Sitka Fly Fishing the Salt May 2016

This year am planning two trips to Sitka to fish from the E-Fish-Ncy with Rick, a spring trip and a fall trip, in hopes of catching some new species. This year Robert Fox will be joining us, all three of us plan to fly fish when the conditions are good.

Some of the flies for the trip, A hot pink Non-pelagic squid, a sea lance imitation, a tiger rockfish imitation and a yelloweye imitation.

 

The first day was pretty choppy and challenging to fish with flies, we stuck with it though. here's a new species for me on a new fly. A Copper Rockfish on a spoon fly.

Both Robert and Rick had proxies so they could fish for people that could not get out to fish. Quite a few of us depend on what we can catch to supplement our diets with healthy, high quality meat and fish. These proxies allow us to catch and bring home more to share. Here's Robert with our first days catch.

 The fishing was pretty hot, many times we had doubles on fly rods....

and triples. Here are two black rockfish caught on flies and Robert is holding one caught on one of my hand painted jigs fished on conventional gear.

Day two, that's my biggest halibut on a fly to date on the left, a twenty five pounder. Rick and I each hooked on to one at the same time. They were fighting pretty good, crossed lines and went on pretty good runs. We were able to get the lines un-crossed  but unfortunately for Rick, his inferior fishing prowess was not enough to get his halibut to the boat :)

The seas were calm most of the time during our five day trip. The E-Fish-Ncy took on a hitchhiker during one of our drifts.

Day three.

Another beautiful day at the cabin. This guy came by on a visit while we were cleaning fish.

Two days in a row this cheeky mink mooched from our fish scraps.

 He just helped himself, ten feet away from us, but his eyes are a little big for his stomach.

This triple was all on flies.

 A Ling Cod on a tiger rockfish imitation.

 Robert with his big fish of the trip, a 25 pound ling cod caught on conventional gear with another one of my handmade jigs, they worked really good.

Another great day, this kind of stuff will spoil you for any other kind of fishing.

Day number four.

Day number five.

Every good thing must come to an end, this is the last evening.

Paxson Lake, the mouth of the Gulkana River

In the spring, just after the ice goes out the salmon smolt in the Gulkana River make the run to the ocean to begin life in salt water. They are silvery grey with muted spots and are about four inches long. Lake trout from Paxson lake wait in ambush at the outlet of the lake for the young salmon to start their journey. It's a good opportunity for fly fishers to get in on some really exciting fishing. You can see the lakers chasing the smolt and thrashing at them in the riffles.

These are are some smolt patterns I tied for the trip.

My friend and fly fishing consultant Fred DeCicco, a retired fisheries biologist and avid fly fisherman also told me to bring lots of nymphs. Here are some of the nymphs I tied for the trip. The top left one was tied from some hair combed from my chessy/labs coat. I'm practicing tying with found/unusual fibers and feathers for survival readiness.

I also tied up some scuds to bring along for fun.

I brought three rods, a three weight and two six weights.

Grayling are always willing participants. These ones are really pretty and get up to about 18 inches long. They were hitting smolt, nymph and scud imitations.

The three weight was casting really well, the conditions were perfect and I was really able to work on my double haul on it.

The water here is crystal clear. Small to medium dark nymphs worked the best on grayling.

These lake trout up to 3 1/2 pounds are scrappy fighters, they were hitting smolts, scuds and nymphs. 

All in all it was a great trip, I added lake trout to my overall list and I caught lots of fish. I wasn't able to catch any broad white fish and add that species to my list.

I did catch a king salmon on a spinning rod, the one and only cast I made with conventional gear. My goal next year is to add the white fish to my list and catch a Paxson lake grand slam, that's lake trout, white fish, grayling and rainbow.

Winter 2015/16

The winter is a time to develop new flies, tie more flies to replace those used up over the summer and go ice fishing. I like to test new flies, and old ones, by adapting them for ice fishing. Ice fishing gives me a rare opportunity to watch fish and see how they react to different fly patterns by watching them through the ice in a darkened fish house. I am not able to present the flies how I might if I was actually fly fishing but I am able to see how enthusiastically certain species of fish might react to a particular fly.  So here are gratuitous pictures of fish caught over the winter with fly patterns adapted for ice fishing.

Stay tuned, next, spring fly fishing for Paxson Lake lake trout and grayling.

Kodiak Oct. 2015 Fly fishing for silvers and bottom fish.

On October 20th Mike Bracken and I leave Fairbanks to meet the ferry in Homer on the 22nd for our trip to Kodiak Island in quest of Silver Salmon in Terror river and bottom fish in Terror Bay. We also had permits for brown bear in case one came into camp and blacktail deer. This year we were bringing my boat the Non-Pelagic Squid (named after one of my most productive original fly patterns) for transportation and salt water fly fishing.

  The Non-Pelagic Squid at rest in Terror Bay at low tide. Despite some limitations with size and problems with the jet plugging up with debris at times the boat performed really well.

Some of the flies I'm taking to Kodiak. Some prawns, some herring, some rockfish imitations and some Atomic Non-Pelagic Squids.

Mike and I met our two guests from Ohio, Kevin Ball and Joe Bettio at the airport in Kodiak on the 23rd. I had met Joe and Kevin on previous trips to Ohio and South Dakota on pheasant hunting trips. Joe had also accompanied us on our trip to Kodiak in the fall of 2013.

We made a real comfortable camp at the head of Terror Bay. Deer would sometimes come out of the woods within a half of a mile.

Joe and I spike camped up the river to find some spawning silver salmon. Joe started out with conventional gear but the line on his rod was too light and they kept breaking it. After a few quick lessons in fly fishing he picked it up and was able to land this nice silver on a crystal egg sucking leach.

A male in full spawning colors. The silvers here are very big, and explosive fighters. This is one of several I caught on a six weight rod with a six pound tippet and the crystal egg sucking leach. These fish were lots off fun to fight with huge runs down the river. One hefty male finally broke the rod with an especially enthusiastic fight. We landed the fish and continued to fish with the broken rod.

A short video of salmon fishing in Terror River.

If you could get your lure or fly through the large schools of pacific cod, you could reach the rockfish and other fish near the bottom.

The other guys were fishing with conventional gear but I was able to add Walleye Pollock like this one, Pacific Cod and Rock Sole to my list of Alaskan Sport Fish caught on an original fly pattern.

Here's Kevin with one of his Rock Sole, although not often kept for table fare, we kept pollock, cod and sole for camp suppers and they were excellent.

Joe with a Quill Back Rockfish...

and a Yelloweye Rockfish

 

 We took a little time out for deer hunting too, this is one of my bucks. We took six deer in all, three nice bucks and three smaller deer for eating.

Joe with his buck

Beside the fishing and deer hunting we had another mission, we were to field test these knives made with steel we smelted in our own back yard with iron ore mined in Alaska. This steel smelted in the traditional Japanese method of making tamahagane performed extremely well. These knives were able to completely skin and butcher three deer before showing even the slightest resharpening. I was very pleased.

We saw bears and marine mammals of all kinds as well as deer and other wild life. It was a great trip.

Fly Fishing in Sitka for bottom fish Sept. 2015

Ah, one of my favorite trips of the year fly fishing in the salt out of Sitka. This year, Rick and I invited Steve Davila to join us on our annual trip, he was a pleasure to have along. We headed down on the 22 of Sept. made it out to the cabin and opened it up.

Some new or improved patterns for this year. Across the top; Prawns and Sea Lance patterns. Middle row; Yellow Eye, Tiger Rockfish and Herring imitations. Bottom row; Non-pelagic Squids and China Rockfish imitations.

After getting settled in a little bit we went out for a couple of hours, the water was a little rough so we stayed close and used conventional gear. We caught a few Rockfish.

On the first full day, the 23rd it was a little rough so we switched between fly tackle and conventional gear throughout the day.

The first fish of the day on fly gear, a Black Rockfish on a bright pink Non-pelagic Squid.

Ling Cod like the squids too, this one was a little small so we let it go.

It was getting a little hard to keep a fly one the bottom so I tried conventional gear for a while. It's my dream to catch a ling cod like this on fly gear.

Back to fly fishing, Rick connects with Black Rockfish on a white Non-pelagic Squid.

I decided to switch up flies a little bit, here's a Black Rockfish on a China Rockfish imitation.

A new species for us, a Canary Rockfish on a new fly, a Yellow Eye Rockfish imitation.

 

I think these and most rock fish species are among the prettiest fish in American waters. We caught another new species on this trip too, the Bocaccio Rockfish. For some reason I'm having trouble finding the pictures of those fish.

 

  Steve and I with our first full days catch, a limit for three

Rick with a very nice Yellow eye on his favorite fly, a white Non-pelagic Squid.

I have been trying to improve the size of my fly caught Halibut for a couple of years, this is my new all time largest, (the second one I've ever caught, the first one was only about eight inches long so it wouldn't take much to improve upon). This one was taken on a Yellow Eye imitation.

 

The second days catch

A Yellow Eye Rockfish on a Yellow Eye pattern.

Rick with a Canary Rockfish on a green Non-pelagic Squid.

Steve with two Black Rockfish on the same lure, pretty unusual.

Rick with another Canary Rockfish.

A cooler of fine eating. These fish will be filleted, vacuum packed and in the freezer within 90 minutes of the time we hit the beach.

Third day.

 

A panoramic view of the cabin and the beach.

 Steve with a nice Black Rockfish, we were able to fill a limit of Black Rocks in less than 30 minutes.

Forth day.

The fifth day, these fish were caught in less than an hour.

Rick and I added two new species to my list of Alaskan game fish caught on an original fly, the Canary Rockfish and the Bocaccio Rockfish for a total of twenty three species.