Non-Fly Alaska DIY-ish getaway

Evan B · Aug 8, 2023

A good fishing friend of mine moved to Alaska about 10yrs ago, and I for some reason never could arrange it to get up there and fish with him. Finally got that corrected this past week. Plan was just some DIY stuff within a quick drive from Anchorage. No big backcountry lodges or any of that sort of thing. This was a CHEAP trip.

Note: I mostly failed at getting a ton of photos since I was too busy fishing.

Flew in to Anchorage late Thursday night and headed to his place for a quick nap before heading south to the Kenai Peninsula.

Day 1:
The second run of sockeye had just kicked off the day before, so we high tailed it down there before word got out. Made quick work of our three limits before everyone showed up! Had a whole stretch to ourselves, and once we bonked the final fish, the masses showed up. Was a ton of fun, actually. Way more than I anticipated. We were swinging flies, but, as is this fishery, many weren't actively biting it. All were hooked in the mouth, though. We used circle hooks on our flies to avoid snagging them.

Ended the day with a nice little hike around a park on the south edge of town where you get a view of the city from one side of the butte and an even nicer view of the mountain drainage to the south of it on the other side.

Rounded the day out with some caribou carnitas tacos

Day 2: For day 2, we did about a 5mi float on a small river about 2hrs from Anchorage. Water was low and clear, so we had our work cut out for us, but we made the best of it.

The river was absolutely polluted with humpies, so they made fishing effectively rather challenging. But we managed to get a whole grab bag of different species:

humpies (pink salmon), chum, rainbows, grayling, and our target species: a grand total of 3 Silvers (or coho as we prefer to call them here in Oregon).

Finished the day with some sockeye collars/fins (salmon wings) with fresh zucchini and peppers I brought up from my garden

(day 3 and 4 incoming)

Evan B · Aug 8, 2023

Day 3: Very short fishing day, but in a good way! Hit a relatively popular river just south of Anchorage, but mostly had the place to ourselves until we were done once again. And those who showed up after we were done were all, inexplicably, flossing for booted out pinks. Not a single person was (at least doing the right thing to..) targeting silvers. It was totally bizarre. Here we are with 9 bonked silvers and there's people just running flossing rigs for pinks. Even saw a guy bonking and piling up some REAL dark ones.

We fished eggs under a bobber to avoid the pinks, since they seem to bother that presentation less than any other method.

and man, this spot is pretty, but that glacial silt that comes in on the tide (that whole area of mud/silt you see is where it comes up when the 35+ foot tides move in) gets in to and on EVERYTHING. It is relentless, and also makes walking around pretty hazardous. We used ice trekkers on our boots to help with grip.

Went and checked out Cynosure Brewing after processing our fish back at the house. Their Helles Bock was one of the best things I've had in quite a long time!

Day 4: We hemmed and hawed over going back to the Kenai Peninsula (a 2hr+ drive) or going back to the closer spot we had fished for silvers the day before. We knew we'd be swimming in sockeye if we drove the distance, but since I had a plane to catch late in the afternoon, and were kind of running on fumes by this point, we decided to go back to our Day 3 spot.

Fishing was much slower: in fact, we didn't hit a fish for the first 2hrs. I eventually got 2 silvers back to back, then a LARGE king that gave me a really intense battle. It also rounded out my Alaska salmon grand slam: caught all 5 species!

(photos for this day will come soon. waiting for my friend to send them over)

We eventually got all our fish and checked out around 10am before heading back, processing, and flying home.

Flying home was another adventure... delayed connecting flight out of Seattle got me home after 3am