The Fish

While attempting to catch one of the many Sockeye, my first fish of the trip turned out to be a nice 20 inch Rainbow.   Chris Pettine and I quickly switched to our light-weight rods to pursue these beauties.

Dolly Varden/Arctic Char were also common throughout the river.   Here Chris displays a nice 18 - 20 inch fish.   They weren't all this big, but a good percentage of them were.

The Dolly Varden/Arctic Char are very difficult to distinguish, usually requiring a dissection.   Both are members of the Char family, making them close cousins to the Brook Trout and Lake Trout.   Both species can develop brilliant colors during fall spawning.

Chris nets another nice trout feeding on eggs in the ripples.   One evening we were able to catch quite a few trout on nymphs under dry flies, and even a couple took the dry fly.   Most of the trout we caught were taking egg patterns bounced along the bottom.   A couple of skinny Steelhead were also hooked, but none brought to net.

Of course the target of this trip were the bright King Salmon, some of which were just a few hours out of the sea.   Bill Willenbrink caught this 25 lbs fish using a Pixie spoon while sitting on a cooler nursing the ankle he broke getting out of the airplane on our arrival.

A King fresh out of the sea has amazing strength and stamina.   Some of these battles lasted over 30 minutes and more often than not resulted in slack lines and cursing fishermen.   Many times the fisherman was more than 1/4 mile from his starting point by the time the struggle had ended.

My Dad finally brought this King to net after an exhausting fight.   Most of these fish were in the 20 - 25 lbs range, with the largest reaching about 30 lbs.   Small by King Salmon standards (Kenai River Kings can reach 100 lbs), but still a very strong and worthy foe.

The success ratio was pretty tough with Kings on the Karluk.   I landed ten King Salmon on this trip, but I hooked around 50.   Some of these fish were actually at the net before freeing themselves and leaving me frustrated and quivering with exhaustion.

Willie Willenbrink displays a beautiful King that represents one of the larger fish caught on this trip.   I netted this fish for Willie well over 1/4 mile downstream from where it was hooked. The King Salmon were not extremely fussy about fly patterns.   We had success with black/purple bunny flies and orange/chartreuse/fucshia patterns as well.   The key seemed to be presentation, getting the fly down in front of the fish.