The wild fishing in Alaska

The phone rang on a Monday night in early April, and I (Peter) answered. It was Carin, a new friend of ours here in Fairbanks. She asked if I wanted to go out fishing with her husband Bob early next morning? I wondered for myself why Bob didn’t ask me himself since I could hear him in the background, but then I realized that it was probably hard for him to hear and understand me on the phone – so his wife had to act like a ”fishing-interagent”, and I for one would never turn down such an interesting offer!
      I neatly parked the car outside Fred Meyer’s at 7 am next morning, where we had arranged to meet, and bought a 2-day fishing permit for Harding Lake. I left the car in the parking lot and jumped into Bob’s GMC-pickup, and we headed southeast towards Delta Junction. We drove by the town of North Pole (wonder how that I got its name...), and passed a gigantic air force base. During the drive Bob told me about his amazing fishing adventures, including fishing for King Salmon, Halibug, fishing combined with caribou hunt along a river in northern Alaska, and more. He also told me about his experiences from the ”lower 28”, and how some of the waters there have been destroyed by waterpower plants – just like back home I thought. The difference is that here in the states the lakes have been succesfully restored, for example by building facilities that produce nutrients for the lakes. Thanks to that the lakes are now better than ever, in terms of fishing!!! He also knew about lakes in Cana that used to be among the best in the world for Rainbow-trout fishing, where someone came up with the idea to stock them with other fish species – with the result that the Rainbows disappeared.... – and they were not able to get those back again. On top of that, in some areas lakes have been stocked with fish that after a while have been protected, so now lot’s of money are being spent to protect the fish that you once spent a lot of money stocking, and the income from fishing tourism has gone down..... Unfortunately, Bob knew about places here in Alaska that are starting to have the same problem. Established fish are disappearing, and new once are being stocked.... With Bob, who is of a pretty calm and down-to-earth person, I could sence some anger and frustration about some of these ”less gifted” decisions that are being made. Then they try to make things right again, and it just gets worse.
      Along the way towards Harding Lake, Bob pointed out some good spots for fishing King Salmon by the Tanana River. The Kings are unfortunately very good eat when they’ve been swimming this far up the Yukon and into Tanana. It still made me think about breaking one of my normal fishing-rules to only fish what I eat – it would be great fun to feel a big King at the end of the fishing line! – perhaps they are still ok to smoke?
      At Harding Lake, we drove out on the lake. Almost 30F below is no big deal when Bob is bringing his fishing shed. The Alaska shed is a bit different from the once we are used to in northern Sweden. It’s a great protection against the wind, but has no insulation and no floor (although some models have a detachable floor to use). The ones that we use in northern Sweden are ment more to be used for a prolonged stay on the mountain lakes. During the drive out on the ice (which was also quite new to me), I tried to navigate after the GPS-coordinates that Bob knew would take us to a good spot, the deepest part of the lake. At the spot, we unpacked, put up the shed, and started the heater. The shed had a pretty smart solution with a very comfortable bench inside. Well seated on the bench, Bob brought out his ”Fishfinder”. Fishing got pretty exciting with that little thing. When you’re fishing at 35 yards depth and it shows you a big fish at 15, you know that you quickly have to move your bait to where the fish is! The bait also showed up nicely on the display of the Fishfinder. It’s pretty fun to know that the fish is there, even if they won’t bite, makes your heartbeats go up a bit.... But it was not easy to get the fish to bite!! We could see that they were there, but they were just curious for a while, and then the display on the Fishfinder turned all black and empty....
      After a couple of hours of fishing I managed to trick a fish up to 9 yards depth, and thought that - ”now we have to be able to see it through the fishing hole”. I must have looked pretty funny, cause Bob smiled when he saw my face – it was among the biggest trouts I’ve ever seen in my life!!! It’s hard to guess the size of a fish when it’s in the water, but if I say 17 pounds I have not excaggerated!!! Holy Smoke – I must have been dreaming of that fish the following night, because I woke up snatching away with my arm as if a big fish just took the bait!! We kept on fishing and fishing all day, but still did’nt catch anything. We hoped for better luck next day, when we were gonna leave earlier in the morning.
      The next day we took another spot on the lake where we could see that someone else had put up a shed before. We felt a bit lazy and tired. Bob made some new holes with his motor-driven ice auger, and I started unpacking the shed and the equipment. Then Bob told me that he used to make 8 inch holes, but once got such a big fish that he could not get it up through the hole! So now he’s only using 14 inch augers..... Well, what on earth can you expect to catch on this lake!!
      The biggest trout Bob ever caught on this lake weighed 24 pounds, and the smallest well over 2. We satared fishing, but felt nothing, and saw nothing on the display. After a couple of hours a car stopped outside and 2 guys asked us how the fishing was going? They told us that they had been fishing and fishing all winter, even at 35 below, and had’nt seen the trace of one signle fish. ”We’ve tried everything” they said. I started to feel that it was perhaps a bit useless to keep on after that information. Well, at least we’ve seen a fish, I thought, thinking about the big one yesterday. Bob admitted that on average he used to catch one fish for each visit here. ””I’ll show you what bait I’m using” he said, and brought up a 6 inch white jigg. You could almost see the eyes popping out of the guys that were visiting us. ” Well, we have’nt used anything close to that” they said, and took of to the nearest fishing gear store to invest in new stuff...
     After a while, the battery to the Fishfinder died, and then even I (who never ever get bored while fishing) started to feel a bit tired.... – that was a pretty funny little thing to look at! I started to get inpatient and changed bait and lure every 10th minute... Then I looked at a white Salmon-fly that was lying there in my box – ” that ought to work here too, since it has a lead-head to keep it down – What the h... – I’ll give it a try, have nothing to loose!!” I let it sink down to a depth of 5 yards, where we had’nt really tried fishing yet. I kept on for quite a while, and then I said to Bob ”There must be a reason why  the people who used this spot before moved away from here”. At that exact time a fish took the bite!! Surprised I snatched my arm just like in my dream! It did not feel that heavy, so I started to bring in the line and looked down the hole – what a fish!!! An Arctic char – the biggest one I’ve ever seen!! At that time, the fish must have realized that he was in trouble, cause it went down towards the bottom of a lake with the speed of a war missile!! I never thougth he would stop, my rod was bent like a ”U”. I tried to direct the line so that it would not get near the ice edge and get cut off. Started to feel that nervosity was moving in.... ”No - I’m not going to do anything rash”. I knew that I had good gear, but was nervous aobut the sharp ice edge... – I’ve lost some big fish on that before... Oh no – the line got stuch there anyway!! Luckily I could hook it off from the ice with some really careful work..... The char finally started to get closer and closer, and after a while I could see it starting to lay down on its side. But oh my Lord, how hard it was to get its big head up in the hole!! I had to let it down a couple of times as it was in the wrong angle towards the hole, but finally, finally I got a small part of its head up the hole and just held it there. Then it nicely swam right up by it self – it kind of had nowhere else to go. OMG how happy I was!! What an arctic char!!! 11 punds and 30 inches long!! Just the frontal fens were 6 inches long (and that’s the size of a an entire char that I’ve unfortunately hooked before from time to time..). Bob was just as happy over the fish as I was. After this we got really motivated again, and continued to fish. I had left the Arctic char in the shade outside the shed, and we could se the ravens moving in..... Bob disappeard towards the car and came back with a real Clint Eastwood classic: a Magnum 44....”the raven are protected here in Alaska, but we must be allowed to protect our property” (which was the fish). What a great guy! After a while some ravens started approaching again, and Bob gave them a good scare, I thought my ears were gonna blow of my head. No more ravens after that salutation, I can tell you that!
      We did’nt catch any more fish that day, but we will definitely take more trips out to Harding Lake. A hard-fished lake for sure, but what fish!! When it gets a bit warmer perhaps my wife might also be patient enought to fish for a few hours after she’s seen this monster..... Hopefully, we’ll get some new nice fishing memories, maybe we should get a Fishfinder and a gun too....
      Back in Fairbanks, the parking lot where I'd left my car outside Fred Meyers in Fairbanks was really crowded. But what now? – My car was almost in the middle of the drive-thru between parking spots!! During the warmth of the day, the lines showing the parking spots hade emerged from under snow, so the rows of cars were not where they were in the morning..... my car was a little bit out of line, to put it mildly. With a lot of angry and curious eyes on me I crawled into the car, moved it and drove away quickly. Back home I discoverd that someone had written ”Learn to park” in the dirt on the rear window....   That was the humouristic end of two great days with Bob on Harding Lake.

The wild hunt in Alaska

Now I (Peter) would like to tell you a little about my first huning trip here in Alaska. In the end of October I was invited to join two friends: Ben and Dean, to a hunting area close to White Mountains out of Fairbanks. We were mainly going to hunt grouse, of which there are 5 different species here, but if we would happen to see a bear, Dean had brought his "special gun". Dean and Ben are a little bit like John Wayne (especially Ben who walks and talks like him). With great confidence and a good sence of humor they are playing with words and throwing funny comments back and forth during our trip north towards the "Whites". One fantastic hunting story follows after the other, and I'm listening with big wide open ears. These guys have a lot of experience from hunting in the wild Alaska, so I am of course trying to get as much as possible, and to learn something new. They've been hunting everything from bobcat, lynx, wild goats, moose, deer, buffalo, wolf, and coyote, to black bears and grizzlies. Just like home in Sweden, moose is considered to have the best meat, and as being the best game to hunt. Carol and I have thanks to our good friends tasted some moose meat here, and it does taste a bit different from Scandinavian moose. Perhaps it has something to do with what they are eating, here in Alaska there is a greater variety of forage species to choose from 

      So our ride goes on, Ben, in his big pickup-truck with one four-wheeler on the back and one on the trailer, takes off from the main road and we're zig-zagging our way in to smaller and smaller roads as I watch the thermometer to see how the temperature keeps dropping. Just below 0 F now. It.s going to be a bit cold to hunt in the morning before the sun rises.  It took us about an hour, and then we stopped, unloaded the four-wheelers, and put some warmer clothes on. I went riding in the four-wheeler with Ben, who had heat inside - no need to worry about the temperature yet!!  Then we took off up the mountain, following some of the narrow trails that we could see everywhere.  I noticed that there was more and more snow on the ground, and I hoped that it wasn't going to be all too deep - it's tough to wade and walk through deep snow while hunting....  After about an hour we stopped and looked out over the mountains, and had some coffee.  A great view, with the sun rising from the east over the Whites. When there's such a beautiful light in the sky it's so amazingly beatutiful. Especially at sun rise up here in the mountains. Down in a valley we could see some old goldmines and piles of rocks and sand, they are all over the place around here.  There's still some gold left around here since the old gold rush, that started in western Alaska after "three lucky Swedes"  found gold close to Nome - Scandinavians were here early!   Large areas of land has since then been turned upside down to find the precious metal. A very hard work due to the permafrost. Imagine digging by hand, then making a fire to heat up the ground, or flushing it with steaming hot water, dig some more, etc, etc. The permafrost runs deep here, and at the same time, you have to be lucky enough to dig at the right place....  Only around 3% of the miners made some kind of a fortune out of it, most lost more than what they came with. Those who really made it out here were the people who started some kind of business in the mining towns....
We kept on driving, and after 15 minutes or so I started wondering when we should reach the hunting areas and start walking? I was just about to ask Ben when it struck me - this is the hunt!  I hade never even thought about it - being Swedish...  sitting in a vehicle hunting!  Well, that was a completely new hunting experience in it self!  After a while we went around a bend, and Dean suddenly stopped ahead of us, pointed further up the trail, and there was a grouse! Ben choose the shootgun, took a step out of the vehicle, and there was our first steak - a Spruce grouse. I then had to tell the guys that I thought we were going to hunt in the traditional way, and Ben and Dean just laughed out loud! "you have a lot to tell about the crazy americans when you come back to Sweden" Ben said, and laughed even more. We moved along in our safari, and got to see some moose and some ptarmigan at a distance. Suddenly a whole flock of them lifted from a tree, flew right over the trail, and landed some distance away. Ben handed me the shootgun and brought out a handgun (!), and said "lets go kill some birds", as we tried to sneak up on them. 

        The birds were good in hiding, we had almost passed them when we suddenly heard them take off behind our backs "we'll get them on the way home" Ben said, sounding like John Wayne again. We did get one of them one the way home, a grouse on top of a birch tree that Dean got with a good shoot from outside the four-wheeler. A few weeks later I came along for a pick-up hunt, but I'll save that story for later.... From this first day, I brought home the memories of a great new experience in a fantastic early-winter weather, with a beautiful sunset, great views, great guys, some animal meetings, and a different kind of hunting.