An Alaska Adventure-Wednesday: Kulik Kraziness (and bears)

Rob, Rick, Tom, and Shan flew in a De Havilland DH-2 Beaver float plane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Canada_DHC-2_Beaver  to the Kulik River—a delightful one-mile long stream between two lakes that is full of spawning sockeye salmon and an abundance of rainbow trout.  Our guides for the day were Alexia and Kvichak (got to love a guide whose parents named him after an incredible fishing river in the area) and while we had lots of company, we did have many willing fish available to us. 

Rambunctious rainbows for all the Merrill boys

           

We found ourselves sharing the river from time to time with the bears; starting to seem like the theme for our stay this year at Bear Trail Lodge.  But, as always, they were “good bears” and didn’t interfere with our fishing or do much more than make us a little more wary.

Beginning to think there's a reason it's named "Bear Trail Lodge"

           

After he got tired of catching rainbows with a bead, Shan changed to a mouse pattern and fished it dry.  The rainbows seemed much more excited to get a bigger mouthful than a simple egg and so were quite aggressive in attacking the mouse (fly).  Tom joined in the fun.  Rob and Rick just kept fishing with the bead (boring).

Shan with the skating mouse pattern

Tom--we're supposed to catch the ones with a little red on their sides, not the ones that are all red!

           After our plethora of piscine pleasure, it was time to meet the plane at the lower lake and head back to the lodge for another wonderful dinner.  Of course, there was fishing at the river below the lodge, and Shan once again proved he is at one with the fish and landed another coho.

An Alaska Adventure--Tuesday (Part II): The Bears of American Creek

Rick and Tom flew with Jose to American Creek for a chance at some big rainbows and arctic char and, of course, lots of grizzly bears.  American Creek had been an astounding fishery, but it hadn’t had nearly as many rainbows in recent years.  Our last visit we caught mostly char and no size at all (which in Alaska means a Washington trophy). However, this year had reportedly seen an increase in rainbows and in size, so it was with eagerness that they returned.

As the float plane approached and landed on the small river, it was hard to tell if the river was muddy in the orange light filtering through the early morning clouds. The edges looked clear, while the middle looked off color. We found both to be true. In the slower water near the lake where the plane landed, the water at the edge was clear for a few feet but became off color in the middle where the current was flowing. The plane had left, so we were stuck here for the day to make the best of it.

We ran upriver about as far as you could go with the small outboard, noting with concern the limited visibility of about 12 to 18 inches and the significantly higher water level from Jose’s last visit. We passed a half dozen brown bears on the way up, a regular occurrence on this river, but were all by ourselves where we stopped. There were dead sockeye everywhere, layered a foot deep in the back waters and hundreds of eggs swirling on the bottom in the eddies. 

It's this food source that helps these fish get so big. Although the visibility wasn’t great, we were hopeful, as the stream wasn’t completely blown. That hope was quickly rewarded when Tom, after missing one in the hole upstream, hooked into a good fish just above the root ball of a fallen tree and a mess of woody debris. With Tom’s mad skills and the assistance of Jose, this 28-inch rainbow was netted, a great start to the day!

Keeping it out of the root wad!

Rainbow reward

 However, the great start didn’t continue as much as we would have liked. We hiked and fished about a mile upriver, and ran into a few fish (Rick had a 26-incher to the net and a smaller one in the net), a moose, and a bear (safely downriver). It wasn’t until we turned around a came back to where we started that things got interesting.

Rick's rainbow

Meandering moose

Biting bear

Tom quickly caught another nice rainbow,   then hooked and landed a char that had seriously been pigging out!   Rick finally got the right drift where Tom and picked up his last rainbow and got this nice ‘bow and three others in quick succession.

Things slowed down in the honey hole, so Rick moved downstream to a nice run we hadn’t yet fished. He returned to the boat after breaking off to get a new bead from Jose, then headed back down. While looking for rainbows behind the sockeye still spawning, he heard a big splash and looked to the right to see the hind end of a huge bear that had just climbed up on the grassy bank about 30 to 40 ft away. Rick retreated upriver (not running, and surprisingly without his heart racing at all) as the bear carefully watched him from the bank. Rick stopped a “safe” distance away on the other side of the river and got out his camera while the bear climbed back in and continued fishing, still turning occasionally to keep his eye on Rick. What an amazing sight!

Zoom in to see where the eyes are looking.

Based on the size of the fish, American Creek is back. It was a good day, and if the water had been clear, was almost certain to have been epic.

After we all returned home, we once again were casting for coho in the river below the lodge. Shan was the only one to connect and he was much more careful in where he put the salmon after he bonked them.  “The river giveth and the river taketh away.”  We then headed to the lodge for a wonderful dinner.

An Alaska Adventure--Tuesday (Part I): The Bears of Featherly Creek

Rob and Shan flew with our guide Heidi in a Cessna float plane to Featherly Creek, a tributary to Becharof Lake, a 37-mile lake that is second largest in Alaska and eighth largest (by volume) in the United States. We were in search of Arctic Char and Grayling—Rob had fished here five years ago.  We encountered low clouds so were unable to

As the plane left us on the beach for our hike into Featherly, we noted with some concern a series of rather large bear footprints.  They measured 10” wide x 14”long, which Heidi informed us would mean they belonged to a 10-foot brown bear (grizzly).  There were also wolf tracks along the beach. 

A sizable bear paw-print on our arrival beach

To our surprise, our pathway to the river coincided with the large bear tracks, headed the same direction as us and the size was somewhat unnerving, despite all we’ve been told over the years of visiting Bear Trail Lodge that they are “good bears”.

Shan with a representative grayling

Once on the river, we were quickly into char and eventually found some grayling. The grayling were the largest I’d ever caught and ranged from 18-22”.

Rob found a grayling too!

Fishing beads below an indicator we spent the entire morning fishing about 400 yards downstream from our entry point.  We were briefly visited upstream by an Alaska brown bear, not the one with large paws, and were happy when he decided to just fish where he was rather than getting a closer look at us. 

Guide Heidi showing us hot to hold one of our grayline

After a brief lunch break, we headed upstream of our entry point and again were busy with an assortment of char and grayling.  

Rob with a beautiful Arctic Char

When time arrived to head back to the lake for our pickup, we sadly bid farewell to Featherly Creek.  A great day of fishing!