Johnson lake for the rest of the day. Here's a couple shots from before the monsoon started-

Atka Alaska Dollys

Well im gonna use the next couple days to catch up on some summer adventures, so heres a trip from Atka fromaugust. It was forecast to blow 55-60 kts for a few days, so we layed up in martin harbor. Ray and I knew of a small stream just teeming with fat little dolly's, so not being one to shy away from some trout action we put ashore in a gale and headed up the little creek. Action was immediate, first cast with a washed out 6mm bead and fish on! mostly little guys, but a couple 16-18 inchers around. We headed up the creek further and encountered a Native and his son, brother or who knows.... doing what alaskas first people do best... snagging silvers.. the young kid looked at my flyrod like I was holding a unicorns head or something... and asked me " how ya gonna catch a fish with that" it was my browning medalist 5 wt.. a junker I use when I think we might dump the skiff, next thing you know his partner snags and hauls up about a 7-8 lb trophy dolly and laughs... and throw it in the weeds! ohhhh man... I was a little pissed but hey.. it their island so keep up the good managment... I also inclueded a shot of the fourwheeler they rode right up the creek bed and left sitting in the run.. all in all about a 50 fish day and a nice rainbow to promise us that we would get to go to work soon-

MY CREATION Results

Well I got to field test my Rainbow Bugger.. Tried it on Qaurtz creek a tributary of the Kenai river... and wow.. the dollys loved it, but even more suprising the sockeye went just nuts for it, but I only had one so 15 dollys and 6 sockeye later she was gone... gonna have to tie up 20 of em and try them on some Big Creek steelhead in a few weeks.

Drift Boat Renovation

well, its done... well actually its been done for quite a while, I just haven't posted about it. So I did sea trials at a spot called trojan ponds.. here a photo of her.. battleship gray.. I like!