© 2000 lanny chambers

The not-too-ugly view behind our hotel in Anchorage. Bill is an accomplished flyfisher and had brought back salmon from a similar trip two years earlier, along with scarcely-believable tales of fabulous angling, but although I had a little flyrod experience, my most impressive fish had been a 14-pound channel cat, caught with spinning gear on 4-pound line. In addition to being my vacation roommate and always my good friend, Bill would be my guide and teacher on this, my first trip to Alaska and first for salmon. We stayed at the SpringHill Suites in Anchorage, and rented a car (a Kia Sportage, an adequate but uninspiring miniature SUV). Our plans were to devour the latest local fishing reports and go where the salmon action promised to be heaviest and the tourist population lightest. The only definite destination on the agenda was the Russian River, on the Kenai Peninsula. However, the Kenai sockeye (red) salmon run was shaping up to be a disappointing one, and to protect the resource the state closed the Kenai River to fishing for reds, except on the Russian River. This meant all the anglers that would otherwise have been stretched out along 65 miles of the Kenai would now be concentrated on less than a mile of the Russian...a condition known as "combat fishing," where elbows rub and folks wait for turns to get to the water. We had agreed before the trip that neither of us was willing to spend precious vacation time that way, so the Russian was reluctantly stricken from the list. Denali (a.k.a. Mt. McKinley) on the horizon, as seen on our daily commute up the Parks Highway, north of Willow (160 miles south of the mountain). Bill had fished a tiny stream called Montana Creek on his first trip, and remembered it had been a bit too far from Anchorage (about 90 miles north on the Parks Highway) to lure non-Alaskans from Anchorage, especially since there are numerous very good salmon streams much closer to town. A quick check of the Anchorage newspaper's fishing summary listed the Montana among those creeks in the Susitna River drainage described as having "flabbergasting" numbers of fish. Seemed like a promising place to start... After a 2-hour drive, we hit the Montana around 9 a.m. Friday. We parked the Kia, and followed the path to check out the creek. We found ourselves on a gravel bar (cobbles, actually), in front of a hole between two riffles on a rather small but very clear stream with moderate current and a large eddy on the other side of the current. There seemed to be a shadow in the eddy, perhaps a sunken log or large rock ledge? Putting on our polarized sunglasses, we saw ... FISH. Thousands of fish, mostly pink (humpy) salmon, with a few coho (silver) and chum (dog) salmon among them, in a near-solid mass 50 feet long, 10 feet wide, and 5 feet deep. A smaller mass of fish occupied the shallows at our feet. The adrenaline started to flow. Our hands were trembling, but with some difficulty we strung our flyrods and pulled on our waders, barely pausing to double check our gear and apply DEET to keep the skeeters at bay. It was drizzling, but we hardly noticed. This chum salmon trashed my body ... and it was only the first day! Lanny's daily limit of cohos. Within half an hour, I learned how to lob a Russian River spec coho fly and 1/4 ounce of lead the 30 feet across the creek into the far eddy, how to tell when a fish had taken the fly, and how to land my first-ever salmon, a pink of about 5 pounds. That's normally large for a pink, but this year's run was ... well ... flabbergasting. It took a little more time to learn to wait for a definite pickup so I wouldn't be foul-hooking fish right and left - did I mention there were a LOT of salmon in that creek? Perhaps one strike out of 50 would be a silver, fish in the 10-15 pound range that are harder to land and are like hooking a passing rocket. Silvers rip line off the reel - even upstream! - in total disregard for the laws of biology and physics, with acrobatic jumps thrown in for good measure. Somewhat more common was catching a chum, a 15-20 pound salmon that feels like snagging a bulldozer - chums don't seem to realize they've been hooked until you cross their eyes with a few hefty hooksets, preferably after first choosing a good place to spend the next 10-15 minutes until the fish can be beached, unhooked, and released. Chums jump, too, but more like orcas than Wallendas. They are not as fast as silvers, but oh my are they strong! By the end of the first day, I had landed 3 chums and maybe 75 pinks, losing several silvers along the way. My biceps were cramping from fighting fish, my hands were bruised from the rod grip and the pliers I use to remove hooks, my stomach was black and blue from the fighting butt of the rod, my back hurt, and I smelled bad. I was delighted with the way the trip was shaping up. I wondered if I would survive it. Chinook salmon spawning in Moose Creek. Salmon turn red just before they spawn and die. Over the next 6 days, we scouted a few alternative spots, including catching a salmon on every cast for nearly 2 hours in the tiny hamlet of Hope on the south shore of the Turnagain Arm, and a morning on Moose Creek catching a few pinks and silvers, but spending less time fishing than watching king salmon spawning a couple of yards from the car. But we kept returning to Montana Creek; no stream had as many fish or fewer anglers. I learned to land silvers, and how to avoid hooking those arm-wrecking chums. We shared "our" gravel bar with up to 11 others at times, but there were obviously lots of room and plenty of salmon for everyone, and our colleagues were uniformly courteous, sportsmanlike, and forgiving of my occasional clumsy maneuver. Lines rarely crossed, and were always untangled with good grace and a smile. We were on vacation, after all. Bill caught more silvers...but mine were bigger. Bill listening to his chum. By Thursday, our middle-aged muscles were starting to recover more quickly and actually showing signs of getting stronger. The bruises had reached the yellow phase. The salmon bites on my plier hand were healing nicely. Still, it was getting harder to roll out of bed each morning, and dressing our catch in the hotel room sink seemed to steal more time from our sleeping budget each night. The only time one of us could truly relax was in the passenger seat when the other was piloting the 2-hour commute to the creek. Fortunately, the passenger's snoring helped keep the driver awake. I had decided I would not count my fish this trip. Still, Bill estimated we had each averaged at least 100 fish per day, for 7 days. Figure a conservative average weight per fish of 4 pounds, and I'd landed nearly a ton and a half of salmon! We filled a 48-quart cooler with frozen filets, mostly silvers, and tipped the hotel staff with the pieces that wouldn't fit. On Friday, our last day, we elected to sightsee instead of abusing our arms further. We drove down to Seward, taking the photos below along the way. We're already planning our 2002 trip, and I might even make Bill an offer for the fine Powell rod he kindly loaned me. It would be foolish to take for granted the fine weather and astonishing fishing we experienced this year, but not to hope for it on our return would be insane. Angling notes: we fished coho flies (33¢ at any Alaskan Wal-Mart), 9.5-foot #8 flyrods (Sage, Powell), large reels (Cortland, Scientific Anglers) with heavy disk drags, and 1/8 to 3/8 ounce twist-on sinkers depending on the current. Line is unimportant when throwing lead across a small stream via overhead lob, but sink-tip allows using a little less sinker weight. We tied leader/tippet from 15-pound Maxima Cameleon. Hemostats are toys better suited to trout and bass; for salmon, you need real pliers. I was very comfortable in my neoprene hip waders and felt-soled wading boots (both from Hodgeman). Sunscreen and DEET insect repellent are mandatory, as is breakfast. Try not to forget to eat lunch! Flyfishing, we outfished the spinning reel crowd by a factor of at least five. I suppose we must have looked like we knew what we were doing - local anglers kept asking the standard icebreaker question, "So, how long have you lived in Alaska?" Naturally, it went straight to our heads!

Epilogue Three days after we departed Montana Creek, this Alaskan brown bear (grizzly to non-Alaskans) moved up from the mouth of the creeek, where he had been hanging out during our week, to the same hole we had been fishing! While I'm sure he could have taught us a thing or ten about catching salmon, we are both content we did not have to prove our collective cowardice by setting a new record for a sprint to the car. Hey, he got his fish, and we got ours.

Sightseeing Logic would suggest it must be possible to take an ugly photo in Alaska, but I didn't have time to learn the technique. You'll just have to suffer through these...

Portage Glacier, from Seward Highway near the Portage Road intersection.
Lanny at Portage Glacier Lake, near the 2-mile-long tunnel to Whittier that opened to cars in June 2000.
The hanging glacier above Whittier, on Prince William Sound. The tunnel turned Whittier from a sleepy fishing town into a yuppie tourist trap overnight.
The harbor at Seward, from a cafe where we had superb halibut'n'chips. The salmon derby was in full swing, and seals were hanging out at the fish cleaning station.
Trail Lake, Seward Highway north of Moose Pass. The lake water is milky white from suspended glacial rock flour.
Lower Summit Lake south of Turnagain Pass, from Seward Highway.
Marshy pond east of Kenai Lake, from Sterling Highway just west of the Seward Highway intersection.
Dall sheep on the north shore of the Turnagain Arm, from Seward Highway.