North 40 Fly Shop eMagazine October 2017 | Page 56

Afternoons on the Kanektok featured upriver
safaris for dollies and bow bow. Which shouldn’t
surprise: The Kanektok is as good as it gets for
the multi-species fishing in Alaska. We sought
out gator-sized dollies with bead and flesh-fly
setups. “Gaty” ranged between 20” and 28” and
came, at times, with nearly every-cast frequen-
cy. Dumb-dumb fishing in its purest state.
By 4 p.m. each day the cohos would beckon
and we’d head downriver for one last rail-fest on
the popper/wog train. Once we had our fill I’d pull
out the rifle to end each day, if for no other reason
than to watch Kurty’s lower lip hit the sandbar as
I sent that Pixie on cross-pool sorties.
By weeks-end we had truly clobbered ‘em
big-time . . . like mega-clobbered. And I didn’t
want to leave. But as I boarded the boat for the
journey downriver to the airstrip, I realized that
I’d had enough. But just as quickly I changed
my mind; as we rolled downstream I made the
56
Alumni-Guide Call upon Cole and directed him to
pull over at the vaunted Bay of Pigs silver hole.
“Time for a drive-by, Lad,” I said, declaring that
I would get two casts with the streamer stick—
Cole’s Redington Predator 990 fitted with a sure
thing 10’ sink-tip—and then hand it over to him.
The first cast was grabbed quickly, but the
rose-colored silver of about eight pounds freed
himself after a headshake. Cast #2 with the
cherise Rabb-IT Leech produced a beautiful,
chrome-bright 12-pound buck.
You can hunt kings and steelhead on the
best waters on earth and go home empty-hand-
ed after a week trying. But silvers always seem
to cooperate and fishing for them rates high
on the easy living scale—they are abundant,
aggressive, they jump like crazy, and they are
great on the dinner table. And did I mention this:
Fishing for silvers, no matter how many you’ve
landed, never gets old. w