Have you noticed when you’re fishing with a group of people, there is always one angler who just doesn’t fit in with the group? I don’t mean they have bad breath or a contrary personality. It’s the fish they were catching or not catching. Like the time, I was fishing out of George Inlet Lodge …
Rocky Constant’s client for the afternoon halibut tide was casting champion Steve Rajeff. He intends to try and break the halibut 12-pound-line class world record. Rocky put his party on the hole he sought and announced, “Let’s go fishing. The tide is slack, and the fish should be biting.” Steve makes two false casts, then …
Jerry Pippen, Rainbow Bay’s owner, invited me to join four Outside visitors and spend a day fishing for halibut and humpies. Jerry explained we would fish the morning high tide for humpies and the afternoon slack tide for halibut. Then, we would rendezvous with guides and boats in the early morning and travel three miles …
Mt. McKinley’s 20,320-foot summit guards the Interior’s southern flank, and the Brooks Range stands watch to the north. East is the Yukon border, and the west converges to the Bering Sea. Most of the country is covered with low, rolling hills. Braided rivers cross the country on their way to the sea. The great rivers …
One Kodiak river I never tire of fishing is the Karluk. On my first trip to Karluk, during the short boat ride from the airport to the lodge, I began receiving my Karluk River education. The guide explained that the fish come in on the tide. It is best to start fishing at the mouth …
Jerry Pippen of Rainbow Bay Resort and I were trying to do something no one had ever done, catch all five species of Pacific salmon in one day. “There they are!” A deep hole contained about 20 kings. “Is that bar upstream on the right long enough to get in and out of?” “I think …
It’s difficult to conceive of arriving at the age of accountability without a memory of at last one fish fracturing the surface of some aqueous setting. Then came one Rick Nita from Los Angeles, California, confessing the absence of fishing in his life. He admitted to a feeling of remorse and a yearning to repent. …
Knowing he was going to Dillingham at the height of the commercial red salmon season, my friend Jerry invited a large group of friends to a fish fry. He left the impression with the group that he was going fishing and would supply the fish. He didn’t mention, however, that he was going commercial fishing …
My first fly-in fishing trip in Alaska was to the Deshka River in 1959 during silver salmon season. We fished all evening and had the mouth of the river to ourselves. Back then, Bob Farmer was a teenager tending his father’s boat rental business a mile up from where the Deshka meets the Big Susitna. …
We drove to Chitna to witness Alaska residents taking red salmon with long-handled dip nets. The Copper River’s water near Chitna is filled with glacial silt. Thousands upon thousands of returning red salmon run the river to their natal clear-water stream entering the silty Copper. The State allows residents to subsistence-fish using dip nets. Experienced …