Alagnak River Alaska

[mems]

Just got back from Alaska. Did a float on the Alagnak river with my son Luke, Guide Ron Doebler and his son Tobias, my friend Dr. Peter Matsuura and his best friend Dr. Tom Togioka. It was Luke's birthday and he got to fly the bush plane. We flew Branch Air, "Best in the Bush".



This was Luke's first trip to Alaska. Peter was a new flyfisherman, and caught salmon and trout and even a grayling on a dry fly. Tom was a trout guy from Cali, but had a blast on big salmon.



Landed the float plane on lake Nonvianuk. Set up camp and got a couple of small bows and dollies at the lake behind salmon.

Woke up next morning packed the rafts and headed out on our Alaskan adventure.



There were still kings in the system and they put up a good fight.



Dollies would hug the bottom, but were very strong.



Got to the confluence and got into more kings and our targeted species coho salmon. Good fun on the 6wt.



Luke got in on the action. Ron was a great guide and took care of all the details and made the trip a great success







This was the brightest bow of the trip, looked like a steelhead to me. Most of the bows were in spawning dark green and the males would loose their load when caught. Luckily I like my coffee black.





Luke and I doubled up on coho and Luke made sure I knew whose was bigger.





We headed down stream and picked up more fish.



We saw some bears, but no dangerous encounters.



But there were constant reminders we were in their environment.







We got downstream to the beaver pond hole and found more silvers.

We ate fresh fish every night, most agreed lilikoi butter salmon was tough to beat, but grayling is delicious too.



A storm rolled in the last day and we had to break cam early but were greeted with this sunrise at take out. The planes arrived and it was back to Anchorage. Next I will share some pics from the Kenai.

[Jcolin]

Awesome report thanks Mems! Sounds like you guys had a great trip. My brother and i are hoping to do an overnightt float next summer on the alganak or maybe the nushagak. Did you guys use a bear fence around your camp? We did an overnight wilderness flot on the situk last summer where i worked a summer in yakutat but there were forest service cabins that we stayed in, id be nervous about sleeping in a tent with the bears.

[mems]

Yes bear fence, bear spray, and guns. It really wasn't a problem for us, but there were not that many salmon in the system. The silvers were just showing up, and evidently bears get hunted on the alagnak so they stay away, but you never know.

[John H]

Looks like a great time. I did some trips like that 15 years ago. Floating, camping and catching silvers and rainbows. A big adventure for sure. No bear fence on our trip. Our outfitter probably told us we did not need it.

Thanks for posting.