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> First time in a packraft in the lower Chatanika, trying for sheefish

Yesterday afternoon a friend and I floated ten miles of the Chatanika River near Fairbanks, from a spot near the Steese Highway to the Elliott Highway bridge.

Our mutual goal was to try to catch a sheefish. Sheefish are very large piscivorous (Piscivorous: Anything which eats primarily fish is a piscivore.) whitefish, present in very low numbers along the Alaska road system in the Yukon drainage. Most people who really want to catch sheefish have to expensively fly out to the wilderness of northwest Alaska, but the Chatanika River river near Fairbanks is well-known to have a very small spawning run (about 100 fish) during which one has a better-than-usual chance (but still a very long shot) of hooking up with a sheefish. We both thought it would be fun to catch (or even see) the elusive "tarpon of the north," but we had no luck. Didn't even see one.

Another goal for me on this trip was to try packrafting for the first time in some easy Class I water. Packrafts are tiny, tough, ultra-light (often less than 5 pounds) boats used for backpacking into remote locations and floating out on a river (or paddling around a lake). I've been thinking about getting one for remote backcountry fishing and hunting, so I was happy to try it out with a borrowed raft. This wasn't "real" packrafting because we didn't have to pack the boats more than a hundred yards on this road-to-road float, but I got a good feel for the boat and was impressed with its handling and portability.

Have any of you used packrafts for fly fishing (or hunting)? What did you think?