Updates from September 4, 2007

The Kuparuk is known and written up in the guides as a good grayling fishery, but this is the only one I caught when I fished half a mile up from the road. Grayling can be fairly migratory, and perhaps they were already elsewhere preparing for winter when I fished.

A cow caribou behind the Kuparuk River, with the Philip Smith Mountains of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in the background.

A herd of caribou (all cows) crossing over a hilltop near the Kuparuk River.

I think this picture really conveys the size of the lower Sag River.

This pool produced a few good grayling for me once I found a safe way down around the high gravel bluff.

A beautiful braided reach of the Sag River, with the Philip Smith Mountains in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in the background.

A dall sheep yew and her lamb walk a trail that appears to be nothing but sheer cliff on the side of a mountian near the Dalton Highway -- I think it was Slope Mountain.

This is Troutnut.com's first picture of a springtail, a type of six-legged, non-insect arthropod. It's riding on the surface film under the mayfly's left tail.