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.
Keep blogging guys
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