Gone Fishin-

Them; so, your gonna go fishing tomorrow? Me; uh, yeah Them; So who ya gonna go with? Me; By myself Them; sounds kinda lonely Me; Funny, sometimes It feels kinda crowded Them; .....? Ever feel this way? Tomorrow I hunt the steel.. Have a good weekend everybody-

Kenai River Rainbows

It always suprises me when I speak to die hard trout bums how few of them are aware of the Kenai rivers tremendous Rainbow trout fishing. I was driving up the highway heading to the Fred Meyer parking lot in Soldotna to meet my long time friend Ben of Trophy Drifters when I thought of a couple guys who I new were on the peninsula on a month long roadtrip. I dialed up Mike, "so I don't suppose you and your brother would want to fish Bows on the lower Kenai today" suprisingly they did and we all met at the designated location and headed off for some Monster Rainbow fishing.. and we were not let down. We didn't get started untill 10:00 a.m and with Ben having clients coming in at 4 we would have to cover alot of water fast. Minutes into the float Mikes 7wt bent into the cork and his backing was clearing the tip seconds later, it appeared that a 15+ lb bruiser could not resist the sexy chunk of rabbit fur that had passed by its face. The fish powered up and across river and wrapped a rock, Ben rowed to the point of exaustion but to no avail, in the heavy current the fish broke off and made his escape. The saddness was subdued moments later by a double of fiesty 18-20'' fish and the tone of the drift was set. We agreed that there would only be grip and grins with fish over 20", we almost instantly upped the bar to just REALLY big fish... and that was coming. We aggresively fished downstream of any of the cleaning stations and piles of dead King salmon carcasses in the river hooking landing and losing fish like crazy, must have had at least 6 or 7 doubles in a four hour float with around 40 fish brought to the boat. I fished the fiberhammer all day and it was a blast, my biggest fish was probably only in the 22" range but extremely fat, I ended up being the photographer for the day and never did get a glory shot of myself. Mike took M.V.P status with a sexy 28" fish tipping the scales at around 10lbs. All in all it was a very good day with tons of tugs and laughs.. and as always... I can't wait to do it again- If you would like more info on Ben and Trophy Drifters or just some info on how to fish the river without a guide feel free to e-mail me... I love talking fishing

Skated Chrome

I had been a dirt bag for days, hammering every seam with a bead, countless 18-20'' dolly Varden had fallen for my fraudulent offering of a free egg.. I was feeling dirty, the stink I had placed on the fiberhammer would take weeks of swinging to erase. As I walked back down the bank of the anchor river I saw a fish rise... a big fish, hmmmm he had a different style about him, class perhaps... early steel? Kneeling on the bank I began to dig into the deepest corner of my back pack, beer cans, ammo, redbull, smokes... streamer box, I studied my options, and pulled the trigger on the orange skating muddler, 5 minutes of chopping and rebuilding and I was dressed for success. Stripping line, poorly set anchor, and sloppy lob and the fly landed 50' cross bank down stream, the belly I had thrown instantly drug the muddler under, lifting my rod I yanked the belly back upstream... a train wreck of a cast, the fly poorly slid into a seam and I began to lift to go for a new anchor and a fresh begining.. and BAM! airshow and the battle was on! he drug me around and made more than a few good runs, slid through some fast water and I landed him in the next run... chrome.. how I ever caught him with the slop I was selling I will never know.. I guess flyfishing is alot like calling elk.... it doesnt have to be pretty, just in the right spot- tight lines