Silver Bullet Fishing

Written by Nick Cassidy

If it wasn’t for yesterday being my best day of fishing ever, it would have been today.  Unbelievable!   While waiting for breakfast I grabbed my rod and began walking the bank of the river.  Within a hundred yards of camp I found a nice pod of sockeyes and hooked one on my first cast landing it after a short fight.  I ended up landing three more chum from the same spot before breakfast without putting on my waders.  I referred to this spot as my “sniper hole”.  As soon as I would see a fish move in I would drift a Sockeye Green through and would have a hook-up.  It was the easiest fishing I had ever seen, except for the fact that I got a little to close to an Arctic Tern’s nest a few times causing it to dive bomb my hat.

 We had oatmeal and coffee for breakfast.  After we cleaned up, hit the bushes, and loaded the rafts we were on our way down the river for another long day of floating.  Throughout the day we found several nice pods of salmon and were constantly fighting fish.  The fish were much fresher the further we would get down stream and fought twice as hard as they had in the previous days.  I ended up burning out the drag on my 7wt reel on a fresh sockeye that took me deep into my backing.  That fish probably took me a good twenty minutes to bring to hand.  Sammy and I had several doubles, including one double which tied our fly lines in a knot.  Somehow we were able to unwrap our lines without losing either fish.  We kept two fresh sockeye for dinner.  

Around lunch we floated around a bend and found Bill and Dave casting into a deep, fast  run.  Justin was nowhere to be seen.  Chuck then said, “I bet he is spotting.”  About that time we heard him making baboon sounds while shaking the tree.  Justin was about 30 feet up a tree (still in his waders) spotting kings for Bill and Dave.  Bill and Dave and each landed a king and within a few minutes Dave hooked and landed another.  I asked him what he was using and his reply was a black wooly bugger with a pink head.  I tied one on and within 5 minutes I hooked a big king.  I made several comments while fighting the fish about how lethargic it was.  When I got it close to shore I made the comment that it was about the same size as Dave’s last king.  Once I landed the fish and saw the net scar on its side, I realized that I hooked and landed the exact same king Dave had caught only minutes earlier.  It had hit the exact same fly within 5 minutes!  Within an hour of fishing that run Dave hooked 4 and landed 3, I hooked 3 and landed 2, Bill hooked 2 and landed 1, and Sammy hooked 1.  What was amazing was how aggressively the kings were striking the Wooly Buggers when they were stripped in front of their noses.  I had one almost rip the rod out of my hands.  While we would have enjoyed fishing the kings for the rest of the day we needed to cover some river. 

For the rest of the day we almost exclusively fished for rainbows, stopping occasionally to throw to pods of salmon.  The rainbow fishing was amazing.  Sammy and I each landed six and probably lost twice that many.  Most of the fish were 16”+ with a few pushing 20”.  The hot flies were still the pink wooly buggers, battle creeks, and pink bunny flies.  Sammy and I managed to lose everyone of these flies by the end of the day.  It turned out to be a long day of floating.  We saw a power boat running up the river and shortly after saw a naked Swede taking a bath in the river.  These were the first signs of human life we had seen in almost a week.  We reached the confluence of the Mulchutna River at about 9:00 and set up camp.   We jumped in the river to wash off a few days of stink.  While the bathing scene wasn’t nearly as shocking as the naked Swede we saw a few hours earlier, but it sure felt great.  Surprisingly, the water wasn’t nearly as cold as expected.  Fresh sockeye, rice, and vegetables were on the table not long after.  We sat around the camp fire and talked about a great week of fishing and told jokes and shared stories.  We made plans for the next day, which were that we would clean out our tents, pack up camp, and float an hour down the river to our take out point where we would make breakfast and breakdown the rafts.  That night I just kept thinking about the trip and how it exceeded my expectations.  Chuck and Justin were the best guides we could have asked for.  Their stories, humor, and knowledge of the river made the trip.  Bill and Dave were a great pair to have on the trip.  It was a true mans week.  If someone had a tally board for cuss words they would have ran out of space by day two, which happened to be the same day we ran out of alcohol. 

In the morning we got up and floated to our takeout.  The lone fish of Day 7 was a sucker caught on an egg fly by Sammy…a real rarity in Alaskan fly fishing.  We got to the main river of the Mulchutna and broke down the rafts and made coffee and cereal.  Not long after a plane dropped in on the main river.  It was the DNR and they stopped to check our licenses.  About an hour later our float planes arrived.  Bill, Dave, and Sammy loaded in one plane.  Chuck, Justin, and I took the other which followed the path of the river all the way up to its headwaters and over the mountain pass back to Illiamna.  The entire length of the river I could see red salmon in the river.  I could see gravel runs which we had fished and bends where we had camped.  We saw a Grizzly bear and two cubs.  We passed over the lake where we had landed a week earlier.  The skinny river where we fished exclusively for grayling 6 days ago was now peppered with sockeye and chum.  In my head I started planning my next trip.  I had always said that I wouldn’t repeat fishing trips because there are so many places in the world to fish.  However, when you find a place like this you really don’t need to go anywhere else.  

 Notes from Day 6:

Weather- Mid 70s, Bright and sunny.  Slight breeze.

 Fish-  Sockeye, Chums, Kings, Rainbows, and a few Grayling

 Hot Flies-   Kings-  Black and Pink Wooly Buggers ,   Sockeye and Chum-  Sockeye greens, stinky pinks, and battle creeks,    Rainbows- Pink bunny leeches, pink wooly buggers, battle creeks, and polar shrimp. 

 True Lies-

Nick- 1 grayling, 6 rainbows, 5 sockeye, 7 chum, 2 kings

Sam- 6 rainbows, 4 sockeye, 1 king

Dave- 5 rainbows, 4 sockeye, 2 chum, 4 kings

Bill-  2 rainbows, 5 sockeye, 1 chum, 1 king