The airport in King Salmon, Alaska is a Swiss Army knife of basic airport functions. It’s a ticket counter, security checkpoint, gate, and baggage claim all packed into one bare, utilitarian room.
In comparison to most US airports there’s almost a failed state lawlessness to it and as my plane from Anchorage empties a rowdy crowd develops, mostly commercial fishermen and cannery workers arriving for the summer with a few recognizable fly fishermen on the fringes.
After some shouting from veteran travelers, luggage is pulled off the short conveyor belt and a pile of bags and boxes forms on the floor. People muscle forward, grab their stuff, and shuffle out. It’s not the politely domesticated system that we’re used to at SeaTac or LAX, but it works efficiently enough, and eventually my bag and rod tube appear on the floor.
Wayne McGee emerges from the crowd. He’s a large man with long gray hair and an ATA hat that identifies him as part of Alaska Trophy Adventures, the lodge where I’m staying for a week. We recognize each other from social media pictures, shake hands, and exchange the usual post-flight pleasantries. With the crowd dissipating, he grabs one of my bags, and we head outside.
“We’ve got a few hours to kill before our final flight to the lodge,” he tells me in the van.
It’s just enough time to grab lunch, buy beer for the week, and take a drive down the one road in the region that connects the small towns of King Salmon and Naknek. We take in the sights of the nearby Naknek River, admire the fleet of drydocked boats readying for the season, and get an up-close look at the small fishing community on the edge of the Bering Sea.
Wayne tells me about the region, the rivers, and some of the businesses. Outside one bar in Naknek he points out a mangled wall where someone crashed a stolen firetruck into a building in a panicked attempt to make last call.
Soon enough Wayne and I are back at the airport loading up our small, 1-prop plane with gear and we’re in the air. King Salmon disappears behind us. The last of the roads and houses slip from view, and within a few short minutes there’s just the tundra and countless lakes and ponds beneath us. It’s vast, empty country with no sign of man anywhere.
We’re flying low enough that I can see beaver dams on some of the small rivers and streams and as we crest the small rise of hill, the Alagnak River finally comes into view, winding and braiding its way from the Nonvianuk Lake to the to the upper reaches of Kvichak Bay.
A few minutes later an airstrip and a few buildings appear on the edge of the river. As if placed there by a set designer we see a moose standing beside the runway as we land. Bags and gear are unloaded and the Otter spins around to return to King Salmon for its next assignment. I’m part of the first group to arrive for the season and there’s an undeniable feeling of commencement.
“Dinner’s at 6 with snacks and drinks in the lodge at 5:30. Go ahead and get unpacked and relax for a bit and we’ll see you then,” Wayne says before stepping aside to check in with his staff.
My cabin is just a few steps away from the main lodge. A small porch on the front overlooks the river and caribou antlers are mounted above the door. There are hooks for waders and rod holders along the outside wall. Inside there’s a neat room with a dresser, desk, and a small bathroom at the back. Clean flannel sheets cover the bed and blackout curtains dress the widows.
After the early flights, the chaos of the airports, and the general excitement of the trip, the solitude of my small cabin is a welcome intermission between acts. I light the propane stove and start to unpack bags, string up rods, and organize camera gear. My shoes are off, my bags are unpacked, and just outside my window, the Alagnak River runs towards Bristol Bay.
The next morning I wake to light rain and overcast skies on the first legal day of trout fishing on the Alagnak. As a concept, Alaska already carries the idea of limited angling pressure, but the thought of being the absolute first to cast flies to hungry fish that season is powerfully suggestive.
It’s early June in Southern Alaska and the days are endlessly long, the weather is mild, but there are still some traces of a winter hangover at the edges of a late spring. It’s that sweet time of year between ice out and mosquito swarms, when the trees are beginning to leaf but aren’t exactly vibrant yet and the long grass beside the river is brown, yellow, still flat and pressed down from months of snow.
A conveniently placed side channel where the water runs slack lies just below the lodge with a small fleet of beached john boats idling quietly. We’ve gathered on the beach in preparation of the day and after some discussion and coordination, river beats are assigned, rods and bags are loaded up, and we head out.
My guide Nic is at the tiller of our boat, weaving his way confidently through the Alagnak’s complex channels and branches. Unlike many of the Pacific Northwest rivers, with their straightforward bars, runs, and occasional runoffs, the Alagnak curves, braids, and wanders.
Nic points behind the river islands on our 30-minute ride. “The main thing we’re looking for today are the clean seams behind islands where a runoff meets back up with the river. Our biggest fish hold in the soft water there.”
We’re heading for the confluence of the Nonvianuk and Alagnak Rivers, a special portion of the upper watershed where the two rivers meet. On our way up we pass an old trapper’s cabin, a huge coastal brown bear peering hungrily down into the river, and more fishable water than I thought possible.
After Nic beaches the boat, I follow a well-worn bear trail through thick bushes to the top of the run. As I step down from the bank into the water, I see that I can’t wade out too far and that the water off the bank is full of good-sized boulders.
I’m fishing an 11′ 5″ Burkheimer 7 weight switch rod and with just the Skagit head past my rod tip I begin covering water close to me, swinging a small black sculpinator through the boulder littered water and letting it hang down before stripping it back. With each swing I pull running line off the reel and cast out a bit farther into the run. After 10 good pulls of running line I’m casting out into the green water, covering a good portion of the run, and at the bottom of my swing my fly is passing through the boulders slowly, helplessly, seductively.
I start to step down the run with my casts and my hangdown is holding just off the bank. On my second big cast I can feel something pecking at the fly as soon as it lands, and as the fly starts to turn the fish commits, hooks itself solidly, and heads out into the current. I can feel its weight immediately and I give Nick a yell to let him know I’ve hooked up. He’s already stepping into the river below me with the net before I finish saying, “It feels like a pretty good one.”
The fish senses Nick in the water and makes another run peeling line off the reel.
“I thought I’d get one out of the boulders closer to shore. This fish was out in that flat,” I tell him as the fish runs.
The rainbow finally begins to tire and Nic nets it neatly. It’s a bright, perfectly spotted Alaskan rainbow, every bit of 24 inches, with no signs of stress or predation; just a healthy, wild, and fearless fish that’s perfectly matched to the rod that I’m fishing.
“Most of the people we guide here can barely roll cast past those boulders because the bushes are so tight to shore. You can really fish this whole run with a spey rod,” Nick says as the fish swims away.
As we work our way back to the lodge, I realize that the bet that I’ve made on swinging for Alaskan rainbows is paying off. At each spot where we stop there’s action. Working slowly through an inside corner – grab. Hanging down into the soft water of a island seam – grab. Swinging through the slow grease of a perfect tail out – grab. Not every take stayed connected but after all swings through my home rivers of the Pacific Northwest that have gone unanswered, the consistent takes on the Alagnak are an undeniable luxury.
Back at the lodge that night, the apple pie tastes even sweeter after an excellent meal of prime rib, a few beers, and a day of world-class fishing. The other guests have had a similar experience that day with one fish around 26 inches taken on a leach pattern.
After dinner I walk back to my cabin and take a hot shower before bed. The sun is still lighting up the tundra in a drawn-out dusk that eventually morphs into dawn so I draw the blackout curtains over the windows before climbing into bed.
* * * * *
The next five days on the Alagnak repeat themselves with unapologetic good fortune. The other guests and I wake, eat breakfast together, meet our guides by the beached john boats, and then head upriver to our assigned beats. We work different sections each day, the rainbows continue to hit swung flies, and our days are filled with consistent action. We eat lunch in the boats as we motor between spots, and in the evenings we return to the lodge for dinner and drinks. We’re settling into the trip, forming friendships with the guides and staff, and sharing fishing stories from our respective homes.
On my last full day of fishing a stiff breeze greets us at the boat launch before we head out. Early in the day I hook a good fish that takes off immediately in the fast water. My reel screams with line peeling off the spool as the fish heads downstream with the current. It feels and acts like a steelhead run but after Wayne nets it we were shocked at its size. It’s one of the smaller rainbows of the trip, maybe 17 inches, but it’s easily the strongest.
Later on at the confluence I land my largest fish of the trip, a stout 26” fish that takes a Dali llama with absolute conviction and holds in the current with stubborn resolve. It doesn’t have the spirit of the 17-inch fish but it’s the most visually perfect fish of the trip with ink black spots, a bright red band and cheeks, and a thick paddle tail.
Back at camp, the wind that typically dies down in the evening actually strengthens to healthy gale that lasts all night, rattling the roof and windows of my cabin. Something about being indoors, cocooned in warm flannel sheets during an Alaskan front sends me into a deep, peaceful sleep and I wake up the next morning sublimely refreshed.
At breakfast Wayne gives me an update on travel plans.
“Flights are grounded with this wind but hopefully we’ll see a break in this wind later in the afternoon. Go ahead and pack up what you can and then you can fish close to the lodge with Nic for a few hours. We’ll come find you as soon as we hear word from the pilot when it’s safe to fly. It’s possible that we might not be able to get you to King Salmon today, but we’ll figure it out.”
Nic and I poke around in the branches and braids close to the lodge but the wind has stirred up the lakes so that the water downstream has cooled and clouded up a bit. For the first time in days, I’m swinging flies through beautiful holding water without aggressive takes. I can feel the trip slipping away from me, but it’s been such a good week that I can accept a quiet ending. We keep fishing, making casts, waiting for that first grab to break the silence but nothing happens.
It’s almost a relief when Wayne comes down river to let us know that my plane is on the way. We head back to camp, I pack wet waders into my luggage, and fumble my goodbyes on the air strip as the small plane from King Salmon lands. The wind has indeed settled down a bit, but it’s still gusting heavily enough for me to consider the possibility of death in a small Alaskan bush plane. We take off without any issue and I begin my journey home. The ATA Lodge disappears behind us and soon it’s just endless tundra as we fly south.
* * * * *
Back in King Salmon before my flight to Anchorage, I’m killing time with a small glass of bourbon at the Sockeye Saloon. I have a few hours to sit by myself and think about my time on the Alagnak, and I’m trying to find some kind of resolution before I head home.
It’s difficult to distill my experience that week into a sterile metric like total fish caught. I shy away from estimating or trying to calculate a number, and end up remembering the special fish landed, the good fish lost, a perfect cast and swing down into a tail out on one of the lower river beats. It’s the core scenes, not numbers, that come to mind, but what I’m most aware of is the undeniable action that I saw day after day, in spot after spot; a lifetime of grabs in a week of fishing.
As a steelheader, I knew what it was like to swing flies seductively across a river’s current, but I didn’t know how it would feel like find willing fish so consistently. And after experiencing a river simply teeming with large aggressive fish, I wonder for a second if I can wholly return home to steelheading, or if part of me is forever changed by the Alagnak. How can I possibly go back to steelheading after the week I just had?
That’s the whole point of fishing trips, right? You travel to faraway lands, live another life for a moment, and bring a changed perspective home with you. I sit with that question and a second glass of bourbon and realize that even after experiencing true abundance in Alaska, I’d still rather casually pursue steelhead back home. The Pacific Northwest’s glacial rivers, snowcapped mountains, sea-run fish, and massive evergreens are a world apart from other angling destinations, and I accept the silence between casts as a part of the overall price.
It’s a contradictory resolution, but I had to experience a fishery like the Alagnak to truly understand and appreciate the beautiful rarity in my back yard. Wild steelhead are rare creatures and I think we’ve forgotten that even under ideal populations and management, we’re not meant to catch them hand over fist.
I finish my drink and the bartender asks if I’d like another. I’m mildly day drunk from two stiff drinks and the peace that comes with profound realization. Although I still have an hour until my flight to Anchorage takes off, I decline and settle my tab. Two bourbons is plenty for my layover in King Salmon, and I still have time to kill in Anchorage before my final flight home.
Angler story by Brett Gaba, be sure to follow Brett on Instagram at @originalgaba.
