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> > Driving down the Richardson to Chitina, with a stop at the Gulkana



Driving down the Richardson to Chitina, with a stop at the Gulkana

By Troutnut on August 11th, 2011
I had good photo weather for the 7-hour drive from Fairbanks down to Chitina for the dip-netting trip detailed in the August 12th update. I stopped for a few hours at the upper Gulkana River along the way, hoping to catch grayling in a promising new spot I'd found (but not fished) on an earlier trip. That stretch of river is so enchanting one could spend a lifetime on a single mile of it and never want to leave. I was amazed to find no sign of grayling, except for another angler who said the spot fishes well earlier in the summer. I fished behind spawning sockeye salmon and caught only a round whitefish, and was treated to the sight of caribou crossing the river upstream. I think the spawning salmon have something to do with the lack of grayling, no doubt an interesting story I have yet to figure out.

Photos by Troutnut from the Gulkana River, Miscellaneous Alaska, the Copper River, Summit Lake, and the Delta River in Alaska

Comments / replies

OldredbarnAugust 16th, 2011, 9:58 am
Novi, MI

Posts: 2608
Jason,

Gorgeous! You are a lucky, lucky, man to get some real time to nose around up there...Whenever the market goes especially schizoid, as it has lately, I dial up your Alaskan photos and pretend I'm tramping around up there with you...Better than aspirin or a shot of bourbon!!!

Thanks!

Spence
"Even when my best efforts fail it's a satisfying challenge, and that, after all, is the essence of fly fishing." -Chauncy Lively

"Envy not the man who lives beside the river, but the man the river flows through." Joseph T Heywood
Shawnny3August 23rd, 2011, 8:59 pm
Moderator
Pleasant Gap, PA

Posts: 1197
I don't know if the piece you wrote about dipnetting can be commented on, so I'll just comment here. What a fascinating piece and photo essay! I learned a ton from it about everything from the larger management issues of the fishery to the gory details of the techniques used. I showed it to my wife, who recently ate salmon at a fancy restaurant here in PA that bragged that the fish came from the Copper River, and I also shared it with some others I thought would find it interesting.

Thanks for the report!

-Shawn
Jewelry-Quality Artistic Salmon Flies, by Shawn Davis
www.davisflydesigns.com

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