You just gotta know that a trip will be good when you can bullsh!t your way into 1st class for free on the ride out of town....this is the good life!



I'll take this opportunity to thank Dave for the invite to Katmai Lodge for 5 days in the peak of the silver run on the alagnak river to do some scientific trials on what those silver sided devils prefer to eat up there, tough job.

Dave didn't make it too far into the trip when I realized I was traveling with Rip Van Winkle



Saturday was for travel, all day in the Anchorage airport was made bearable by Dave getting us into the *Board Room* and out of the main terminal, nice....very nice. Flew out to King Salmon that evening and we were met at the airport and loaded into the turbine otter, that thing just jumps off of the ground with only three on board, fun flight out over the tundra for a half hour or so. The Lodge was about what I expected...only bigger, talk about a city in the middle of the bushes, lots of staff and customers roaming around and everyone seemed happy to be there.

1st day out I decided to get in touch with my feminine side, I guess i have been fli-curious for a while and a bit of experimentation was in order...



A few silvers were roaming by and I was having some trouble getting my sh!t together with the whole fly thing...so, I decided to try something else.

Wogging. I've decided that this is the most fun a person can have NOT catching fish, I tied one on and managed to flog it out 30ft on my second casting attempt...the thing gets rocked, full on frontal attack, I was still trying to untangle line from pretty much everthing around me when the perfect silver launches 2 ft out of the water with my wog (thanks KK) in its mouth...I don't yank it away, I really didn't do anything... when the fish hit the water my wog was back to just sitting there looking sad, oh well it was double cool and I was flogging away like a man possessed for the next hour with plenty of V-wakes chasing and a few good boils but no hooked fish.

Dave had been yarding a few in with a leechy looking pink thing on his fly rod so I switched over and was rewarded with instant gratification.




Dave and Josiah were working a little drop down below me a bit and the fish would nose up to the shelf before breaking into the shallows and scooting upriver....they were not all silvers either.



Some of these chums were still looking good and the silver action wasn't red hot so...we flogged away at them.



A big buck that, well..if you look past it being a chum was kinda pretty.


We spent the day down on the lower portion of the river, the early shot of silvers played out quickly and we really had to hunt...ended up playing with pinks on any seam we stopped at and never really found the mother lode of silvers.

A big black cloud had started to form and we wondered if it might rain......smart bet is that as soon as you start running is when it will let loose. (sucks to be you josiah)



Back to the lodge by 5:30 to dry out a bit and get ready for food, good food too, then a shot or 6 and get some shuteye.



I'll pick it up at day two later....it get's better.

stam

Wogging? Is that anything like running a popper on the surface? You running some form of outbound floating line, or what?

You TRYING to do a double haul there, or did the pic of the moment just capture you in that pose? I still can't do a damn double haul. That cast kicks my ass.

Cool bone so far. Toss some more!



PS. *No One* falls asleep in first class while reading Hemmingway. That photo was staged. Fitting book, though. Nice!

Right on. Nothing like a good snore on a plane

"fli" curious has me busting up.

I love reading these posts. Hopefully someday I will get up there and have something to post. Thanks Stam

Nice job

Nice! I don't think I've ever seen you cast a bug rod. Parker, woggs are big old flies you drag across the surface. Silvers love big pink woggs. It's like skating a dry, well, thats what it is....
Stam you should send mark a copy of that photo with you holding the silver. Maybe he will put you on a poster or somthin....
Neal

Old Man & the Sea. Classic!

That's just one of the side benefits of aging Dogfish....Dave has probably read that book 10 times. He just doesn't remember reading it. Now he get's a "fresh read".
Pretty cool if you ask me.

Ah, yes. Early stages of Alhzhimer's.

You can hide your own Easter Eggs!

You can wrap your own Christmas Presents!

Nice.

Wogging is AK's form of billybobbassfishing, floating line and a surface popper usually in pink, very fun.

I do more of a single haul Parker, got it nailed on the backcast...in fact I should just face the opposite direction and I could cast halfway across the river, I'll get it down soon.

Pic was not staged, Dave borrowed my book 'cause all he had was some Tom Robbins which isn't bad...but it's no damn motivational fishing novel.


Part 2:
Anyway, we went back downriver the second morning, pretty much the same program, hit a few spots and look for moving fish...with pretty much the same results.



I was ready to do some damage and switched over to hardware, Joe from rvrfshr has been good to me over the years and I had a bunch of homebuilt spinners and a complete arsenal of spoons ready to rip, Dave had gotten a big goody bag from Todd but he was still in jig mode....go figure.

At some point it was decided that it really didn't much matter what you threw....as long as you thre it right.

Black spoon



pink fly



gold hootchie spinner



copper spoon



Also had success with 50/50's, silvers & golds.

They all worked well, but ......a #4 silver hootchie spinner with a custom hot pink skirt was in my humble opinnyion the shiznit, banged more chrome than BigStick with that baby, and the question was asked many times on the river "if you only had one lure to toss what would it be" my vote goes to the silver and pink hootchie, Dave, after ripping shredding and tearing them up with jigs still was not convinced.

Had visitors this day also..







A sow with a couple of cubs wandered by and disrupted my chi for a bit, she amble off in disgust after I hollered at her to "show me your tits"...

Here's the pic I'll send to my grandma'...



Same bar as the bears liked we were working it pretty hard and I had busted out my old favorite spoon, a hammered red mortac that I had crushed the steelhead on the skeena with a few years back....my last one, just wanted to use it a bit and looky what I found!



My best trout ever, josiah (si) thought I was kidding when I said it looked like a steelhead as there are very few trout in the lower river this time of year....anyway this one could have passed for mid december bogi brat and did a good job of smiling for a pic or two.

We ended up poking around in some new water that afternoon and did wind up on a pretty good run late in the day and just kept casting and trying different stuff out, what a difference it makes fishing over silvers that will run your gear down and crush iit, would like to have tried eggs drifted weightless but the regs say no way and that method was left untried.

more later.

stam

Joe still looks at me with a weird sense of dismay when I bust out the hootchie spinners, but they sure do wreak havoc with fall salmon...coho, chums, and pinks...

Great pics!

Fish on...

Todd

Nice--keep it comin!

Cool stuff,Got any more????.Good luck,
STRIKE ZONE

yeah, that is only day two of phase one of the trip The boss is bein' a bitch today and making me work......some.

Then what are you doing on here?????.Good luck,
STRIKE ZONE

Go Hard or Go Home!!!!!!

A sow with a couple of cubs wandered by and disrupted my chi for a bit, she amble off in disgust after I hollered at her to "show me your tits"...

I dont care what they say ... that is friggin hilarious

I'm lovin' the Stam-n-Dave Road Show! Keep the pix and prose coming when the boss gives ya a break....

Stam. those are some of the best photos i've seen on here, that made my day! Getting to go with DV....you lucky prik!

so jealous! Very nice fish, and very nice pics! I would love to get on board for yearly trips like that! Good stuff Stam!

Day Three and Four:

Still working the lower portion of the river...not bored with silver fishing, yet. Went after it with the wogs again, a bit upriver of the lodge and had a crazy morning of maniacally casting from the boat (a lesson in tangling sh!t up is what it was) too many follows to count, a bunch that chased, splashed, flipped, jumped, bit, ate and generally molested out wogs....and still no solid hookups, d'oh. Si says he has a shot with his new camera all zoomed in on my wog with a fish, open mouthed six inches behind it, hope to see that one when he gets a connection better than a couple of soup cans and a string.

Then it was back to work, "testing" Dave decided to test out a spey rod, and Dave having never used one I naturally assumed it would be interesting, it was, Si had no real working knowledge of the spey rod so Dave reverted to conventional casting and proceeded to tear it up..





We then headed waaay downriver to tidewater to look for real fresh fish....stopped on a run and quickly realized that they were here today...and snappy, I was still kinda sorta in fly mode and Dave had 4 to the boat in the first 10 minutes, I had none. so I did what any self respecting fisherman would do, I tossed the 8weight aside and grabbed the gear....the most outstanding morning of silver fishing I have ever seen, up to three fish chasing your stuff down to kill it, grabbing spinners three feet from the boat as you're lifting them out of the water to make another cast....just plain nutso.



We were allowed 6 fish each for the trip and had tried to limit what we killed to mortal bleeders...today being our last day dedicated to molesting silvers we went feral.



by noon we were getting worn down by the action...took a break and I grabbed the 8 weight for another crack at them....fish on, fish on..fish on.

I figured we should get the fish dealt with and have never been one to watch someone else do the dirty work, so I bust out the fillet knife and gave Si a break on the duties...

nice mess of fish.



Cruised upriver in the afternoon with some time to kill before hitting the lodge and pulled into a side channel/slough....plenty of pinks to screw with 'cause of course we weren't tired of catching fish...yet.





okay, we're tired now, lets go drink.


The last day we were hoping to schedule a flight out in the otter to go out to one of the upper areas for trout.. the brooks, american or morriane were our intended destiny's but it was not to be.....foul weather in the mornings were limiting the number of flights out and we kept getting skooched to the back of the bus....So, we headed upriver to the braids in hopes of finding the big 'bows that live in there feasting on king and chum eggs in that biological petrie dish....everything lives and dies up there, so many branches and channels spread out probably a mile wide that there is no way you could cover it all in a whole season....much less a day or two. It's a long boat ride up (hour or so) but watching the river change was pretty cool, going from grassy cutbanks to higher sediment banks then gravel bars, you could sense where the salmon were headed...ideal spawning water.

I think that bears live up here too, this guy didn't quite make it, I of course had to pick it up and spill some fermented brain juice down my waders...but it was worth it.



The f'er was HUGE and heavy ...approx 72"



We were here for trout though and they were hard to come by.....they break the braids up into sections and each guide gets to work his stretch...we drew the bottom end and the pickin's were slim.

A stiff breeze and a 6 weight with an indicator can be a bit of a problem for this rookie...so I would just wade out and feed my line down a likely looking riffle, run or chute, caught some minnows and Dave got one that he claimed was as big as his....nevermind.

We kept moving and hunting and looking around, finally pulled into a small channel that had no wind and were able to cast a bit better, Dave breaks the ice with his trophy, Si..who had had a bit of a problem hangin' onto some fish (and we took great delight in tormenting him over it) drops the big one and as you can see Dave is PISSED!



After Dave soremouths the works in the run it's my turn....I finally get my chance and it's bobber down! I set the hook and battle my monster to the bitter end, I win this round..and make the most of it with my best montana flyguy impersonation



Last evening was pretty much chill time, we were not to leave until 10 the next morning so we soaked it up a bit, I watched a bear pick a fish out of the river from the deck of our room and just generally enjoyed the sunset...

Nice pics Stam, glad to see those wogs got some useage up there.
I still have a boatload of pink deer hair, when you run out of 'em.

Great picture show steve, you sure know how to live!

Steve

One more pix from that trip. This is the view from our room.

How did you 2 ever suffer thru all that ??? Looks amazing !!! Thanks...

Awesome photos guys. Thanks! I needed it..

Didn't you guys do anything fun?

Qaulity amigo!

Great stuff! Always love your reports and envious.

Actually, yes.

The next day was our departure from the lodge in the otter with Frank (the pilot) a grizzled old alakskan with some great philosophy's and story's, here's his office.



From King Salmon Dave had to grab a flight back to Seattle to prepare for his next adventure, I did not.

So, I had made plans to stay and visit/fish with my friend K8 up in King Salmon where she has been guiding trout and Salmon trips all summer for Nancy Morris, I knew she would be out working when we arrived so I had the better part of the day to explore the town....the otter pilot Frank had to run up to Naknek and I bummed a ride with him, our buddy Jim bucket Heins had told me to swing by the trident seafood plant and say hey to his son and biz partner, they (along with luke) took me in a gave me a great lunch and tour of the plant, place is crazy...



Found my way to K8's place that evening and met up for a few drinks and some fishing off of the dock at the lodge....and finally found some silvers that would not bite.

I was staying right up the hill from King Salmon Creek and was told that there were silvers in it, it's a small stream and the bugs are bad but that's okay, I was getting used to them, spent the next several days prowling the banks spotting and decoding these fish, in the small water they were more challengeing......could get one or two on the hootchies then it was off, tried different colors but once they turned off it felt like september on the sol duc...until I found that little dicknite in my bag, I rigged it just like I was drift fishing....behind a small pencil lead with a 20" leader, had a lot of fun with these guys, and the limits were more generous so I harvested some for K8 and the gang as they have very little time to fish for themselves, it was fun.





They do work those guides up there, K8 was busy, but we had time in the evenings to BS a bit and work on gear and eat, drink and be merry. I tried to get one more flight out for the fat trout at brooks falls but once again the weather fouled my plans, oh well....guess I have to go back for that one.

Stage three of the trip was a little more civilized...and relaxing, back to Anchorage to rent a car and make that nice drive down to Soldotna to check up on Bob, Corey, Rainy and Rowan.....except it was just Bob and Rainy, Corey had left him...

for the day and he was actually able to go get some stuff done, I just tagged along and bs'd the day away, Bob and Dean-O were basically done for the season but the river is still plugged with fish so we put Deans boat in the water the next day and made a run for some winters meat.....bounced eggs off of the bow of the boat with flyrods and I broke tradition and snuck a few casts with my hootchie spinner and we (I ) limited the boat in about an hour and a half, fun day...and a good day to get hot.

Dean-O did manage a fish or two...



A nice kasilof silver



Trbo making the long reach......he bagged it.



Box-O-fish....easy as that



Thanks to Bob, Corey and K8 for all the hospitality and good times...see ya'll again soon.

Looking back now is was a pretty damn good tour of AK, I didn't feel like I missed out on too much, except the flyout for rainbows and maybe a stop at the governors mansion to fulfill my librarian fantasy and see if I could knock her up with #6...next year

stam

Great report!

Epic report and fishing.

Well done!

Fantastic. You take great pics and I love your write ups. I think it's time to start submitting articles.

Nice Panorama Dave, and great report Steve...!

Sounds like you stumbled into some luck once again.

Absolutely phenomenol STAMicus, thanks for taking to the time to share it with us mere mortals

Just an end note. I have been to Katmai Lodge 11 times. That's about 7 times more thna any other lodge. There is a reason.

I do plan to go again next year. If interested me p.M. and maybe we can get a PP group together.


Just one of many double headers


This jig just kept on catching even whne it was almost totally destroyed.


Guess who made this trail?



She did!



Day one. All the arsenal is ready for battle.



This one will smoke up nice!



Stam in touch with his fly side




Sometimes even the weather cooperates!

I'll volunteer to do the bookings.

Dave---yes and yes and yes.

Ya, my son called a few day's after Stam's visit, he say's to me "hey I meet some guy you know named Steve, what's his trip? he was gloating about bummin around and fishin", made me laugh. Glad you enjoyed your lunch Stam, BTW--there's no such thing as a free lunch.

Very cool Stam and Dave, nice living there...cheers

Holy Sh*t Stammy!
What a great trip!
I miss those chromers soooooo much


Those photos are the bomb.



Truly one of this joint's greatest assets.
Thank you!

Dave,

Anything I can do to get in on that let me know. I know my pop would love to get back up there and I would love to get there too. Maybe you could kick me down numbers so I work on my dad while I am in Idaho hunting. I have three weeks to do some convincing.

All the pertinent info is here. http://www.katmai.com/

I usually go for a week, but you can choose any number of days you like. Fly outs for truly awesome trout and char fishign are $350 per person.

Thanks, by the way a PM is on the way.

Steve thanks for the Rainshadow Glory shot hope she held up to the abuse! Wow what a trip glad to see there is still a great run there! Did you see many big Red Rocket kings on the Spawn or were they all dried up by then? Did you get to hand feed any bows up in the braids or at the lodge? They love bread and toms not to mention a slice of prime rib LOL! Thanks for sharing!

I'm heading down for a seven day trip on the Polaris Supreme to tangle with some Cow's on the 13th!

Thanks for the posting, it was a great read, with wonderfull pictures.
I want to to be like you guys when I grow up!!

NO SH*T! you and a WHOLE lot of us!