Local fishing guide Chad Johnson attended a sport show in Michigan, where he met Bernie Golling the owner of Rocky River Sportsmen Lodge an hours drive through the woods from Port Graham Ak.. When he came home, he announced that he had hired on as a guide for the summer in Alaska.
Bernie ran a special price of $3,264 for a seven day fishing trip, all inclusive. The normal price is $,4095. I had always wanted to fish Alaska; the price was right so I decided I had to go.
The only down side to the trip was the travel arrangements. I left Springfield Mo at 06:30 Friday morning with stops in Memphis, Houston, Anchorage and an over night stop in Homer, that turned into two nights because of fog all day on Saturday. The over night motel is part of the $3,264. I met a party of five from Pennsylvania
that had arrived early to fish salt water for Halibut. We flew into Port Graham on Sunday morning, where we met Bernie and drove an hour through beautiful rain forest seeing Bears along the way..
When we arrived in camp we were introduced to Jim the Chef, and Hope the cleaning and serving lady. Chad was happy to see a friendly face from home. He had one group in ahead of us, plus having to rebuild bridges that had washed away over the winter.
A box lunch was waiting, so we headed for the river as soon as we were unpacked. Two of us fly fished while the other four spin fished. I'm happy to say the fly fishermen caught the most fish every day. I released all my fish but the others all wanted to take fish home, so Chad had clean their fish and carry over fifty lbs of fish back to the van.
Every where you look in the river we saw schools of fish that were spawning or had already spawned and starting to die. Here at home we take care not to hurt the fish, in Alaska we drag the fish onto the shore, unhook it and use your foot to push it back into the water. They spawn, die and become food for the Bears, Eagles, and every other animal that eats fish.
After the first day, we would come back to camp for a hot lunch and cold drinks. After lunch and a rest we would head back to a different part of the river that could only be fished in the afternoon because of the tide backing up into the river. The closer to the salt water, the fresher the fish are. They still have the Sea Lice on them.
At 5 pm we head back to camp for a rest before dinner which always started with appetizers (I had my first raw fish there). I had to tell Hope, the young lady serving to cut my portions in half because it was too much to eat.
We caught Pink and Humpie Salmon and I caught one and lost two Dolly Vardon Trout.
One Black Bear decided he wanted our fish so we had to throw rock to scare him away
If you can fish the White river without a strike indicator with 2-3 generators you can fish in Alaska. The flies I tied were all too light, and if I didn't add extra weight to get down to the bottom the fish ignored them It's all private fishing so you never see anyone other than your group. If you head to some of the famous fishing rivers in Alaska you run into what they call combat fishing. It's shoulder to shoulder where. people have been shot for causing someone to lose their fish.
The trip home started at 07:00 on Thursday with a one hour drive to Port Graham, a twenty minute flight to Homer, a forty minute flight to Anchorage, and then a ten hour layover.
It took twenty six hours to get back to Springfield. If it wasn't for the travel I would go again next year at the end of August to catch the Coho run, and arrive a day early to fish for Halibut for an extra $200.
