Alaska results part 1

Drove from Nome to Council looking for and finding some neat birds. Spent about an hour fishing the Fox River which is near Council. Hit the grayling. Probably land 10, on dries, and lost a half dozen others in not much over and hour or so of fishing. Biggest was 16" with many in the 12-14 range. Because of suitcase size I only took my 1wt. Did just fine. Now for some charr.

How long are you up there for? I’d love to eventually fish mainland Alaska for Grayling and Sheefish.

A group of us are going to Prince of Wales Island for Coho early this September. Really looking forward to it.

Grayling have always fascinated me, I will get my hands on some one day.
Thanks for sharing, snap some pics!

I took some pics. They aren't too good, but will see if anything posts. In Nome for another day and a half; have the birding and fishing scoped out. Hope the fish cooperate. That Fox River fishery was something else. Saw dozens holding. Fished to holding/feeding fish. Time and again. One fish I caught twice on successive casts. They do fight hard at least on a 1 wt. And jump. The bigger ones were aerialists. After Nome it is a week of chasing Kenai sockeye as the primary fish. Or my wife will. I may concentrate on Rainbows and Dollies. Tomorrow the goal is a Dolly with any Grayling the cherry on the sundae. That and White Wagtail.

That sounds like a lot of fun. Some quality dry fly fishing would do my soul a lot of good about now... Thanks for sharing.

And it got better. First we got the Wagtail. Stopped off to fish the Bluestone for Dollies and Grayling. Access without hip boots or waders is tough so I had a few feet of bank to fish from. The pool there had a hundred of so fresh pinks but I couldn't get the streamer down to them or the one 2' Dolly. Put on a dry as there were a couple grayling around. Second cast (first good drift) a 20" sucked it down. Real fat fish with a huge dorsal. When I get back I'll try and post a few pictures. Grayling on dries, at least with my small sample size, are about as much fun as one can have. The 1 wt handled the fish today but she didn't fight like the ones a couple days ago. Off to Soldatna tomorrow.

Kenai "update". Water is high. About 17000 cfs. It was too high for me to wade in as one needed to be at least mid-thigh or deeper and as I once almost drowned by filling my waders in a small creek I was freaked. So I stayed close to shore. I did catch a small (3") sculpin so I wasn't blanked. The guy who took us got his limit of sockeye while my wife and I were blanked on salmon. She was a much better wader and went up the Mark and netted his fish. River is falling a tad. It is about 3000 cfs above mean.

What’s the rigging you guys are running up there? Nothing against it in the right locations, but is that Sockeye fishery a legal snag fishery?

Probably. Must be hooked in the mouth area. Elsewhere requires release.