Fishing the Talachulitna

Note: This is the third article in a series about a trip to an Alaskan fishing lodge taken last summer by Nat Greene members Jim Brady and Dick Feulner.

We finally arrived at our destination and beached the boat on a rocky shore, apparently in the middle of nowhere. Dave and Aren tossed the baggage into a cart pulled by an all-terrain vehicle. Aren fired up the ATV and went on ahead. Dick and Dave disappeared down the trail into a forest of large ferns. I photographed the ferns and brought up the rear. We eventually broke out into a clearing boarded by hand-hewn log buildings. The main lodge, a modest structure, was to our right and our digs were across the compound. Our front door was decorated with moose antlers.

After a brief lunch, we got dressed to fish. Aren wanted to see our gear and what flies we brought. For my part, I was interested in getting to know him and his background. He was a native Alaskan of Swedish heritage. That coincided with his blue eyes and long, blonde hair. He grew up in the bush and was not afraid of bears. He had, in fact, killed his first bear at age eight. The animal killed his dog so he grabbed a rifle and tracked it down. I can imagine the bear didn’t have a chance. At the ripe old age of seventeen, this was his fifth summer guiding fishermen and the first at Talstar lodge. His previous employer was just across the river from Talstar.

To everyone’s satisfaction, Aren summarized his inspection of our tackle saying “You brought all the right stuff.” That pleased Dick and me as the three large boxes of flies represented several months of preparation. We each strung up two rods and headed for the boat. Aren placed the rods in a rack fixed to the console. We added life vests to our outfits and sped downriver.

Fishermen were still working the water in the same places as when we passed them an hour ago, now to our right looking downstream. So Aren tied up the boat on the left side of the gravel bar and pointed toward the deadfall. I didn’t realize it at the time but he was sizing us up. Some earlier clients couldn’t cast fifteen feet and were frustrated at not hooking the monsters swimming visibly by. A guide has a tough day when his clients don’t catch fish and a worse one when the fish are almost within reach.

Dick and I spread out. At Aren’s suggestion, Dick tied on a purple egg-sucking leech, a fancy name for a purple woolly bugger with bright pink or orange chenille wrapped at the head of the fly in the shape of a salmon egg. I admittedly have a touch of perversity in me so I ignored Aren’s advice. I went to my box of shad flies instead thinking their bright colors would be as attractive to the fish as the pink and orange salmon flies in the catalogs. The shad flies were an assortment of brightly colored Clouser minnows. I picked a pink and white one.

It didn’t seem to matter what we threw at them. We cast against the deadfall, let the fly sink and stripped it back. The salmon sometimes took softly and the line just went tight. Other times the fish slashed in from nowhere and smashed into the fly. Once they felt the hook, the fish usually made several strong runs and went airborne, tearing up the pool. Pink salmon are not supposed to jump but one greyhounded across the pool and made the reel sing before he tired. His broad, humped back (hence the nickname “humpy”) made it easy to determine his sex. In as many casts, I hooked a pink, silver and chum salmon. The pinks are the most plentiful being the smallest with the chums the largest in size and fewest in numbers. I hooked something solid right against the deadfall and quickly got it on the reel. It was a powerful fish and had the muscle to exert its will. It never cleared water and wanted none of my side of the river. Finally it came into view and I saw the chum, all twelve or so pounds of it. The chums are sort of the special forces of Pacific salmon being extremely strong fish and decked out in bizarre, multicolored stripes, like a form of aquatic camo. My fish turned upstream and was now fighting the current and the rod. Dick had been watching the whole affair and called out to warn me of a stick that could cause trouble. The stick was downstream of my position and, I thought, well out of the way. But the fish heard him, turned 180 degrees downstream, and headed straight for the stick. Before I could react, it wrapped the heavy portion of the leader several times and broke off. I couldn’t believe it. Only a few seconds elapsed between being tight to a big fish and holding a frayed leader. Thanks, Dick.

Dick and I quickly realized we had an unanticipated problem to deal with. These fish were so large we couldn’t simply grab them with our hands like a trout. And Aren didn’t have a net. I suggested to Dick he drag the fish onto the bar where the final kicks of their tails would beach themselves. This worked but it was quite a ways back to the gravel bar. I decided to see if the ole’ fish lift would work. The lift is a one-handed operation. Place your hand under one side of the fish, halfway down its length, and lift the entire critter out of the water. In theory, the fish relaxes, letting its dead weight hang in your hand and doesn’t flop around, allowing you to easily remove the hook. Well, the darn thing worked. My second silver was about nine pounds and he was docile resting in my hand. The barbless Clouser came out easily and I slid the fish back into the water. The lift was a life saver for the fish, easy on me and didn’t require any extra equipment.

I hadn’t noticed the fishermen to our backs had left but Aren had maintained a watchful eye. The opposite side held deeper water that tapered off quickly from the bar’s edge so the fish actually swam closer to you than those we were fishing for. So we switched sides and had the entire shoreline to ourselves. The conditions were perfect Alaskan fishing weather: an intermittent light rain and low, gray ceiling. What an afternoon! For about three hours, Dick and I were constantly hooked up. We had doubles most of the time. Dick stuck with the leech and had constant success with it. I used a single pink Clouser and caught about 40 fish on the same fly. I had to replace it only after Aren started removing it from the fish with a pair of forceps, which were tough on the fly. I reached the point of talking to the fish, yelling at them to “Take it, take it!” The silvers reacted violently to the hook, immediately taking to the air, tossing head over heels and peeling off line to get away from the source of the sting. They jumped, rolled and crashed on the surface throughout the fight. It was no wonder so much of what I had read praised the silver’s fighting abilities. To keep the fish from breaking off, I constantly checked the tippet for abrasions and replaced it many times (the tippet was looped onto the body of the leader so I wasn’t constantly cutting the leader back). I also upped the ten pound tippet to twelve pounds as the possibility of tangling with a larger chum was always present.

The clear water allowed us to do a lot of fish watching. I noted most silvers often traveled in groups of two or three but the larger individuals tended to be loners. I also observed a behavior not described in the books. Conventional wisdom has it that ‘you can’t strip a fly fast enough for a silver.’ I found, however, that sometimes you could induce a take without even activating the fly. I picked out a silver to cast to and dropped the Clouser about a foot upstream. As the fly sank, the salmon swam over to it and closed its mouth down on the fly. The Clouser must wobble like a dying baitfish as it sinks because it surely attracted the fish! Silvers ate the fly on the drop several times so it wasn’t a fluke displayed by just one fish.

We finally fished ourselves into exhaustion and it was time to go. We had indeed been in the right place at the right time. The lodge brochure stated you can expect to get a strike on nearly every cast. Both Dick and I were alarmed by this believing it would set unusually high expectations that could never be satisfied. In short, we felt the lodge was setting itself up for some dissatisfied customers. But we had just demonstrated their claim was true! Dick was grinning from ear to ear. I know I was smiling. This was the best fishing I have ever had and for the largest fish I had ever caught, outside of a few large stripers. But these guys came one after the other whereas the big stripers were a rarity. The Tal was truly a fishermen’s dream. Aren was as relaxed as I have ever seen a guide. We had passed his test and didn’t need his constant attention, certainly a welcome respite from his previous clients. Now we headed back to the lodge for dinner and some much needed rest.

Jim Brady

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