PPS Destinations Report
Karluk River, Alaska, USA
Date: October 2008
Reported by Dr. Brian Griffith, New Jersey, USA
In a year of diverse, amazing, and yes, even gluttonous fishing, the
final fishing trip proved to be my favorite destination of 2008 and possibly my
entire life.
This
October, I was fortunate enough to be able to spend another week at the Karluk
River on the south-western end of Kodiak Island fishing for trout, dollies, huge
silver salmon, and steelhead. Last
year’s trip with Pete Esposito was just about the coolest experience of my
life and I was eager to try it once again. When
I heard that it was probably the last time Mark Cowan, of Pescador Solitario,
would have the October lease for steelheading there, the deal was sealed.
The trip to the Karluk is a long one.
Flying from the east coast to Anchorage is a full day affair.
After spending the night in Anchorage, the 6 am flight to Kodiak (1 hour)
came early and after meeting up with my fishing partners, we had breakfast
before departing on the Beaver flight to portage camp on the Karluk.
The weather was awful and due to the winds and low ceiling we were forced
to make a stomach-churning flight around the north end of the island.
I was more than elated to finally touch down on the Karluk.
This year, the weather was generally much less pleasant than last year.
The first afternoon we had 35-40 mph winds and, while the winds did
subside, the temperatures dropped throughout the week.
Not once did the high of the day top out above 40 degrees and most
mornings started out around 20. Similarly
the water temperature dropped over the course of the week from a high of 41 on
Saturday to a bone chilling 33.9 on Friday.
This produced less aggressive fish as well as numb feet, iced guides, and
frozen waders.
That being said, the trip was still a great experience.
Mark Cowan is a consummate professional and every trip I have done with
him has been a well-thought out and wonderful adventure.
He is the ultimate Boy Scout and is always prepared.
If you need a specific line, leader, fly, or just about any kind of
equipment you can count on him to have it. The
food was excellent and prepared by Arnie, one of the funniest and most unusual
camp managers I have ever met. He
has been everywhere, experienced almost everything, and kept everyone laughing
for the week. Paul Tickner and Mark
acted as guides for the three fishermen and their long years of experience
showed.
The average day for me (a self professed novice at steelhead fishing)
consisted of seven hook-ups and two to three steelhead landed. On my best day, I
had 14 hook-ups and on my worst one. There
was one day I did not land a steelhead going 0-1 on Wednesday.
My overall percentage for steelhead was 12 for 34.
The steelhead ranged from 20 inches to a 34 inch, 14 pound fish that I
landed on the last day. The average
size was around 27 to 28 inches. I
always caught silvers and these were generally the hottest fish in the river.
The sea-bright ones were absolute rockets and even those that were
colored were strong tenacious fish. They
were also absolutely huge weighing on average 12-15 pounds and going as high as
23. The 23-pounder I caught at the
river mouth was on a six weight and was the largest fish of the trip.
It is amazing that the incidental by-catch consists of world-class cohos.
Throw in a few dollies every day and even an occasional rainbow and
sockeye salmon and there was enough fish to keep you from falling asleep at the
wheel. Generally we used eight
weight rods, floating lines, and 0X tippet.
Crystal eggs and blood money flies were the only ones used.
As I said, the water temperature was quite low and the steelhead grabs
were gentle. Even when hooked, a lot
of them were not racing downstream like last year although certainly they still
fought hard as evidenced by my batting average.
The steelhead you hooked and landed were fish that you had to work hard
for. I know I was spoiled by last
year’s experience but it truly made me appreciate every steelhead brought to
hand this year.
The highlight of this trip for me was, however, the wildlife viewing.
Bald eagles were a common sight and seen multiple times every day.
We saw one bear on the steelhead area of the river (from ¾ mile away)
and some Sitka deer on some of the ridges. While
we were fishing for steelhead we saw quite a few foxes and several got within
inches of us. One even licked the
mayonnaise off one of my friend’s fingers.
They were beautiful animals and a joy to watch.
There were also beaver, tundra swans, and multiple species of ducks to
watch. Due to bad weather we only
got one fly-out upriver to the mouth and there we saw several bears including
one that got within 25 feet of me. I
never really felt threatened but when there is a 500-pound bear running between
you and the shore it certainly gets the blood flowing!
The Karluk River is simply an incredible experience for a newbie
steelheader. I am not sure there is
anywhere else a total neophyte can expect to catch as many steelhead (even in
bad conditions) as I have in the past two years there.
When you throw in the opportunity to see Kodiak bears this place just
can’t be beat. If you would like
to contact Mark he can be reached at cowan@taosnet.com or you can
always contact me traydog@enter.net
