Lateral Line Media

Wanted to give a huge thank you to the crew over at Goal0 for providing me with power on my last trip into the Alaskan Bush. For all you back country outfitters, fishermen and enthusiasts that spend a lot of time in the woods and are looking for a light weight power solution check these guys out. I powered my lap top, camera, batteries, lights and more for six days. It is a light weight solar charger that is small and portable. No more lugging big solar panels, car batteries, generators etc.. This is the answer.
Thanks a Bunch Goal 0. You guys rock.

Back from camping! Had a blast with the boys of Borealis Outdoor Adventures (BOA). We spent 6 nights in the Alaskan Bush floating the Alagnak River catching all sorts of fish. Grayling, Sockey Salmon, Lake Trout, Char, Rainbow Trout..etc. The sockeye fishing was outstanding bright chrome fish, some still with sea lice, that fought harder than any steelhead I have ever caught. There are pictures among pictures to go through and some video content as well. I will be posting more as soon as I get a few minutes to sort thru it all until then here is a link to a Facebook.com fan page for BOA and their website. If you ever wanted to experience the Alaskan Wilderness this is a 5 star way to do it. Thanks to the BOA Team.

Sitting in the back seat of a Jeep rolling north along the colorado river I was admiring the alpen glow on the horizon as the sun was leaving its last trace of light. My trance was interupted when the driver yelled over the open windows ” you two watch for deer while I roll this joint.”

Who was I to judge I just cracked my first beer and thought, if a fella thinks he oughta a fella should. Soon the road turned to dirt and we were well on our way deep into the north country. With a raft in tow packed with camping and fishing gear this was the begining to our 2 day float down one of the most remote rivers I have ever been to outside of Alaska. After about a 2.5 hour drive in the dark, picking up a half naked hitch hiker and dodging a midnight marathon runner in the middle of the prarie we arrive to our camping spot.

We built a small fire and drank what was left of the case of beer. At about 3 in the morning I woke up in a dead shiver looking up at the open star filled sky and starred at it and watched the night slowly turn to day. We rolled out of our frost covered sleeping bags, tired, slighly hungover and extremely cold. We made the 20 min drive back into town for hot coffee and breakfast where all 10 people in town looked at us with curious eyes.


Breakfast was 2 burnt pancakes the size of a dinner platter that I couldn’t eat so they became lunch. The other two wolfed down chicken fried steak and biscuts and gravy. I was having a tough time keeping it together. But these guys never missed a beat. I guess I was slightly more hungover and way more sleep deprived. But, that all passed and with the sun warming up we made our way back to the camp site and got packed up for the float. The put in was about 300 yards long down a dirt trail. And hauling a boat that is filled with the amount of shit we had was not an easy task. Once to the riverside we had our first beer and the rest of my pancakes, which were still burnt and had expanded due to the amount of syrup they absorbed. Awful… Anyway we finally made it on the water and started fishing we hiked up stream into the canyon and started catching Bron trout on salmon flies and streamers.

After some time wading we hopped back on the oars and continued down stream. The area was vast and wild we never saw another boat for 2 days. We did meet a stranger at a camp spot fly fishing but he was a cool fella and joined us for beers later that night. The water was full of healthy brown trout and rainbow trout. All the fish we caught we in the high teens with some bigger ones that were lost during battle.


The second day of our float was even better than the first we caught them on streamers and big nymphs all the way to the take out. It got to a point where it was a little rediculous. Any water that looked fishy was, and we started calling out shots. Again we didn’t see another soul and pushed on to the take out. After getting lost for about 30min we finally found our route and headed home. To my crew thanks for the invite and showing me an amazing piece of country. I am off to another remote river in Alaska for a while and will report in as soon as I return. Thanks for reading.

Been a while since the last entry and I apologize to those of you who have been checking back and seeing the same old thing. I have been busy with work and shipping out sasquatch sweathshirts. Wow what a project and i want to thank all of you who bought a shirt. I can assure you that this is a challenging task and once I again I thank you for being patient. Other than working and watching graphs go up up up you havent missed anthign except this. About a week ago the Eagle River came back into floatable levels and the fishing has been great. We have been floating it late after work and catching them all 3 ways (streamers, nymphs and dry flies) The caddis are ready to go off and as soon as things start to level out we can expect to see good numbers of fish on the surface. Amy (aka wifey) and I did some damage the last couple days she was lightiing them up in every soft pocket we could reach.

So we had a little contest and this fish was the winner. It was Amy VS Cuz Andrew and although andrew put in a great effort he just couldn’t compete with lady luck.

We had to sneak pretty hard to find this fella. I am telling you Amos was on fire.

This one came yesterday pretty close to the boat ramp. Cam the chocolate lap dog was very excited to see a fish in the net. Great couple days on the Eagle River. if we could get this wind to stop blowing for a few days things could get even better. Keep checkin in I will keep posting.

It was time for a report so here it is. The Eagle River which flows directly behind our little abode has been producing some serious fishing until about one day ago. It is a finiky river this time of year with peaks and troughs on the water gauge as well as high and low temperatures. Over the past couple weeks we have put just over 70 miles floating down the river. Tandem streamer rigs were turning a lot of fish, Olive and Yellow have been the hot colors and it seemed most of the fish were chasing in the fast pocket water. The long slow deep pools were hit or miss.

The weather started to warm up last weekend and so did the water temperature. This brought the caddis to life. The mothers day caddis hatch came about a week late but what a marvel to see. It looked like it was snowing all day.

Derek Rust From Tahoe NV was driving thru on his way to learn how to pole a boat in the keys and made a stop for the event. I would say he got real lucky, because the river blew out 2 days later. He kept saying that he had never seen a hatch as thick as this nor one that had lasted all day. It was odd to see so many bugs on the water and no heads popping on the surface. But once the clouds rolled in around 1 oclock there were fish rising everywhere. It was almost too easy. They would eat it skated dead drifted and as soon as it hit the water.

Heres a shot of Derek picking out his next target far on river right.

Success

The next day Bob and I tried to hit it again but the temps dropped and not as many eager fish on the surface. we did boat a dozen or so but we had to work for them. I am trying to bring back the tweed for dry fly season maybe it will bring me some luck.

Got lucky with this one sipping deep under the brush. Maybe the hat does work..