Trout, Salmon, and Grayling Streams

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Alaska

> The Copper River

A raven returns to its cliff-side nest along the Copper River.

A raven flies over the Copper River.

This is a pretty cool silhouette of a bald eagle carrying some food, even though it isn't terribly well-focused or well-lit. I was actually driving when I took it (though it was on a no-traffic campground driveway, so it wasn't unsafe) and the eagle swooped into the roadway right in front of me, then flew around to the side and gave me this profile.

I was at a popular spot for dipnetting, and this little rodent (a vole, I think?) hit the jackpot with an earlier angler's leftover snack.

An anonymous dipnetter works the bank near the access point at O'Brien Creek.

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.

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.

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.