9/9/05 The Fall Fishless Trip

I guess I can’t really call it a fishing trip, since it was unaccompanied by any fish whatsoever.

My first hint of black clouds on the horizon was when I fired up the gas refrigerator in the camper, went back in to get the cold food, and then found that the fridge shut off. The fridge I had just spent $160 getting repaired. Multiple attempts to restart it failed, so I broke out the cooker. No big deal, says I.

The second forewarning came as I was headed up the highway, passing all the famous salmon streams, and saw that they were high, muddy, and nobody was fishing them.

I got to the guide service inTalkeetna that I had hired to drop me off the next day for a days fishing in the backwoods, and got another bunch of bad news. The stream I was going to be dropped off at was also high and muddy from all the rain, the silver salmon run had pretty much ended the week before and only a few were being caught now, and the Rainbows and Dollies hadn’t moved into the stream yet. Read marginal fishing, at best. Then I found out that the drop off service required two people, and since I was the only one signed up (another bad sign!), I would have to pay double. Its not looking good, folks.

I talked to the campground owner, and he said the fishing might be marginal. When I asked him about the bear situation where I was going to be dropped off, he said, “Oh, yeah, they’re out there. You’ll see ‘em”. I said “there’s probably other people camped out there, isn’t there?” He said, “Nope, you’ll probably have the whole place to yourself.

I retreated to my campsite and thought heavily upon this. Ok, I’m going to pay double the price to get dropped off for some marginal fishing, and will probably have my first fact-to-face run-in with a bear while I’m miles up the river by myself with no means to extricate myself. Duh! The trip I’d planned for months was circling the drain. I called the drop-off service and cancelled.

I started to get camp set up, and discovered that my auxiliary battery, which powers the camper so I don’t run down my truck battery, wouldn’t work. The cable must have a short, cause the battery is reading a full charge. Either way, I was going to have to run the camper off the truck battery. Not a big deal, but I can’t run the camper furnace as it draws too much power.

Spent the night in Talkeetna, watching the swollen, muddy river pass by my campsite, and the next day headed up the highway to check out some other streams I’d heard about. I found them, but they, too, were running high. I decided to go to Brushkana River, up on the Denali Highway to hopefully catch a few Grayling.

I made the 120 miles in a couple of hours, the drive alone making the trip worthwhile. The area around Cantwell, about 30 miles south of Denali Park, was in it’s full Fall colors, and just beautiful. The tundra and muskeg were orange and red as far as the eye could see, and the birches had turned yellow. The mountains all had a new cap of snow (called “termination dust”) on them, showing that winter will be here soon. The only downside was that the Denali Highway (actually a dirt road) had really deteriorated since Cecelia and I traveled it in July, and was just one pothole after another. Fortunately, I only had to go 30 miles on it.

I pulled into Brushkana and realized my bad luck was going to continue, as the river was raging. I fished it long enough to realize that I was engaged in an effort in futility, and retired back to my campsite.

The next morning I woke up to~~what else~~rain. Spent a very cold and wet morning there, unable to run the heater, then headed down the road to visit my cousin who’s building a house in Trappers Creek. As they build the house, they’re living in a camper like mine, but their heater works, so it was a nice, warm visit.

I didn’t want to truck all the way home, so pulled into South Rolly campground, site of last year’s fishless trip. Beautiful campsite, but in the pouring rain, I didn’t spend too much time out of the camper. Shivered and ate dinner. Woke up this morning to more rain, so made breakfast, washed dishes, and made ready to head home. I jumped out of the camper to put the last few things away, and found blue skies. Figures, just as I’m getting ready to leave!

Anyway, I’m home now, clean, warm and dry. Life is good! On every trip out I learn something new about fishing in Alaska, which is totally different from what I’m used to back in Maine. This time was that at the end of the salmon run, you head south, not north. They’re still catching them down on the Kenai Peninsula.

As I put the fishing rods away, though, I’m thinking that maybe next year I’ll take the camper on the ferry to Kodiak and spend a week there. The fishing season is way longer and the fish are huge. So are the bear, of course. Gotta think that one through~~~

The following photos are of the fall colors on the Denali Highway.