Koktuli River, AK

[johnsquires]

Back to civilization after a great trip. First time the rainbows outnumbered the dollies.
Eight nights on the river, floated about 45 miles, and did not see one other person. The bears were hiding, also.
One client who greatly improved his fly fishing skills, another who learned to fly fish on the trip and was doing great by the end of the float.
Thanks, Lee, Susan, Andrew and Chris for making my job a pleasure.
Time to start plotting next year's trips.

[johnsquires]

BTW, Susan wins the prize for most species caught: grayling, dolly varden, rainbow, sockeyes, chum, and silvers.

[SeanO]

Sounds sweet John! Six species is a good trip for sure.

Lets see some pics!!

[EricO]

Sounds sweet John! Six species is a good trip for sure.

Lets see some pics!!

Agreed, fire some pics off of those beasts so I can live vicariously!

[John Sv]

This is what I want to do when I get to AK. Planning a trip next year with my Dad.
Any place to do this in SE AK? EsP Dollies and Grayling? I'd swap 'bows for cuts too. (Can catch bows 20 feet from my office or 1/4 mile from my house)

BTW, Susan wins the prize for most species caught: grayling, dolly varden, rainbow, sockeyes, chum, and silvers.

[johnsquires]

This is what I want to do when I get to AK. Planning a trip next year with my Dad.
Any place to do this in SE AK? EsP Dollies and Grayling? I'd swap 'bows for cuts too. (Can catch bows 20 feet from my office or 1/4 mile from my house)

John, I would recommend you contact Brad at AK Fly Fishing Goods, www.alaskaflyfishinggoods.com I believe is the site. He is an expert on SE AK.

[johnsquires]

Sounds sweet John! Six species is a good trip for sure.

Lets see some pics!!

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This client's first-ever trout caught on a fly. I think he's spoiled.

[johnsquires]

Agreed, fire some pics off of those beasts so I can live vicariously!

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[lee s.]

John,
Just back from our extra days in Anchorage.
What a GRAND trip!!! Could not have been better! Thanks to you and Joe in spades, for sure!
Damned sure is hard to get necessarily civilized again.
Unpacking and pics to you in a bit.....
.....lee s.

[johnsquires]

Thanks, Lee. It's always easier for Joe and I when we have good clients, which is most of the time.
So many great memories - of the laughs, the fish, the campsites, the wildlife and scenery. And we didn't see one other person on the river. I'm looking forward to the pictures.
Chris and Andrew must have really enjoyed themselves - they want to go again next year. We'll see how many wilderness trips this old body can do in one year, although you guys made it much easier with all your help.
John

[tfish]

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Some friends and I just did a float trip south of you guys. We got home on the 4th. That moon was amazing. We did good on Rainbows using egg "patterns", flesh and mice. We're going back next year.

Tony

[johnsquires]

Some friends and I just did a float trip south of you guys. We got home on the 4th. That moon was amazing. We did good on Rainbows using egg "patterns", flesh and mice. We're going back next year.

Tony

Did you do the Stuyahok River?
I'm surprised you did good on mice. Rainbows aren't usually looking up this time of the year. Sounds great.

[johnsquires]

Hot flies for us were purple egg-sucking leech, flesh flies and starlight leech. Stimulators and prince nymphs for grayling. For the record, Lee's "Booby Fly" didn't catch one fish.

[tfish]

We were on the Alagnak. I even got a couple of big Greyling on a mouse.

Tony

[johnsquires]

We were on the Alagnak. I even got a couple of big Greyling on a mouse.

Tony

Very nice, Tony.
Hard to come back to civilization, isn't it?

[johnsquires]

A guy I know in Stockton did the Alagnak a few years back. Guide flipped the raft at beginning of trip and he lost all his fishing gear, a lot of the food and some camping gear. Trip turned out to be a mess.
Did you guys have any close calls, Tony?

[tfish]

Didn't/Don't mean to hijack your thread.

This is our 7th (IIRC) unguided trip. In the last few years I've heard some non flattering things about the Alagnak. We figured if we were going to go now would be good. We only saw five other people and the fishing was really good for us. This was probably the easiest river we've done. I even left our bow saw at home figuring it's been well traveled for years. Our last trip was on the American and the bow saw, machete and rope gear all came in handy there. A friend of ours has a 16 NRS Cat that we are able to borrow. We put in on the Novi (maybe the Stockton guy put in on the other lake. I think it's more of a challenge). The only camps we saw were at the beginning and end of the trip. We made our own camps the rest of the nights. We only set up the Bear fence the first night not knowing how many Bears were around. I think we ended up seeing a dozen of them. We saw over 120 Bears on the American and used the Bear fence every night there.
The fishing on the Alagnak got much better just below Alaska Adventure Lodge. As for fishing, one spot I got 17 nice Dollies and my son got a good many also. Another day after Breakfast and before lunch I got 6 Rainbows and 25 Geryling on a mouse or BIG dry flies. The biggest Rainbows we got were 25" big and fat with their mouths packed full of flesh. We got lots in the 20" range. No silvers, our pick-up was before we got to them.The weather was good, some sun, some rain and some wind..Alaska. I only ended up with 2 bug bites.

We're gonna go back next year.

John if you have any questions PM me.

Tony

[johnsquires]

You're not hijacking, Tony. I enjoy reading about others' wilderness experiences.

My objective most of the time is to find rivers with no lodges, no guides, and hopefully few, if any, other people.

You may want to check out the Nayorurun River over in the Togiak Wildlife Preserve. I think you would enjoy it.

[johnsquires]

This client's first salmon ever - and he got it on a fly.11178