The fishing at the first major tributary was mediocre, by comparison at least. A few small trout and relatively uninteresting water. I hiked a ways up the trickle that passed for a creek and saw but a single lonely king lingering in a tailout. For his sake (and all of our I suppose), I hoped he had more friends higher up. So down we went. The river miles are divided fairly evening between the good camps and the good fishing on this float, which is nice. None of the days were too long or too short, all allowing for a decent chunk of rowing without the need for an early rise or late night all while leaving plenty of time for stopping to pick the cherries and probe the A+ water along the way. To fish every bit of moderately fishy water on this creek you would need months to float it.

Our second night on the river was at the next major tributary and the camping was on a big beautiful beach, surprisingly lacking the ever present bear tracks that seem to follow concentrations of salmon on nearly every river up here. As I rowed across the seam between the main flow and the small tributary towards camp, red kings scattered everywhere. They were corked up at the mouth of the small creek, no doubt waiting for a bump in the flows to run the skinny gauntlet of water threading its way between giant granite boulders.




Kings holding on the seam.




Their path ahead.





As tends to be the case, there was an angry hoard of rainbows lurking behind the kings, waiting for their eggs to start dropping.












This rainbow kinda looked like a chinook-humpy-rainbow hybrid. Very atypical markings and spots for this system at least.






I love the detail in these fish. The closer you look, the more you see.






This guy was hanging out in the shallows waiting for an easy meal and he let me sneak up pretty close before bolting off.




















While I was happily fishing away for troots, a perfectly good coho interrupted my session by eating my bead, so we decided to make him dinner. Eat him that is, not invite him over to sit by the fire for a plate of noodles with us.





















Got a little more up my sleeve here, but I'll wrap it up soon, I promise.