PUBLISHER ’ S LETTER
Alaska ’ s Big River produced this hook-nose coho for Pat Hoglund .
Travel Hopefully . . .
Long ago Robert Louis Stevenson wrote , “ It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive .” I am contemplating that while the de Havilland Beaver is in the air .
I ’ m three days into a trout bender and I ’ ve sufficiently caught and released upwards of 100 rainbow trout the past 72 hours . Epic is the best way to describe it .
Yet as the plane cuts through the Alaska sky my mind is racing . I am playing out scenarios that I ’ m about to experience the next 10 hours of my life . Soon , the pontoons will splash down on a small , tidally influenced river along the west coast of Alaska . Soon , I will be casting big , gaudy streamers to oceanfresh coho . And soon , I ’ m told , I will experience some of the best fly fishing for salmon in all of Alaska . I am traveling hopefully , which is to say the journey is always better than the destination .
I am hoping not to be disappointed . My mind travels to previous fishing trips where the salmon fishing was off the charts . The Alagnak River comes to mind . So does the Upper Talarik . And the Italio River . How can today ’ s trip be better than those ? Maybe Stevenson was right . Maybe the fishing will only be as good as I imagine and the destination will leave me wanting more .
I remember the Upper Talarik Creek well . I stood in one spot , and never moved my feet for the better part of an hour and a half . I made 35 casts in a row and hooked and landed 35 coho . Consecutively . It was a 90-minute period of my life that is burned indelibly into my brain . It was unforgettable . As was the Alagnak River . It was here that Jeff Schluter from St . Croix Rods and I fished feverishly on the lower river . As the water level rose , so did the numbers of coho . I never kept track of the fish we caught , but the fishing was ridiculous . Cast after cast , we hooked coho after coho , each one dripping with sea lice . Then there was the Italio River . While seated in the passenger seat of a Beaver I flew from Yakutat along the Alaska coastline . It was low tide and from the air we could see hundreds of coho trapped in low water . They would stay there until the tide changed . If there ever was a time when I ’ ve been able to shoot fish in a barrel , my four hours on the Italio was it .
So as my guide described the coho fishing on the Big River , I found it hard to believe that it would be better than my previous experiences . Yet , the promise of better fishing forced my mind to go to the unimaginable . Mental images of coho attacking my fly raced back and forth through my head . Casting , stripping , setting the hook and then watching an ocean-fresh salmon twist and turn in an attempt to free itself . It was a cornucopia of mental bliss . I was traveling well . When the plane continued toward the river the anticipation was palpable . I could taste it .
As this issue of Traveling Angler goes to press I am doing the same mental somersaults with this summer ’ s fishing trips . For the fourth time I will again find myself salmon fishing at Langara Fishing Lodge . This time my son will join me . Peter is 14 and he ’ s coming to appreciate fishing in a way that I had hoped . Like every time before ,
I am envisioning big kings , lots of coho and splendid accommodations . Later in August the two of us will travel to Bristol Bay where we ’ ll spend our days flying to exotic trout and salmon waters courtesy of Rainbow King Lodge ’ s fleet of float planes . Those two trips alone are enough to keep my mind racing , much like it was when the green Beaver from Alaska Sportsman ’ s Lodge landed on the Big River .
After we unloaded the plane , we strung up our fly rods and walked up the shoreline . Across from me was a deep hole protected by a cut bank and overhanging trees . I made one false cast and I remember thinking about Stevenson ’ s line . Apparently , he never traveled with a fly rod because what happened next was everything I imagined .
Tight lines ! todd calitri photo
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