Trout, Salmon, and Grayling Streams

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Alaska

> The Copper River

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.

I spent twelve hours holding this net in the river, often in fast current. The key is to hold it in an eddy, so it billows out upstream and can catch the salmon that are all swimming in that direction. The eddies along the bank attract salmon because it's easier for them to run upstream with the current than against it. The best eddies are the narrow ones where the rest of the river is flowing fast downstream most of the salmon hug the bank.

Seagulls rest on a gravel bar across from the fish cleaning station at O'Brien Creek, in between meals.

Dipnetting to fill the freezer with salmon is not as tidy as catch & release fly fishing. Here's the process: 1. Beat the salmon as hard as you can between the eyes with a club, several times if needed, while it's still in the net. This makes it stop flopping so you can remove it from the net. 2. Cut the base of the gill arches on one side with scissors, severing major arteries that send blood spurting out of the unconscious fish's body, quickly killing it and assuring ideal flavor. 3. Thread the stringer in through one of the gills and out the mouth, and stick the fish back in the glacial river to keep cool.

After whacking ten or fifteen fish in the same spot, the riverbank looks like it warrants a CSI team.