It was muggy and scorching in Fairbanks when Lander Criminal and I left his house and began driving north. I used to be in Alaska for a number of weeks; Lander was there working the complete summer season. We’d timed the journey so we may spend a few days fishing collectively. I’d simply come again from chasing halibut out of Valdez and sockeye all by way of the Copper River drainage. Lander strung collectively a number of days off from driving tour buses so we’d have time to correctly discover the roadside fisheries round Fairbanks.
Early July isn’t the best time to fish inside Alaska, because the salmon largely aren’t up that far within the river methods but, and trout fishing doesn’t actually exist north of the Alaska Vary, save for a number of lakes the state shares.
This was my first journey to Alaska, and the primary time Lander had fished the inside. We didn’t understand the rivers that sumptuously winked their approach by way of the plush inexperienced panorama had been largely devoid of fish, and could be for at the very least one other month. Certain, a number of streams in all probability had a number of nearly-dead early-run kings, or pike. However we hadn’t come all the best way to Alaska to fish for a possibly.
So, on a whim, we pulled off the Elliot Freeway and regarded downstream at a tributary of the Yukon River. Our guidebook mentioned it was house to king salmon, pike, burbot, and grayling.
“Perhaps there’s grayling right here,” Lander mentioned whereas we strung up our fly rods.
I shrugged. “Perhaps.” I wasn’t excited on the prospect. I’d caught grayling again within the Rockies, however they weren’t massive. They didn’t struggle properly, and I knew my 6-weight could be overkill.
What I ignored – a standard theme on this story – was the Alaskan tendency for wildlife to exist on a scale an order of magnitude bigger than most something we now have within the Decrease 48.
Inside ten minutes of casting a measurement 12 Adams upstream, I watched a darkish form shoot off the river backside. It adopted my dry fly for a number of seconds, then promptly ate it. I set the hook, shocked by the bend within the rod. The fish ran upstream, darting by way of branches and round rocks earlier than I introduced it to the online.
It was an 18-inch grayling, all purple and inexperienced within the uncommon glare of a full afternoon solar. Its huge dorsal fin flexed, catching the sunshine and casting a menagerie of colours all through the water.
That fish was the prettiest I’ve ever caught. Because it slipped by way of my fingers again into the river, I had a suspicion we’d lucked into one thing nice.
A number of moments later, Lander hollered from downstream. He’d simply netted his first grayling.
For the subsequent three hours, we fished far upstream, catching fish from each handsome pool, run, and riffle. The grayling assorted in measurement, however not in magnificence. They jumped clear out of the water a number of instances, performing acrobatics that’d disgrace any well-to-do rainbow trout. By the point we left the river, I’d utterly forgotten in regards to the salmon we’d initially set out for.
Lander and I spent two extra days fishing for grayling, discovering stream after stream chock-full of the native marvels. We even discovered a number of lunkers, together with one Lander caught that was 22 inches lengthy and shut to 3 kilos. It wasn’t till I received house and began researching grayling that I spotted what a particular fish that one was.
The worth you pay for grayling (photograph: Earl Harper).
In fact, once I went again house to the Rockies, I used to be on the hunt for excellent grayling fishing. I used to be residing in Utah on the time, which really has a number of implausible grayling fisheries. Nothing like Alaksa, in fact, however they’re waters able to rising 20-inch grayling.
I discovered a number of good grayling on the south slope of the Uinta Mountains, in northeastern Utah. I discovered others in central Utah, a number of hours north of Zion Nationwide Park. The very best ones, although, had been tucked right into a tiny pond at nearly 10,000 toes above sea degree, far again within the thick timber of the Uintas. Due to a tip from a pal, I had the GPS coordinates for a lake that supposedly had the largest grayling within the state.
It took the higher a part of two hours to make the three.5 mile hike from my truck to the lake. Many of the hike was flat, however the final half-mile was throughout downed timber and up a slope steep sufficient I nearly misplaced my footing and tumbled arse-over-teakettle again down the mountain.
Once I lastly cleared the summit, the pond lay proper there on the high. Not in a bowl, or beneath a cirque, like most lakes. No, this pond sits proper on the height, its crystal-clear water all the time uneven from the ever-present wind.
I hadn’t even put my fly rod collectively once I noticed the primary rise. Then one other. Then two extra. All around the lake, popping up so steadily I puzzled simply what number of fish had been swimming within the lake. I hurried to complete rigging my rod, then waded in as much as my waist. A number of casts later and my fly – one other measurement 12 Adams – perched on the floor, bobbing within the comfortable wakes.
Then the fly disappeared, and I set the hook right into a 15-inch grayling. Of all of the grayling I’d caught since my first journey to Alaska, this one regarded essentially the most like its far north cousins.
Rings from rising grayling speckle a distant Utah lake (photograph: Earl Harper).
For the subsequent three hours I caught as many grayling as I wished. The fishing was too good to be true. It felt like being again in Alaska, on streams that spend extra time buried beneath snow, ice, and infinite night time than daylight and the symphony of a stay, vibrant forest, the place fish need to eat with reckless abandon in the event that they wish to survive.
Perhaps that’s why I developed such a love for grayling. They’re essentially the most cooperative fish I’ve ever chased. A well-presented fly lures them to the floor with extra regularity than any cutthroat I’ve met. If I may decide one fish to start out new anglers on, it’d be fishing dries to grayling.
Grayling are a particular sufficient fish now that Lander and I make journeys particularly to catch them. Final 12 months we spent per week on the Kenai Peninsula, chasing salmon and dolly varden till we’d packed our carry-on fish packing containers full. Then we hopped on a airplane to fly a number of hours north, the place we borrowed a automobile from one among Lander’s work associates. It took one other 90 minutes earlier than we made it to a lonely spring creek, deep within the inside. In lower than 24 hours we’d gone from the sprawling mass of the glacial grey-blue of the Kenai River, to one thing that wouldn’t have regarded out-of-place in Montana.
And, if we’d timed it excellent, we’d arrived alongside the migration of that little river’s largest grayling.
In Alaska, grayling need to be 18 inches lengthy to be thought of a trophy fish for catch-and-release fishing. For the six hours we spent fishing that afternoon, each fish we caught match these trophy tips.
We solely had a day on that spring creek. We’d each caught private finest sockeye, kings, and dolly varden down on the Kenai. We’d even managed an amazing day of deep-sea fishing for halibut and coho. We’d seen killer whales, grizzly bear tracks, seals, moose, and extra fish than we may comprehend.
And the one factor we talked about with gusto on the flight house was the grayling.
