This is my current view.

After exactly four weeks in Alaska, I’m back in Roanoke.

The trip back was long, but uneventful. I got to the airport in Anchorage at midnight Monday night and landed in Roanoke 16 hours later.

It was great to see Mary and the girls waiting for me outside security at the airport. It was also great that all of my bags arrived in one piece.

After a long night’s sleep, and I mean a loooonngg night’s sleep, I am back at my cubicle. I was relieved that my Roanoke Times security badge still worked!

It was odd to see the sun this morning, and to experience 80 degrees.

Regular readers are probably tiring of my tales from Alaska. They are about to end. But I do plan at least one more thing, an analysis of techniques that worked up there, and how those techniques can translate to fishing (mostly) in Virginia. The piece, to run on the Outdoors page in The Roanoke Times on Friday, will be speculative, but I think some of the things I did up there will work great here.

Thanks again to all of you who tuned in to my postings from Alaska. My blog readership numbers were solid — and the many supportive comments certainly didn’t hurt, either — and that certainly helped ensure that my badge still worked this morning. As you all know my outdoors coverage focuses almost exclusively on the region, and it always will. It was nice to be able to do something extraordinary (as in the location) and still have people interested.

Don’t get used to it, or worry that I will start jetting off to exciting locales on a regular basis. Mary has also let me know that four weeks was too long, which I take as a good thing that she actually likes having me around. Also, I footed this bill on my own, and it took a big bite out of my fun budget for a couple years.

That said, Alaska is an attainable destination.

Yes, if you go all out and set a trip up through an outfitter it can get pricey, especially if you’re talking about something like hunting brown bears or dall sheep (which require an outfitter).

But it’s possible to do it for a relatively modest amount of money, especially if you travel with friends and share costs. Maybe I’ll try to do a piece that breaks down the costs and planning.

Now, back to focusing hunting and fishing in Virginia!

Two hours of fishing the rising Ibek Creek in a driving rain produced this 6-pound silver salmon.

CORDOVA, Alaska — Wednesday brought a welcome break from the incessant rain that has plagued this week-long (with no end in sight) visit to this remote little town in Southcentral Alaska.

I spent the break at the Cordova airport.

Kraig Cesar, the last remaining member of my party, had finally said “Enough is enough.”

With required business travel next week he had no choice but to bail, booking a flight out of Cordova to Anchorage so he could catch his plane back to Virginia late Thursday night.

While the ferries have not been running – today’s cancellation is the fifth in six days – flights have been getting out of here, albeit with lots of delays.

Again, the weather was actually decent yesterday afternoon.

Here. Not in Anchorage.

So the 737 Kraig was to be on sat on the tarmac for several hours. Sure, I could have just dumped him and gone fishing. But I am not one to leave a man behind. So we waited out the delay in the RV – appropriately labeled the Sunseeker – until he finally got the call to board about 3 p.m.

On the way to the airport we’d driven over Ibek Creek, which had dropped a goodly amount since the heavy rains earlier in the week.

Naturally, heavy rain started falling about the time Kraig left.

I geared up on the side of the road and hit the creek – it’s really a river — along with a half-dozen other Gore-Tex clad anglers. Read more »

A Johnson Silver Minnow spoon fooled this and many other small pike at Alaska's Fiasco Lake.

Bill Watt of Arizona casts a fly for Fiasco Lake's northern pike. Fly fishing proved effective for the lake's hungry predators.

We flew to Fiasco Lake in Will's Cessna 206 amphibious float plane.

The winding Birch Creek is popular among float hunters seeking moose.

Pilot Will Johnson has been flying bush planes in Alaska for decades.

CORDOVA, Alaska — While skill is the most important aspect in successful fishing, luck really does play a part.

Sometimes, that luck occurs off the water.

While checking in for the Outdoor Writers Association of America’s recent conference at Chena Hot Springs Resort near Fairbanks, Alaska, every registrant got to draw for a prize tour offered by the resort.

Most were modest, such as a day’s bike rental or a tour of the facility’s famous ice museum.

A few were significant, such as flight-seeing tours that normally sell for a few hundred bucks.

I drew one of those, an airplane trip to a place called Chicken, with a stop to tour a gold-dredging operation and a chance to do some gold-panning.

Bernie Karl, the resort’s colorful owner, said the scenery from the air would be spectacular, and added that we’d have a good chance to see caribou.

But…

One of the other tours was a fly-out fishing trip to a remote lake to fish for northern pike.

I like scenery. I like gold.

I love fishing.

Part of the deal was we were able to trade tours. So, how could I find out who had drawn the fishing trip?

I decided to make an announcement at lunch that I was looking to trade my Chicken trip for the fishing trip.

Just a few minutes later I was waiting for a conference session to start when Virginia writer Nancy Sorrells walked up and asked me, “Do you know anyone who might be interested in trading for a fly-out fishing trip?”

Bingo.

The trip was at noon the next day. I packed a 9-weight fly rod and a medium-heavy action spinning rod.

Our pilot was veteran bush pilot Will Johnson, who estimated that he had somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 hours of Alaska flying.

We were flying in his amphibious Cessna 206, a plane with wheeled landing gear tucked into its pontoons. The versatile plane can take off and land on runways or water.

Our target was Fiasco Lake. No kidding.

The other guys fishing on the trip were Bill Watt from Arizona and William Greer from Florida.

Yep. Will. Bill. And William.

We made it there in about 45 minutes, and Will taxied us to a wind-buffeted shoreline.

After Will parked the plane and tied up to shore, we hit the shore and got our gear ready. The shoreline was boggy, so we needed waders.

Bill and William were starting with fly gear while I started with my spinning rod, to which I had tied a weedless Johnson Silver Minnow.

The lake was clear, with lots of weeds and lily pads. It looked pikey.

And it was pikey.

I got a strike on my third cast but didn’t hook up. I figured after getting the quick strike that it would be wide open, but it wasn’t. So I experimented with my retrieve, trying fast retrieves and slow retrieves.

Then I tried a varied retrieve, turning my reel handle three times, pausing, then reeling three more times.

Boom!

The pike crushed the spoon as it dropped during the pause.

These weren’t big fish, mind you, ranging from 18 to maybe 30 inches. But my tackle was relatively light so the fish were fun.

After I caught a couple dozen – really – I decided to try my fly rod. The only flies I had were some hideous king salmon flies loaned to me by my buddy Mark Freeman.

How nasty were these flies? Imagine taking a white chicken wing and tying it to a 3/0 hook. That was pretty much it.

Now, those kinds of flies may be awesome for kings, and I’m sure would work well for Chesapeake Bay striped bass. But trying to cast one in the wind with my 9-weight fly rod was brutal.

Bill and William were doing well with their gear, however, and having a blast. I was somewhat envious.

I returned to the boat to get my spinning gear and a different spoon as I’d loaned my one Silver Minnow to Will.

A weedless Johnson Silver Minnow proved the day's best lure.

Will was on the plane’s pontoon, his boots off and his pants wet.

“What happened?” I asked.

He smiled sheepishly.

“I hung up your spoon and when I was trying to get it free I fell in,” he said. “And I still lost it.”

I shook my head.

“My grandpa gave me that lure,” I said, then laughed.

Actually, a rep from Pure Fishing had given me the lure a day earlier.

We loaded up and hit the air.

Other than Will’s unintended dip, our trip to Fiasco Lake had been anything but a fiasco.

Another day in Cordova, Alaska, another mass of moisture headed toward the city.

Today’s blog post is brought to you by The Hotel Cordova, where you can check out any time you want, but you can never leave.

Another storm is hitting us today and tomorrow. The ferry was canceled this morning and tomorrow. That will create a backlog of passengers for the next few days. In short, I ain’t getting out of here any time soon.

Sea Otters frolick in the Cordova harbor.

The same can’t be said of my travel companion, Kraig Cesar. He has business-related travel next week so simply can’t stick around. He got a plane ticket out of here tomorrow. (If the winds are what they predict, I suspect he’ll be around until Thursday.)

I am stuck here because I have the rental RV. And, to answer a question from a reader on my previous post, I don’t plan to find out what the late fee is. I’ll have to call and extend my “reservation.” At least it is less expensive per day than a motel room.

So, the good news.

One, Cordova has city-wide wifi. I dropped $20 for a week of service. So I’m plugged in, which means I can work. You know it’s bad when work is the best way to pass the time!

Kraig said, “You’ll finally get to write that book you’ve been talking about.” He might be right.

Two, we actually found some fish yesterday.

Kraig Cesar fishes for trout at a small lake in the national forest not far from Cordova, Alaska.

Chris Batin pointed us to a remote lake (pond, really) in the national forest. Using salmon eggs and beads we caught a bunch of cutthroat trout and dolly varden. They were small (up to 12 inches) but on ultralight tackle were fun. And we even got to enjoy the place for about an hour before it started raining.

Three, the harbor is packed with sea otters. They are cute. I took pictures, just like every other tourist.

I appreciate all the readers keeping up with this epic adventure. I can also understand that readers can take only so many “Another day stuck in Cordova” posts. So I’ll do what I can to get out there when the weather conditions allow.

The same bead patterns that work on river dolly varden fooled the lake's small dollies.

Heavy rain caused this road-blocking mudslide near the Orca Adventure Lodge in Cordova, Alaska.

CORDOVA, Alaska — A predicted strong storm that approached central Alaska over the weekend turned out to be every bit as vicious as expected.

We hunkered down through the rain — 17 inches fell over the past three days at the Cordova harbor — and wind in our 24-foot RV,  where I passed the time reading and tying flies.

We came through relatively unscathed.

Well, sort of. Read more »

This bright silver salmon from the Alaganik slough fell for a pink and white bunny leech fly.

CORDOVA, Alaska — We’ve had plenty of nice weather during this Alaskan adventure, along with plenty of rain.

But we’ve had nothing like the storm pounding us right now.

Yesterday was wet and windy, but it was just a hint of things to come. Last night the winds picked up. They pounded the RV, which we had parked for the night in an exposed campground. I haven’t felt that kind of rocking since my Navy days. I didn’t get much sleep.

Today the weather is even worse, and forecasters say it’s going to go downhill from here. It’s pouring, and the rain is coming down in horizontal sheets driven by a steady 30 mph wind, with gusts to 50. Apparently we could get 85 mph winds here tonight.

So, there’s no fishing today, and likely none tomorrow. I’ve been catching up on some writing and emails at the Cordova public library, which is quite nice and has fast, free wireless Internet. My buddy Kraig Cesar is out trying to find a place to vacuum pack and freeze our fish.

Cliff Bruner, the third member of our group, flew out of here last night because he needed to get back to Virginia Beach. He’s supposed to fly out of Anchorage tonight but I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up stuck there another day because the winds are supposed to be wicked up there, too.

Despite the wet weather yesterday we fished. It wasn’t on fire, but wasn’t bad. Read more »

Anglers line the banks of Ibek Creek in search of silver salmon.

CORDOVA, Alaska — For its size, Alaska doesn’t have many miles of paved highways. But there are other ways to get around.

The air is important, of course, and it seems the sky is always full of little bush planes.

Water is another, and an important aspect of that is the formal Alaska Marine Highway System.

The Chenega high speed ferry provides comfortable seating and a speedy ride -- when the ferry is not kept in port by bad weather.

We just got our first taste of it, riding the ferry Chenega from Whittier to Cordova on Wednesday evening.

Visitors to North Carolina’s Outer Banks are familiar with the little open boats that ferry cars and passengers on the coast, such as to Ocracoke Island.

The Chenega is a different animal.

It’s a catamaran that’s 219 feet long, and it carries up to 35 vehicles and as many as 250 passengers.

Powered by a jet propulsion system that puts out more than 19,000 horsepower, its top speed is a whopping 32 knots. I don’t know if we’re doing that right now, but we’re close.

I spent a lot of time at sea and we were going faster than I ever went on a Navy ship. By far.

The weather was blustery and Prince William Sound was kind of rough, and the captain warned that we might experience “some weather” on the trip. If that was rough, I’ll take it. The ride was super smooth.

The cabin was super comfortable.

It wasn’t cheap. The one-way ticket for the three of us and our 24-foot RV rang in at a stout $466. The vehicle was the killer, but having it with us over in Cordova will ultimately be a money-saver because it will be our lodging.

We arrived at 6:30, and pouring rain commenced.

Cliff and Kraig were set on working out so we paid the one-day entrance fee for the Cordova Recreation Center (which is slightly larger than my living room) and got in a work out and, more importantly, an actual shower.

After “camping” in a parking lot last night, we got up this morning and headed to Ibek Creek on the recommendation of Chris Batin, who is a regular down this way.

Cliff Bruner caught this 14-pound silver salmon on Ibek Creek near Cordova, Alaska.

It wasn’t hard to find. All we had to do was look for all the cars.

The scene at the bridge was not exactly combat fishing, but there was a pretty good crowd. We headed upstream and found some open water.

And found lots of fish.

The silver salmon were stacked in there. The guys immediately above us already had their limit (three apiece) and were fishing for fun, catching a nice silver every 10 minutes or so.

They were using pink spinners so we went with pink. It worked. Especially for Cliff. He had his limit before Kraig or I had a fish.

Not that I hadn’t gotten a chance. I hooked a couple, including one on my fly rod. Both broke me off.

There is no excuse for breaking off fish, at least not fish you are targeting. If you are breaking them off, you are doing something wrong, or using inappropriate gear.

I was guilty of the latter. You’d think that with all the thought and planning I put into this trip I would have been better prepared.

Nope.

My fly leader was weak. My spinning leader was weak. These fish, which were 10 to 12 pounds each, were strong.

Not a good combination.

Things got worse before they got better.

We lost our best pink Blue Fox Vibrax spinners. Kraig tried in vain to save one he hung up, but ended flailing mightily, filling his waders with water and killing his radio. (We use radios to stay in touch on the stream. They are great. Bummer that we are down to two.)

He lost the lure, too.

Many fishermen fillet their salmon before making the trek back to their vehicles. These anglers took an old-fashioned approach.

Other colors weren’t working well, so we pulled the eggs sacs from a hen that Cliff had caught and started fishing eggs, though we had to scramble a bit for rigs because we weren’t anticipating using this technique. (I had smallish treble hooks, but the best hooks are larger single hooks.)

The quick version of using eggs is you fish a big clump of roe on the bottom.

Fish killed it. Every time.

I hooked many. I lost many. It got funny. And frustrating.

I seriously think I lost 10 fish that either pulled off or broke off.

Cliff and Kraig had their limits and were ready to roll. I said I wasn’t leaving until I actually got a fish to the bank. I told them that I would find a ride back to town.

I wasn’t kidding.

Not that I don’t appreciate the simple fact that I am here. But I am competitive by nature and I can’t help it. As I told those guys, “I don’t quit.”

I hooked up again and could see that it was a male that had some color, meaning it wasn’t as bright as the fish that are newest to the system.

Having lost some chrome-bright fish, I figured that the first one I would land would be a little dark. And that’s what happened. I released it.

A few minutes later I got another one in. It was also a little dark and I released it. If it wasn’t the biggest fish of the day, it was close.

A small victory, but one I’ll take.

A glob of salmon roe fooled this 12-pound Ibek Creek silver salmon.

A float down the Kenai River near Cooper Landing produced an early morning sighting of two brown bear cubs, including this one, as well as a huge sow.

SOLDOTNA, Alaska — Time flies when you’re up before dawn, fishing all day in the wind, and scrambling to set up camp and eat dinner before 10 p.m.

As for the fishing, it’s been hot and cold the past couple of days. If anyone tells you that Alaska equals a fish on every cast every day, they are lying.

Not that it can’t happen. But it can happen in Virginia, too.

The thing about here is that when you do connect, the thing on the end of the line could be the biggest of that species that you’ll ever catch.

Sunday afternoon was frustrating as I attempted to upload some pix on my blog using my phone as a wireless hot spot. The cell signal in the Russian River campground was good, but not good enough to like uploading 100K photo files.

It’s Tuesday afternoon and things are moving a little better here at the Soldotna Suds Laundromat. I volunteered to do the laundry while Cliff and Kraig ran to Fred Meyer for provisions.

FYI, I have been using the word “provisions” since I got here because it seems more appropriate for Alaska than “groceries.”

Honestly, looking out the window here it looks like any town of 10,000 in America.

But, back to the fishing.

Things improved Sunday evening.

Using beads on the Russian I finally connected with a few trout, including a couple nice rainbows. The largest was about 18 inches long and really fat.

Dan Myers of Alaska Clearwater Sportfishing has been guiding on the Kenai River for more than 20 years.

Monday we spent the day with Dan Myers of Alaska Clearwater guide service, fishing  a 7-mile stretch of the Kenai River from just below the confluence with the Russian to Skilak Lake.

We were in Dan’s 20-foot drift boat, and while we fished some from the boat, most of our fishing was while wading.

Dan was giving us a primer right after we launched when Cliff said, “Sorry to interrupt, but there’s a bear.”

Walking the shoreline was a large brown bear (above). At least we thought it was large until we saw the second one.

The sow, which actually had two cubs with her, was enormous.

The river was chock full of spawning and spawned-out sockeye salmon. We would fish around the spawning fish for rainbows and dollies.

Kraig and Cliff connected with fish pretty early on. Cliff’s first was a really nice rainbow that was probably in the 20-inch range, and he also had a nice dolly varden early.

Cliff Bruner, right, had little trouble connecting with the Kenai's fat rainbow trout and dolly varden.

On every cast I watched intently for my strike indicator (a fly fishing euphemism for “bobber” to dart off indicating a strike.

I did a lot of watching, and no catching.

At one point, while fighting a nice dollie, Cliff asked, “Mark, do you want to reel this one in?”

Dan was working hard for me. At one point, after Kraig had a few hits, Dan said to him, “Kraig, you take this rod and give yours to Mark.”

It was easier to do that than to keep trying different color beads on my rig.

Things finally lit up for me about midday, and they lit up in a big way.

Fattened by salmon eggs, a 20-inch rainbow trout on the Kenai River pushes 3 pounds.

Over a stretch of about an hour in one run I could do no wrong. Every time I got a good drift I got a hit, and I hooked about half of the fish. The first one in was a 20-inch dolly. Then came an 18-inch rainbow (pictured), a 20-inch rainbow and, eventually, one that was  probably 22 inches long – the best non-steelhead rainbow of my life. Toward the end of our stay at the run I hooked a fish that appeared even bigger.

We had to move on, and made a long run through the river’s rollicking canyon section, which we didn’t fish.

The day ended with us casting for about 90 minutes from the boat right were the river dumps into the lake. I had a short tussle with a large rainbow but, with the exception of old, accidental salmon, that was it for me at that spot.

Kraig Cesar prepares to release a fat dolly varden.

Anglers in the boat next to us were pulling in some really nice dollies, fish that were in the 5- to 7-pound range. When they moved we slid over and got in on the action. Or, I should say Kraig and Cliff did. Both caught fish that were about 25 inches long, and shaped like footballs.

My time had come and gone.

Dan said the fishing was slow by his standards. I’d love to experience fast fishing. We could get back here next week so maybe we will.

Dan Myers spotted this black bear sow and cub while transitting across Skilak Lake.

The trip to the ramp required a 5-mile run under power, with took an hour with the 15-hp motor pushing the big drift boat. But Dan spotted a black bear on the shore and we got to go in for a closer look and pix of the sow and her cub.

Cliff said the bears were the highlight of his day, and it was tough to argue with it.

We camped at Bing’s Landing near Sterling on Monday night, and met Dan’s partner, Shane Sanders, Tuesday morning for a half-day of fishing for silver salmon out of Shane’s powerboat.

Shane Sanders of Alaska Clearwater Sportfishing guide service points his power boat down the lower Kenai River during a chilly morning of silver salmon fishing.

Shane said from the outset that it had been a tough season on the Kenai for silvers. That trend continued. We caught lots of old pink (humpy) salmon, but silvers were few and far between. I had two follows on a chartreuse Blue Fox spinner, and finally caught a small hen of about 3 pounds on that lure. That was it.

The wind was howling pretty good, and Shane really had to work to control the boat.

A morning of fishing on the lower Kenai produced many unintentional hookups with spawning pink and sockeye salmon but only this single silver salmon.

We bailed a little earlier than planned, with plans to call Shane if and when we get back here to see if action has improved.

This afternoon we’re heading back up to the Russian River campground. Tomorrow we catch the ferry for Cordova and, hopefully, some fast silver salmon action.

Bill Cochran used a small Blue Fox spinner to trick this 12-inch-long Chena River grayling.

CHENA HOT SPRINGS, Alaska — Bill Cochran and I don’t have the best track record on our fishing outings.

You’d think that with both of us going, the notorious outdoor writer curse would somehow cancel itself out. Instead, I think it doubles.

We’ve had slow days fishing for flounder on the Eastern Shore, and slow days fishing for smallmouth bass on the James River. Even slow days on Bill’s little pond on his property. (Granted that was an ice-fishing outing.)

So, I had to admit I was little nervous on Tuesday afternoon when we headed out for an afternoon of grayling fishing on the Chena River.

The fishing had been great a day earlier on Monument Creek, a little Chena River tributary. Would that continue? Or would the double curse rare its ugly head?

We headed a few miles down the road from the resort, along with Bill’s wife, Katherine, and writer Doug Stamm.

I was the only one with waders, an advantage on the stretch of water we ended up on. But from the river I found a spot with some decent bank access and got Bill and Paul there.

The fishing wasn’t furious. In fact, the grayling were pretty picky, rising slowly in the crystal clear water and then turning away from my flies. Read more »

A cow and calf moose browse within sight of outdoor writer Chris Batin's Alaska cabin.

CHENA HOT SPRINGS, Alaska — Mark Freeman woke me up Saturday morning at 6:30 a.m.

“I just got a text from Brett,” he said. “There are two moose out by the solar panel.”

We looked out the window of the RV and could see the dark figures in the tall weeds next to our host Chris Batin’s cabin, from which Brett had a better view.

It was a moosey morning, with a drizzling rain and lots of fog. Sorry the picture isn’t better, but the light was pretty poor.

The cow and her calf hung around for 30 minutes until Chris headed out to start his generator, which is next to the solar panel.

Chris was headed up to Chena Hot Springs Resort to do some conference-related work. So we all bugged out about 8 a.m. He had been a great host and his place is spectacular.

About 40 miles north on the Parks Highway, just inside the border of Denali State Park (not to be confused with Danali National Park), we came to Troublesome Creek, which I had read held rainbows, salmon and grayling.

It was rolling pretty good, but looking down from the bridge I could see some small fish, which I figured to be grayling, in an eddy. Why not?

We geared up and hit the water.

Grayling are supposedly quite gullible but whatever these fish were, they weren’t. The river had some half-dead spawning salmon but we didn’t see any rainbows. So we decided to move on. And, by on, I mean we abandoned our plan of camping around that area and decided to blow on up the road to the resort.

The Denali National Park visitor's center provides a glimpse at the wildlife that inhabits the park.

On the way we stopped at the Denali National Park visitor’s center, which was pretty interesting. Of course we couldn’t see the mountain due to clouds and fog.

Still, the scenery in the area was spectacular, the mountains covered with a mix of spruce and aspen in their bright yellow fall colors, with the alpine floor red from changing leaves on a shrub the identity of which I don’t know.

This being a holiday weekend the RV park at the resort was full when we got here, so we headed back down the road and parked on a gravel bar next to the West Fork of the Chena River. One nice thing about Alaska is that you can camp pretty much anywhere, apparently. Just pull off the road and you’re good to go. There are camps everywhere in the area because moose season just opened and, up here, moose season is like deer season used to be in Western Virginia.

We ended up camping on a gravel bar alongside the West Fork of the Chena River

We woke up this morning to patches of blue in the sky, and by midday it was absolutely gorgeous. I am wearing shorts this afternoon.

We came back to the resort this morning and got our site, which is on Monument Creek. We found OWAA staffers Robin, Ashley and Jessica and they said they’d been up the creek yesterday and seen some nice grayling.

Thirty minutes later we were on our way.

Grayling were abundant in the cyrstal clear waters of Monument Creek, a tributary of the Chena River.

The fishing was great, the iridescent fish gobbling just about anything we threw at them. It reminded me a lot of a good day on a native brook trout stream in Virginia, both in the size of the water and the eagerness of the targets. I probably caught and released 25 grayling in two hours. They were all small, in the 8- to 10-inch range. Brett and Mark both caught some better fish, including a 19-incher that Brett fooled on a girdle bug.

Work starts this evening with a meeting of the association’s executive committee. Tomorrow we have the board meeting. The board meetings have been known to last all day but I hope we can get through our business in a reasonable time as I’d like to head down the road to the larger Chena River to see if I can find a few more grayling, and maybe some bigger ones.