My First Fishing Trip I guess I always wanted to go fishing in Alaska. What fisherman doesn't? One of my sons moved to Alaska in 1982. All I heard from him after that was, "you have to see this" and "you have to see that". Alaska to him was the greatest place in the whole world to live. I would later understand why. I worked as an adult in California for more than twenty-five years and owned my own technical business, but something was missing, I needed a new challenge. I answered an ad for a job in Alaska. My application was answered by the manager of Panama Marine, a ship repair facility at Dutch Harbor. The manager called me and arranged to meet me at San Francisco International Airport. I must admit that I was impressed that anyone would ride on a plane for nine hours, just to interview me. We met in a lounge at the airport. After the interview, he talked about benefits and hired me on the spot. I called my son David and told him that I had been hired by Panama Marine to update the wiring of a World War II Submarine base at Dutch Harbor. He commented to the effect that Dutch Harbor was way the hell and gone out the Aleutian Islands, closer to Japan than is was to San Francisco. David wanted me to come to Anchorage early to get in some fishing before I reported to work. That was just fine with me. I took the red-eye flight from San Francisco via Alaska Airlines on friday evening and arrived at Anchorage Airport in time for breakfast on a beautiful April morning in 1984. David picked me up and we headed downtown to Fred Meyers to buy my fishing license. I was surprised that people carried side arms in Anchorage. David had his 357 magnum strapped on his hip and no one paid the least attention to it. It was a wierd experience to witness civilians packing heat. After we obtained my fishing license, we headed back up Spenard Road to the airport. Across the road from the airport was Lake Hood. Upon arrival I saw row on row of airplanes with fat tires, and two hundred feet away the lake was surrounded by scores of pontooned aircraft parked side by side. Down the line we spied an old blue "beater" aircraft that belonged to Ed Rinner, a friend of David's. There we unloaded our camping gear, poles, cooler. tent, food and sleeping bags. We parked our pickup truck and, while we waited Ed to show up, we caught up on all of our family happenings. I kept looking at that old plane, wondering to myself if I really wanted to fly in it. Finally our friend arrived and we loaded our stuff and climbed aboard. The engine started and sounded OK to me. Ed put on his head set and briefly with the tower, then we took off leaving a cloud of flying gravel. As we spirelled upward, Ed explained that four glide paths crossed close by, Anchorage International, Lake Hood, Merrell Field, and Elmendorf Air Force Base. Clearance to take off had to come from all four towers. I was also told that the glide path over Cook Inlet was the busiest in the world. From Lake Hood Field we kept circling higher and higher. I just had to ask why. Ed explained that careful bush pilots would not risk crashing into the always treacherous Cook Inlet, which was a certain and quick death. So we circled to an altitude sufficient to glide across if the engine failed. Finally at about five thousand feet we headed across the inlet toward the outlet of the Little Susitna River on the far shore. Soon, Little "Sue" hove into sight At Little Sue we banked left, throttled back and cruised west over small lakes. Small shacks identified the area as a duck hunters paradise. Far below we watched float planes rise briefly from one lake to immediately settle down upon the next lake. I guessed that the pilot was trying to find his tar covered shack among hundreds of look-alike hovels. I decided to return later to hunt ducks, but my immediate thoughts were about King Salmon. About twenty minutes into the flight the land began to slope upward from the inlet to drier ground and trees began to appear. We circled low over a green field seemingly criss-crossed with roads, but they were scratches left over by thousands of visiting planes. We had at last arrived at Alexander Creek. We touched down on a surprisingly smooth landing, taxied to the edge of the trees and stopped. We unladed our gear. Ed said he would bring some more friends on sunday and would pick us up then. For that friday at least, we had thousands of acres of mother nature, in all directions, all to ourselves. For a long time I stood on that spot and watched our plane fade in the distance......then all was quiet. I drew in the really fresh air and felt I was truly in paradise. It was just a wonderful experience. My son strapped on his 357 magnum, then we hiked the long winding trail that led to Alexander Creek. Once we reached the creek, I saw something I had seen only in zoos, a beautiful bald eagle setting on top of a dead tree on the other side of the creek, just looking back at us. I couldn't take my eyes off of that bird until David told me the state secret, that there were thousands of bald eagles in Alaska. We heard a plane approaching and look up to see Ed waggling his wings. That signal ment that salmon were holding off shore. Beluga whales are a sure sign that salmon are holding off shore. Fisherman in town must have laughed at us because they never went fishing until salmon entered the creek. Though we had already walked the creek and saw nothing except a beaver, we were still anxious to get a line in the water. David walked the stream looking for sign of rainbow trout or dollies, but all trout seem to know when Kings are coming, and they will usually hide out until the action has passed. Judging from the tide schedule, the salmon wouldn't be in that day, so we doped ourselves up with Neet for protection against the mosquitoes and decided to just enjoy camping. During the night the beaver woke us up several times by slapping it's tail on the water. It didn't matter, we were having fun. Early saturday morning a fisherman passed our camp. He carried a repeating shotgun strapped to his back. It was a graphic reminder that we were in bear country. The brown bears also knew that salmon were coming. Like the fishermen, the brown bears were also moving toward Alexander Creek. We cooked a meal over an open fire out of the ham and eggs we brought with us. Then we did some target practice with the 357. David noted from his experience that when the Kings started to run, the bears would come. Our second concern was that Beluga whales wouldn't eat all of the salmon. The Beluga whale is a small whale about twelve feet long and had a white skin. From a distance they had a faint resemblance to Gray Dolphins. The natives say that Beluga Whales are good to eat, but no one wanted to hunt Belugas. Native tribes occasionally hunt the Belugas all along Cook Inlet. After we finished breakfast we cleaned our pans with sand and rinsed them off in the creek. We placed food in a plastic garbage bag, attached a rope, and sank the bag into the creek. Taking those precautions should keep the bears out of our camp. Then we hiked further down the creek to try our luck. At about 10:00 AM, who really keeps track, we heard the sound of several small planes landing on the strip. We learned later that one pilot usually scouts the tide to see if fish are entering the creek. When the salmon start their upstream run, they radio their friends in Anchorage. Then the fun begins. With the sounds of aircraft in our ears, we grabbed our fishing gear and started about a one mile hike to the mouth of Alexander Creek. We never made it that far. About a half mile into the hike we heard men yelling down around a bend. As we rounded the bend we saw four fisherman with fish-on. The water was boiling with fish much larger then any I had ever seen, jumping out of the water and running in all directions, twisting, turning, fliping end for end, wraping themselves with yards of clear 20lb test line. Our pilot friend Ed was there and had a fish-on. Another friend had one on a snag. David and I started rigging up. Ed yelled for me to take his rod. Another friend held one half of an expensive graphite reinforced rod, a fish had the other half. A couple of the Kings were on snags. It was truly insane. I slid down and grabbed Ed's rod, reel singing as his hugh King ran hard upstream. Ed grabbed the broken end of his friends rod and got real wet in the process. I was afraid to increase the drag on Ed's fish. That King ran so fast that he beached himself on a sand bar. I was unable get enough slack to follow him from shore, so I jumped into the water and waided up to the sandbar. The King was hugh, I experienced Buck Feaver, my heart was beating out of my chest. Then the coldness of the water hit me and I turned numb. As I waded closer to the sandbar, my feet became entangled in old line. I managed to position myself between the tumbling fish and the safety of the water. Getting ahold of the tumbling fish was another matter. Though wound in fishing line, he still managed to flip between my legs into shallow water, but with the line wrapped around my legs, he was going nowhere without me. It was Ed's fish, but I landed and got to keep it. What a thrill that was. The other five fishermen had less luck, losing three of their fish on snags while I was fighting Ed's fish. It is strange I know, but the biggest fear I had, besides losing the fish, was getting the fish hook stuck in my hand. Someone threw me a big net and I used that to scoop the jumping fish from the water. The other fishermen didn't seem too impressed with the fish. It was thirty six inches long. No one had a scale to weigh it. "Nice fish" was the only comment I heard. During the following hour, using my own rig, hooked several fish, but never landed any. But I didn't really care. I was just happy to be there. Well, within the three hours we were all there, the seven of us hiked out with nineteen fish. I have to tell you that, even dressed out, those three fish were heavy. The closer we got to the airstrip, the heavier they became. I went fishing for Kings many times after that, but no trip ever surpassed that first trip. After we took off we noted that bears were moving toward our snag infested fishing hole That was only fair. There were enough fish to go around. After all, it was their fishing hole first. I lived in Alaska ten years and never visited Alexander Creek again. Somehow, a repeat visit just wouldn't be the same. END |
