Alaska: Day Four Captions

Fly for an hour plus which in Alaska means a barely-discernable distance on the state map; bring one fly box: pink and fuschia.  The difference is obvious in photo above.

Ocean fish.  Silver.  Hot.  Sea lice.  First stop on this day was a slough.  A resting/holding zone for coho salmon.  We set up and immediately wore ourselves out hooking big fish on gaudy streamers.  Cartwheels.  Tumbles and rolls.  Good number of doubles.

Our guide Pete was on the money with every call he made.  Stop here, look in there, be ready now. 

We lunched on a cobble bar; cleaned some fish too.  I made a point of participating in it; wanted to follow through to extent possible.  These fish come apart pretty easily; big fish, big meat; easy dimensions.  Here is the orange; eggs, flesh that are nutrition for stream life; for angler.

One cast over lunch break.  No more no less.

Having put down a serious chapter with streamers, we stopped (good eye by Pete on the boat-by) at this shallow water setting and spent a couple hours engaged in some highly memorable sight fishing.  Walking streamers up high in the film.  And then switching to poppers....

This is a legendary popper; caught a couple fish on it and then switched to a smaller model.

Double silver silvers.  

Double red buck silvers.

We watched these toothy beaks come alive in the shallows and follow flies....  sometimes breaking the surface and swinging side to side in pursuit of a popper (this fish above ate pink gurgler)....    rise up and set down on a fly.