Nature Pictures from Trout Streams, Page 165

Cloud of Trico spinners over a riffle

My first cutthroat trout! A coastal cutthroat in the 8-9" range.

This is the home base for the Chitina dipnetting fishery that supplies thousands of Alaskans with much (if not most) of their annual protein. Many people pay a jetboat charter to ferry them down to prime spots in the canyon, and ferry their hundreds of pounds of fish back up. Others follow the trail to which this bridge leads and negotiate the steep canyon wall themselves, with their fish, and haul them back with the help of an ATV.

This is the delta where O'Brien Creek flows out into the Copper River's channel. It may be one of the most intense graveyards for filleted salmon in the world.

Here's part of my final catch, though many more fish are hidden in the turbid glacial water. There are 40 salmon in all. The limit for a household dipnetting permit is normally 30, but this year the sockeye run greatly exceeded expectations, so the Alaska Department of Fish & Game increased everyone's limit by 10 for several weeks.

The Copper River is often over a mile wide, but the dipnetting almost all takes place in this narrow canyon below the confluence with the Chitina River. Here the river squeezes into a deep, fast, turbulent rapids that funnels fish through a narrow area and forces them to hug the banks where anglers can reach them.