Questions? Well, I think that about covers it. At least for the fishing part. The rest of the trip\u2014eight days of remote whitewater with a bunch of yahoos from the Northwest\u2014I\u2019m not so sure about.<\/p>\n
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Armed with this info, I fly up to Anchorage, drink homebrew out of Nino\u2019s tap, (complete with a rod butt handle) and meet my group at the Lake Hood airport. Our floatplane, a DeHaveilland Beaver, is known for its cargo capacity, which is good, given our crew\u2019s propensity for gear. There are 14 of us, all solo paddling a mix of Aire Lynx and NRS inflatable kayaks<\/a> so we can carry it all. It\u2019s a formula they\u2019ve perfected over 15 years of similar trips in Alaska.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n We\u2019re an eclectic group, from two-time Super Bowl winner Kevin Gogan and retired cop Gary Kinner to ringleader and retired dam operator Jon Corriveau. The last time I joined them was on a 12-day trip down the Alsek River<\/a>, complete with a helicopter portage over Class V Turnback Canyon. This one will be markedly fishier. For all our quirks, it\u2019s a die-hard group; three of our members have summited Denali, with Corvo once holding the record as the youngest person to summit it at age 16.<\/p>\n This time we\u2019ll float Lake Creek for 54 miles from Chelatna Lake to its confluence with the Yentna River south of Denali. While it still packs a whitewater punch, which keeps many fisherfolk away, it runs swift and clear, making it known for its salmon runs. Kings, reds, pinks, chum and silvers all spawn here, with rainbows, grayling and dolly\u2019s following (hence the egg patterns). Its clarity comes from seven-mile-long, 900-foot-deep Chelatna Lake. Fed by glacial rivers from the north, the silt settles out by the time the water reaches the outlet, making the river run cold and clear.<\/p>\n Four floatplane shuttles later, we set up camp on the lake in the rain. Then we head out, bumbling, beading and boating our way downriver. A mile into the current, we stop at a pool below a cobble bar and are officially in salmon and egg-slurping rainbow country. My first fish is a 16-inch \u2018bow, kicking off my list of Things I Learned on Alaska\u2019s Lake Creek.<\/p>\n You Don\u2019t Come All This Way to Be in a Hurry You\u2019ll Catch a Lot of Fish\u2026on Everything It\u2019s silvers, of course, that most people were after, especially the \u201cchromers.\u201d Slover pulled in the first one on day three, followed by Towner, the first to get one on a fly. I was equally happy with rainbows, which stayed lively on the line thanks to being jacked-up on fatty salmon eggs. On day three I switched from beads to a green streamer, continuing to look like I was actually good at it. Then, with encouragement from Peter, who landed \u201c10 or so\u201d on it, I switched to a dry, drifting it along a cobble bar. I was just about to switch when I hooked a grayling. Then a 20-inch rainbow in a more tenacious strike.<\/p>\n At lunch I caught three more on the same dry\u2014right in front of the group. Over tequila and other drinks that night, everyone shared their day\u2019s tales using rigs as varied as our libations.<\/p>\n Embrace the Bead You\u2019ll Get Used to the Smell It\u2019s Easier to Keep Things Dry Than to Dry Them Out Know Your Camp from Your Home Membership Has Its Privileges In the morning, Gogan kicked off the king club. Tailhooked, sure, but befitting of someone once gracing the cover of Sport\u2019s Illustrated<\/em> with the headline: \u201cThe NFL\u2019s Dirtiest Player.\u201d And none of us were about to heckle him. His king put our salmon species at four out of five, with only chum missing, which is what most opposing linemen looked like after Gogan got done with them.<\/p>\n Rig to Flip So that means rapids, from Class II rock-dodging to horizon-lined Class IIIs and one Class IV. And it\u2019s a remote place to get into trouble and lose gear. At first, when scouting downstream, I\u2019d confuse the roostertails from wriggling salmon with the tops of oncoming waves. Eventually, I learned to tell the difference. The Canyon\u2014containing Class IV \u201cThe Drop,\u201d both of which, arguably, could have been more creatively named\u2014is the main reason for Embick\u2019s quote, and we broke our rods down before running it. I ran sweep, largely because I was lagging behind fishing.<\/p>\n Rigging\u2026It\u2019s What\u2019s for Breakfast Fishing Ups the Difficulty My system: Stash the rod along my left leg, extending a couple feet off the back. Fishable stretch coming? Wedge my paddle blade between roll table and tube on the right, grab my rod and cast. Then dodge obstacles with a one-handed stroke. Fish on? Get it on the reel, move my sunglasses behind my neck, land it, grab the hemostats, release it, and look downstream to avoid something else. Fishing with dries, I found, works best\u2014streamers and beads have too many moving parts.<\/p>\n It\u2019s Alaska<\/a>, So Deal It\u2019s Bookended by Fishing Lodges We ended at Lake Creek Lodge<\/a> on the Yentna, owned by Forks, Washington\u2019s Jeff Woodward. Accessible only by boat or floatplane, it, too, is as Alaskan as lodges get, with bunkbed A-frame cabins and an old school restaurant and bar, manned by perky bartenders Ellie and Izzy. Just upstream is Sweetna, checkpoint number two of the Iditarod Race. When our plane lands the next morning, I seriously consider staying.<\/p>\n You\u2019ll Appreciate the Circle of Life ***<\/p>\n Guest contributor Eugene Buchanan<\/a> is a former ski patrol and raft and kayak guide whose passion for traveling and writing has taken him to more than 30 countries on six continents. A Fellow member of the Explorer\u2019s Club and contributor to Men\u2019s Journal\u2019s The Great Life anthology, he’s the author of four books: Brothers on the Bashkaus<\/i>\u00a0(2007);\u00a0Outdoor Parents, Outdoor Kids<\/i>\u00a0(2010);\u00a0Comrades on the Colca<\/i>\u00a0(2016), and\u00a0Tales from a Mountain Town<\/i> (2017). The founder of Paddlinglife.com<\/a>, he lives in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The text came from my fish-crazed, Alaskan brother-in-law Nino just two days before I was leaving on a nine-day float trip down Alaska\u2019s Lake Creek.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47981,"featured_media":33782,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[338],"tags":[587,371,478,25,358,33],"class_list":["post-33757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tight-lines","tag-adventure-angler","tag-adventure-travel","tag-alaska","tag-fishing","tag-flyfishing","tag-whitewater-kayaking","post-grid"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/d2kl15j267vxtq.cloudfront.net\/duct-tape\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/30140347\/Lake-Creek-Lodge_PC-Dave-Slover-100x100.jpg\")
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\n<\/strong>This was our mantra, explaining our leisurely starts and pit stops to wet a line. In all, we\u2019d take eight days to float its 54 miles, averaging about 7.5 miles per day. And why would you hurry when the fishing is so good and scenery so spectacular? I realized this when, roll casting on day two, I saw Denali rising behind me, white-capped, white-flanked and white-everythinged. And then a grayling hit. Why on earth would you be in a hurry here?<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Dave Slover, one of our ringleaders and owner of Oregon\u2019s Alder Creek Canoe and Kayak, does the math around the campfire: \u201cLet\u2019s see, 14 people, catching eight per day, so, carry the one, that\u2019s 112 fish per day, times eight days equals, let\u2019s see, 896 total fish we\u2019re in for\u2026not bad.\u201d He did this after day one but felt licensed to extrapolate. There\u2019s reason the river is so fishy. Its clear, cold water draws salmon in droves, with the kings coming in early June; reds, pinks and chums in July; and cohos in August. Tagging along are rainbow, grayling, dolly varden and even burbot. Even fishing-challenged Corvo caught a rainbow on his first cast.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/d2kl15j267vxtq.cloudfront.net\/duct-tape\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/30140230\/Lake-Creek-7-100x100.jpg\")
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\n<\/strong>I don\u2019t fish egg patterns much in Colorado. But per Nino, I used the set-up the first three days, catching dollies, grayling, rainbow and a humpy all on the same one\u2014unheard of for a neophyte nympher like me. I only switched to a dry and streamer later for a change of pace and was reluctant even then. Cementing the set-up: day six camp alongside Yenlo Creek, roll casting the stream\u2019s seam. Each cast led to a grayling or rainbow hit. While I missed about half, a better angler would\u2019ve batted a thousand. Later, I hiked up the side creek, one eye on my bobber and one out for bears, catching even more. \u201cThat\u2019s the type of fishing people dream about,\u201d summed up Peter back at camp.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Not of yourself, but of dead fish. I realized this on evening three in my tent along a side creek. I had noticed it before at lunch, but now it had invaded my sleeping quarters. Dead salmon piled up everywhere like virus victims in Stephen King\u2019s The Stand<\/em>, primarily humpies and reds. But they were in various stages of decomposition everywhere, washed up like flotsam every way imaginable\u2014on shore, pinned on logs and wedged into rocks. On some beaches, I pulled my boat up onto a welcome mat of them, splayed out like a carpet.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>My Northwest-seasoned friend Charlie offered this advice during a rainstorm at the put-in. It requires always being on your game, making sure no loose clothing gets left outside your tent, your rainfly is closed, and everything is under your vestibule or in a drybag. If you drape things over branches to dry, you\u2019d better retrieve them. Our massive MSR tarp was also a lifesaver. It kept all 14 of us dry, including the cook crew. Behind them, we\u2019d play poker, guitar and read the cartoons (honestly) in the old Playboys<\/em> someone brought along. We\u2019d position pots below the tarp lines to catch water. I fared well for a Cheechako<\/em>, save for my right sock, which got wet from a leak in my drysuit. I\u2019d store it in my tent pocket every night, but Charlie\u2019s words rang true; it never quite dried out.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/d2kl15j267vxtq.cloudfront.net\/duct-tape\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/30140328\/Lake-Creek-Camp-3.jpg\")
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\n<\/strong>These were the names of the side creeks we camped at nights two and three. Wait, we\u2019re camping at Home? Home is where Camp is? Both were on river right and looked remarkably similar. None of the camps here are named so we just winged it, shooting for side creeks because they have the best cobble bars and fishing. Another adage: He Who Fishes Longest Gets the Worst Campsite. This often happened to me as I\u2019d be floating behind everyone fishing, only to arrive at camp after all the good spots were taken. But are you really going to rush fishing so you can have the Marriot?<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>We coined it the \u201cSilver Club\u201d our third night as hecklers in camp chairs commented on everyone trying to join the prestigious group. Where I was happy catching anything\u2014grayling, rainbows, dollies, my pant leg\u2014the good fishermen like Towner, a guide in Oregon, were after silvers. One by one we\u2019d cast into the slack water and either get heckled or welcomed to the club. Fueled by merlot, the heckling escalated with every missed strike or lost fish. I finally got one on Nino\u2019s streamer, joining the coveted FRSC (Fly Rod Silver Club). Later, we dubbed a shallow riffle leading to a deep, green pool along a cliff the \u201cSilver Hilton.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/d2kl15j267vxtq.cloudfront.net\/duct-tape\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/30140243\/Lake-Creek-9.jpg\")
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\n<\/strong>Not for the whole trip, but at least for the Canyon, two-thirds of the way down. In his guidebook \u201cFast & Cold,\u201d the late Andrew Embick sums up Lake Creek this way: \u201cBecause it\u2019s boulder-filled and technical, many potential floaters must steer clear of it, go with a guide, or else come to grief.\u201d Don\u2019t come here unless you know how to run whitewater. In its 54 miles, you\u2019ll drop 1,300 feet, for an average gradient of 24 feet per mile (the Grand Canyon drops eight feet per mile). And it\u2019s filled will \u201cglacial erratics,\u201d giant, car-sized boulders who hitched rides to their current resting places on glaciers.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Whether it\u2019s your fly rod or boat, you\u2019ll be rigging every morning. Get used to it. Sure, you\u2019ll sip a cup of coffee and take in the river mist before kicking into gear. But then it starts, breaking down camp and readying your craft and rod. If you\u2019re in IKs like we were, you\u2019ll devise a system for group and personal gear: stove and grill in back, topped by a drybag and soft cooler; and food bag, roll tables and more drybags up front, with tackle bag, day bag and rod close at hand. Still, you\u2019ll never get it the exact same way twice. Note: Get your coffee first. One morning, I rigged-up Towner\u2019s rod by mistake.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/d2kl15j267vxtq.cloudfront.net\/duct-tape\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/30140448\/Slover6-100x100.jpg\")
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\n<\/strong>If you\u2019re in IKs, wetting a line ups the ante, turning Class IIs into IIIs from managing your rod, line, paddle, boat and dignity all at the same time. The problem is keeping your eye on your fly while avoiding obstacles downstream\u2014especially since your boat spins with every cast. Landing a fish is even harder, stroking to miss a rock with one hand while holding your rod with the other.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Alaska is like Forrest Gump\u2019s box of chocolates. Unknowns include weather, river flows, bugs, whitewater, campsites and more. So, deal. Fortunately, we nailed those categories well. We had two days of rain at the beginning, which kicked us into gear, followed by six days without. Our flow was maybe 1,200 cfs, the low side of medium and well within the recommended 600 to 2,000 level. The bugs didn\u2019t show until our last camp once the river flattened out, where we finally broke out the head nets (Menefee, unfortunately, unveiled a full mesh body suit, wearing only boxers underneath).<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/d2kl15j267vxtq.cloudfront.net\/duct-tape\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/30140216\/Lake-Creek-5.jpg\")
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\n<\/strong>You know a river is going to be good when it\u2019s bookended by fishing lodges. We started by Chelatna Lake Lodge<\/a>, owned by Matt Berke, who bought it from his parents in 2016 after they founded it in 1988. It draws an upscale crowd, with Philip Rivers and Hilary Swank staying there this season, but it\u2019s for core fisherfolk also. Some of our crew joined a guided trip our first afternoon just down from the lake, catching \u201cabout 30 rainbows\u201d at a hole dubbed \u201cthe General.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Cue the Lion King. Being out here makes you appreciate the circle of life as well as anywhere on the planet. It\u2019s hard not to when the beady eyes of umpteen million salmon stare up at you day after day from the afterlife, washed up in every manner possible. It\u2019s enough to make you wax philosophically: they want no more nor less in life than to return to their homes, spawn and die, completing their life cycles. Which isn\u2019t such a bad way to go. I had one fish on the line only to look down and see a dead one staring up at me as if I was peering into its soul. \u201cReally?\u201d it seemed to be saying. \u201cI\u2019m spent-out and dead and you\u2019re catching another? Don\u2019t you have anything better to do?\u201d Not really, I surmised\u2026I was on Alaska\u2019s Lake Creek fishing and certainly not in a hurry.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/d2kl15j267vxtq.cloudfront.net\/duct-tape\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/30140322\/Lake-Creek-Camp-2-100x100.jpg\")
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