"THE TOGIAK"
Thursday morning Sept. 1, found the sun rising up over Jacknife mountain and streaming light in to my side of the Humpy/Dolly cabin. My sister Michelle stopped by the cabin to wake us up. But we were already awake. I don't know if Smitty slept or not, but I know I did! An order off the menu breakfast and Michelle packed us a lunch for the journey to the Togiak. It turns out that Laura, a member of the BBL lodge staff was going with us to the River were she will be helping the staff there for the remainder of their season (10 Days) I am excited to see Brad and Karla and their Kids, Rebecca and Austin. Rebecca was just a small baby when I last saw her and Karla and Brad back in "88" or "89" (I sound like Hutch there) Jimmy flew guests to the "Pak" and came back for us. Steve piloted us and Jimmy was righthand. Smitty and I middle and Laura tucked in back. It was her first time in a Beaver and she was nervous, but Steve did a great job. Steve is picking up hours where he can, so he can get the ability to fly customers/guests at the Lodge. So we were in a sense ginny pigs or crash test dummies, if you will on this trip. I have no doubts about Steve tho. And as I said he did a great job. I have to step back a bit and let you know about our plans for the week. We were to hit the Togiak, on Thursday, fish it until Saturday afternoon then fly back to the lodge and spend the rest of the week there fishing the Agulawok and Sunshine Creek and Icy Creek, and fly out Wednesday the 7th back to Anchorage. Travel to Seward and fish for Halibut on the 8th and drive back to the city and fly out at 11 am on Friday the 9th. All in all a good plan. Well you know about plans, they are just that. Since I am kind of a fly by the seat of your pants guy we tossed out the plan for the most part and well.......Here we go.
As I said earlier, it was a beautiful day for flying to the Togiak. Bright sun high puffy clouds 67 degrees little if any wind, about as good as it can get. We landed at the Pongo and we boated down stream to Togiak River Fishing Adventures camp (www.togiakfishing.com) Brad and Karla were there and after hugs all around Karla showed Smitty and I to our quarters. We were put up in the rookie guide cabin on the far end of the island. After storing our gear Smitty and I helped Austin and Brad get shore lunch supplies together and we hopped into Brads new Smokercraft jon boat (sweet!!) and headed down river. Past BBL's river camp, Mission lodges camp and Tikchik's camp. Down to the three fingers where the guides had their compliment of anglers deployed on the beach casting to scores of bright silver salmon holed up in the slack water. Hundreds of silvers, porposing and finning, hookup's were almost nonstop, Smitty and I could not keep from smiling. After Introductions and handshakes a client asked me "just what does it take to be a celebrity guide in Alaska? (Brad had told the guides and his guests that I was coming in and just wait till they met me.) I told him that the first thing was "that it helped to be a celebrity" and secondly that it helped to be a "Fishing God" At this first glance I could tell he was not impressed. After Shore lunch Brad took us back to TRFA, on the way down Brad showed us the wreck of the Mission Lodge Beaver, that had crashed the week before our arrival. (all walked away) We also looked at, at least 10 spots that held good numbers of fish either Dollies or Silvers. Once back at camp Brad showed Tom and I our boat, tossed us a net and told us that dinner was at 7:30 and Breakfast was at 7:30 and recommended we get out and hammer some fish. We almost ran back to the cabin to don our battle gear. Minutes later we were heading down river at full speed. We stopped at the BBL hole and I stuck our first salmon of the trip. I was using a Gander Guide series IM7 6'6" Baitcast rod, 2piece MH, a Gander Guide Series 56 reel, filled with 12 Trilene XT clear. Sampo snap swivel and a Blue Fox Pixie spoon. Silver/Orange. Smitty was using a St. Croix Premier 6'6" H Rod and a Shimano Calcutta 200 reel filled with 14 Trilene XT Clear loaded on it, and a Blue Fox Vibrax spinner size 5 Silver with a Pink body. We kept one and released the rest and headed for camp around 5:30 as we had seen the rest of the guides, one by one heading back. We watched the guides clean and package the fish in expert fashion, I cleaned our fish and Smitty and I helped package up the fish, and off we went for a shower and dinner! Life is good! It was good catching up with Brad and Karla, They run a great camp and I am fortunate to call them my friends. If you ever get the opportunity to plan a trip to fish Alaska, I would say that you would be hard pressed to find a camp that offers you the opportunity for unparalleled fishing in a casual and relaxing atmosphere, all on one river. Dinner was great and later, I found myself in the same place as I was the last time I was on the Togiak, Hanging out with guides listening to tunes and drinking shots of whisky until it was to dark to see the trail back to the cabin,(some things just don't change!) stumbling all the way. I fell in to bed and thus ended my first day on the Togiak in 12 years! That my friends was AWESOME!!!
Zugbug
Hey Buttercup! You owe me $5 :)
Next time "Socks B"
Thursday morning Sept. 1, found the sun rising up over Jacknife mountain and streaming light in to my side of the Humpy/Dolly cabin. My sister Michelle stopped by the cabin to wake us up. But we were already awake. I don't know if Smitty slept or not, but I know I did! An order off the menu breakfast and Michelle packed us a lunch for the journey to the Togiak. It turns out that Laura, a member of the BBL lodge staff was going with us to the River were she will be helping the staff there for the remainder of their season (10 Days) I am excited to see Brad and Karla and their Kids, Rebecca and Austin. Rebecca was just a small baby when I last saw her and Karla and Brad back in "88" or "89" (I sound like Hutch there) Jimmy flew guests to the "Pak" and came back for us. Steve piloted us and Jimmy was righthand. Smitty and I middle and Laura tucked in back. It was her first time in a Beaver and she was nervous, but Steve did a great job. Steve is picking up hours where he can, so he can get the ability to fly customers/guests at the Lodge. So we were in a sense ginny pigs or crash test dummies, if you will on this trip. I have no doubts about Steve tho. And as I said he did a great job. I have to step back a bit and let you know about our plans for the week. We were to hit the Togiak, on Thursday, fish it until Saturday afternoon then fly back to the lodge and spend the rest of the week there fishing the Agulawok and Sunshine Creek and Icy Creek, and fly out Wednesday the 7th back to Anchorage. Travel to Seward and fish for Halibut on the 8th and drive back to the city and fly out at 11 am on Friday the 9th. All in all a good plan. Well you know about plans, they are just that. Since I am kind of a fly by the seat of your pants guy we tossed out the plan for the most part and well.......Here we go.
As I said earlier, it was a beautiful day for flying to the Togiak. Bright sun high puffy clouds 67 degrees little if any wind, about as good as it can get. We landed at the Pongo and we boated down stream to Togiak River Fishing Adventures camp (www.togiakfishing.com) Brad and Karla were there and after hugs all around Karla showed Smitty and I to our quarters. We were put up in the rookie guide cabin on the far end of the island. After storing our gear Smitty and I helped Austin and Brad get shore lunch supplies together and we hopped into Brads new Smokercraft jon boat (sweet!!) and headed down river. Past BBL's river camp, Mission lodges camp and Tikchik's camp. Down to the three fingers where the guides had their compliment of anglers deployed on the beach casting to scores of bright silver salmon holed up in the slack water. Hundreds of silvers, porposing and finning, hookup's were almost nonstop, Smitty and I could not keep from smiling. After Introductions and handshakes a client asked me "just what does it take to be a celebrity guide in Alaska? (Brad had told the guides and his guests that I was coming in and just wait till they met me.) I told him that the first thing was "that it helped to be a celebrity" and secondly that it helped to be a "Fishing God" At this first glance I could tell he was not impressed. After Shore lunch Brad took us back to TRFA, on the way down Brad showed us the wreck of the Mission Lodge Beaver, that had crashed the week before our arrival. (all walked away) We also looked at, at least 10 spots that held good numbers of fish either Dollies or Silvers. Once back at camp Brad showed Tom and I our boat, tossed us a net and told us that dinner was at 7:30 and Breakfast was at 7:30 and recommended we get out and hammer some fish. We almost ran back to the cabin to don our battle gear. Minutes later we were heading down river at full speed. We stopped at the BBL hole and I stuck our first salmon of the trip. I was using a Gander Guide series IM7 6'6" Baitcast rod, 2piece MH, a Gander Guide Series 56 reel, filled with 12 Trilene XT clear. Sampo snap swivel and a Blue Fox Pixie spoon. Silver/Orange. Smitty was using a St. Croix Premier 6'6" H Rod and a Shimano Calcutta 200 reel filled with 14 Trilene XT Clear loaded on it, and a Blue Fox Vibrax spinner size 5 Silver with a Pink body. We kept one and released the rest and headed for camp around 5:30 as we had seen the rest of the guides, one by one heading back. We watched the guides clean and package the fish in expert fashion, I cleaned our fish and Smitty and I helped package up the fish, and off we went for a shower and dinner! Life is good! It was good catching up with Brad and Karla, They run a great camp and I am fortunate to call them my friends. If you ever get the opportunity to plan a trip to fish Alaska, I would say that you would be hard pressed to find a camp that offers you the opportunity for unparalleled fishing in a casual and relaxing atmosphere, all on one river. Dinner was great and later, I found myself in the same place as I was the last time I was on the Togiak, Hanging out with guides listening to tunes and drinking shots of whisky until it was to dark to see the trail back to the cabin,(some things just don't change!) stumbling all the way. I fell in to bed and thus ended my first day on the Togiak in 12 years! That my friends was AWESOME!!!
Zugbug
Hey Buttercup! You owe me $5 :)
Next time "Socks B"
posted by Spike | 3:29 PM
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