Alaska Sporting Journal - October 2023

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AKSPORTINGJOURNAL.COM

Volume 13 • Issue 5 www.aksportingjournal.com PUBLISHER James R. Baker GENERAL MANAGER John Rusnak EXECUTIVE EDITOR Andy Walgamott EDITOR Chris Cocoles WRITERS Bjorn Dihle, Scott Haugen, Tiffany Haugen, Bill Horn, Pete Robbins, Brian Watkins SALES MANAGER Paul Yarnold ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Brian Abker, Guy Ricciardulli, Zachary Wheeler DESIGNER Lesley-Anne Slisko-Cooper PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Kelly Baker WEB DEVELOPMENT/INBOUND MARKETING Jon Hines ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT Katie Aumann INFORMATION SERVICES MANAGER Lois Sanborn ADVERTISING INQUIRIES media@media-inc.com ON THE COVER With help from his new friend Brian Watkins (left), Zach Welch bagged a Kodiak Island billie on his first-ever mountain goat hunt.

For purposes of this cover, Watkins, Welch and the goat were moved closer together than in the original image. (BRIAN WATKINS)

MEDIA INDEX PUBLISHING GROUP 941 Powell Ave SW, Suite 120 Renton, WA 98057 (206) 382-9220 • Fax (206) 382-9437 media@media-inc.com • www.media-inc.com CORRESPONDENCE Twitter @AKSportJourn Facebook.com/alaskasportingjournal Email ccocoles@media-inc.com

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CONTENTS

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VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 5

(PETE ROBBINS/HALF PAST FIRST CAST)

AN ANGLER’S ALASKAN EDUCATION

Pete Robbins’ roots as a diehard bass angler meant his skills would be tested during early visits to Alaska targeting salmon, trout and Arctic grayling, but it would also trigger a new-found obsession. “The return trips to Alaska have helped me refine what angling means in my life, how it’s a process rather than a destination, and have explained why self-perceived expertise can be less of a feature and more of a bug,” Robbins writes in this coming-of-age fisherman’s tale.

FEATURES 16

ISLAND TIME IS GOAT HUNTING TIME

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CAN’T CHASE ENOUGH BRANT Of all the waterfowl species that migrate to and from Alaska, black brant might be Scott Haugen’s favorite to hunt. But these majestic birds have seen a steady decline in the Last Frontier and beyond, and it has biologists and hunters like Haugen baffled by it and frustrated by the decreased opportunities to harvest them. Find out what all parties have to say in our From Field to Fire feature, which includes Tiffany Haugen’s street tacos recipe with an Alaskan twist.

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BOOK EXCERPT: AN ODE TO BRISTOL BAY

Our correspondent Brian Watkins and his longtime bowhunting pal (and occasional Alaska Sporting Journal contributor) Trevor Embry are no strangers to the grueling experience of high-country Alaska goat hunts. On their most recent expedition on Kodiak Island, they took along a first-time billie chaser, Zach Welch. In the first of a two-part series, find out how Welch did in the unforgiving terrain of weather-slammed Kodiak. As Watkins writes about traversing the mountains in mid-30-degrees weather, “The joy of bowhunting is patience and, in this instance, freezing.”

In the 1970s and 1980s, job opportunities brought Bill Horn to Alaska, where he worked on several projects with politicians from the state and as deputy undersecretary for the Department of Interior. The pristine salmon and trout waters of Bristol Bay inspired the longtime author to write his latest book about the region’s fish and the importance of protecting those waters forever. Check out an excerpt from Horn’s new book The Crimson Wave, as well as our interview with him as he talks salmon, conservation and the trophy Alaska rainbows he’s always longed to land.

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE 9 The Editor’s Note 11 Alaska Beat: News and notes from the Last

Frontier

15 Outdoor Calendar 30 Digging into a trapper’s mysterious 1939 death

Alaska Sporting Journal is published monthly. Call Media Inc. Publishing Group for a current rate card. Discounts for frequency advertising. All submitted materials become the property of Media Inc. Publishing Group and will not be returned. Annual subscriptions are $39.95 (12 issues) or $59.95 (24 issues). Send check or money order to Media Inc. Publishing Group, 941 Powell Ave SW, Suite 120, Renton, WA 98057 or call (206) 382-9220 with VISA or M/C. Back issues may be ordered at Media Inc. Publishing Group, subject to availability, at the cost of $5 plus shipping. Copyright © 2023 Media Inc. Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be copied by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording by any information storage or retrieval system, without the express written permission of the publisher. Printed in U.S.A. 6

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EDITOR’S NOTE

As far back as 1966, author Bill Horn was keeping an angler’s journal to chronicle his experiences on the water. “It’s always a great nostalgia trip to read entries from decades ago,” he says. “And, more importantly, it lets you understand the vagaries of angling memory!” (BILL HORN)

L

ooking at the many thousands upon thousands upon thousands of words I’ve written over roughly 30-something years of work as a journalist, I sometimes ask myself why I never kept any kind of journal. Perhaps my brain and fingers needed a break from the keyboard, but it’s a bad excuse since I truly enjoy writing.

And that’s what I wanted to make sure to ask Bill Horn, who we’re featuring this month with an excerpt of his book about Bristol Bay’s fish and my interview with the author (page 44). Scattered throughout the pages of Horn’s The Crimson Wave are logs of his Alaska fishing expeditions.

Here’s one entry: “June 8. Weather 50–55, Mostly Cloudy. Opening Day in Bristol Bay. Fog kept us in King Salmon until 10 a.m., then off to the lower end of Nonvianuk Lake. The four of us were excited, as the pilot kept telling us about epic opening days at this spot with lots of big, willing smolt-eating rainbows. Un-

fortunately, it turned into one of those ‘you should have been here yesterday’ or ‘you’re too early.’ There was no sign of smolts and no sign of feeding trout. In four hours of hard work – mostly drifting/swinging smolt patterns or dredging with a sculpin fly – Dave caught the only rainbow. As it was about 8 pounds, it was a helluva fish. But after all the raves about this place on opening day, it was damn disappointing.”

Horn has plenty more such stories he’s recorded over the years.

“Honest to God, I started an angling journal in 1966 while in high school. I have stayed with it and am presently working on volume 36 of the notes,” he told me.

“Having these notes almost lets the books write themselves, and I'm really glad I stuck with it. Lots of patterns reveal themselves; it’s always a great nostalgia trip to read entries from decades ago, and, more importantly, it lets you understand the vagaries of angling memory!”

As a kid, my dad got me a little journal book where I could handwrite where I fished, what if anything I caught that day and it had a section to jot down some notes. I still remember writing after one wet day something to the effect of “It rained; I didn’t catch one damn fish and I lost my leader when I got snagged on the bottom.”

I faithfully tracked my fishing trips for maybe a year or so, but like most kids I lost interest in the process. That makes me admire Horn even more for sticking with it all these years.

“Glad to know there was another fishing-obsessed kid out there keeping notes!” said Horn, who cited a section of his tarpon, bonefish and permit book, On The Bow, “about faulty memories and how we remember the good stuff and deep six the bad days.”

“Hence,” he added, “years later we remember a ‘golden age’ of good days.”

-Chris Cocoles

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‘ECONOMIC ASSESSMENT’ FOR PEBBLE MINE IMPACT GETS PANNED

BY OPPONENTS

A

s the parent company behind the Pebble Mine has announced its intentions to fight back against the project’s veto by the Environmental Protection Agency, opponents of the Bristol Bay gold and copper mine haven’t minced words.

In the summer, the state of Alaska sought higher-power influence from the U.S. Supreme Court (Alaska Sporting Journal, Aug. 2023), which was clapped back on with comments such as “The Governor is ignoring Alaskans and science with this lawsuit”; “The lawsuit is … little more than a publicity stunt filed on behalf of an unscrupulous mining company”; and a “radical hail Mary”.

Most recently, Northern Dynasty Minerals released a “Preliminary Economic Assessment” that lauded the economic impact that a project of this size could provide for the region. And as has been the case throughout this saga, the mining conglomerate was adamant that such a project would have no impact on Bristol Bay’s salmon runs. Opponents of the proposal have cited instances of mine failures having disastrous results for surrounding ecosystems.

“The proposed mine for the Pebble Project would provide good-paying, year-round employment for thousands of Alaskans, something desperately needed in Southwest Alaska,” said Ron Thiessen, president and CEO of Northern Dynasty. “The mine would mean substantial tax revenues for Alaska, including contributions to the Alaska Permanent Fund, which will be important for the future economic sustainability of the region. New infrastructure developed to support the proposed project would offer the additional benefit of potentially lowering energy costs for the region. The July 2020 Environmental Impact Statement of the Pebble Project states that the proposed mine can be developed and operated without harming the fishery, and so, with Alaska’s excellent track record of managing all its resources for the benefit of its people, it can have BOTH the mine AND the fishery.”

Bristol Bay Defense Fund was among the first organizations to comment on the report, stating, “This assessment is nothing more than patching tape on a sinking ship.

Alaskans don’t want Pebble Mine to be built, and the EPA’s decision made it clear that it will not be built – no matter how fanciful Northern Dynasty’s illusions are. The only thing Northern Dynasty is mining at this point are the pockets of their investors and shareholders. The public wants protections for Bristol Bay’s critical salmon fisheries, not more misleading figures from a foreign-owned mining company desperate to salvage this unpopular and dangerous mine.”

ALASKA BEAT TWEET OF THE MONTH

Alaska politicians don’t see eye to eye on many issues, but they all seem to agree that archery and hunting education programs are valuable and should be funded in school programs.

Sockeye salmon represent a precious natural resource in the Bristol Bay watershed that opponents of the Pebble Mine fear would be impacted by the proposed project, and those opponents disagree with a “Preliminary Economic Assessment” from the mine’s parent company that claims it can coexist safely with the salmon runs. (NATIONAL PARK SERVICE)

A black bear and her cub helped themselves to tasty donuts when they broke into a Krispy Kreme delivery van on Anchorage’s Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson. “They ate 20 packages of the doughnut holes and I believe six packages of the three-pack chocolate doughnuts,” the store manager told Alaska’s News Source. All the bruins needed was a cup of coffee to wash down their sweet treats. aksportingjournal.com | OCTOBER 2023

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Tom Munson scored a black bear on his first trip to Alaska.

“Tom vowed to return to Alaska following this wonderful experience, which he later did,” author Scott Haugen wrote.

NOTABLE NUMBER

(SCOTT HAUGEN

316.8

14.54 FROM THE ASJ ARCHIVES – OCTOBER 2019

BLACK BEAR HUNTERS TURN DOUBLE PLAY

W

e glassed bears each day from elevated, open hillsides, but they either weren’t quite what we were looking for, or were in unreachable terrain.

We also watched grizzlies – their silver coats shimmering in the sun – as they frolicked in the berry patches. One big boar grizzly we watched stayed in the same spot for eight straight hours.

Finally, we found the black bear Tom Munson was looking for. It would require a hike of nearly 1,000 vertical feet to reach, but that didn’t matter. Just as Tom got into shooting position, the bear winded us and took off. To witness a bear running up a shale cliff, covering the distance of a football field faster than any human can on flat ground, gives you another level of respect for these predators.

Intent on seeing what was on the other side of the mountain, we kept climbing.

Once on top, we found Tom’s bear, now over a mile away. As we watched, another bear joined it, and they began walking in our direction.

Figuring they might be heading back to the berry patch, we sat, watching and waiting. Nearly an hour passed, and the bears were now within a half-mile, still moving our way. Often they’d stop, eat some grass, wrestle, spar on their hind legs and chase one another, but they kept moving toward us, albeit slowly.

When the two black bears disappeared into a valley below us, we lost sight of them for several minutes. Then, suddenly, movement less than 40 yards away to the side of us caught our eyes. Seemingly from nowhere both bears materialized from the rolling tundra, walking down the same trail on which we sat. There was no brush to hide behind, and we dared not move for fear of spooking the bears. We hadn’t planned it coming together this way; it just happened.

Quickly, Tom cranked down the power on his scope; I did the same. Suddenly both bears simultaneously spotted us, but had no idea what we were. We were both sitting down, elbows on our knees, in shooting position. Tom took the lead bear, straight on and hit it squarely in the chest. As soon as I could, I followed with a shot at the second bear. Unfortunately, my bear whirled at Tom’s shot and I missed, but my second shot dropped the bruin on the spot. -Scott Haugen

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Winning fish weights at the Silver Salmon Derby and Valdez Halibut Derby, respectively.

Halibut hooker Paul Casey and coho catcher LaVonne Baysinger each won $10,000.

“

THEY SAID IT

“It is encouraging to see bold leadership to enhance protection for the Arctic, a place of unparalleled natural beauty that also faces severe challenges from the climate crisis. In the Western Arctic, the proposed regulations that seek to protect globally significant ecological resources in this unique region are an important step. At the same time, more work is needed to address the full impact, including to the climate, of drilling on the millions of acres of the Reserve already leased to oil companies.

Millions of Americans have experienced the effects of intense heat this summer – a stark reminder that climate change is here now and stands to get much worse.”

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– Earthjustice Alaska Attorney Jeremy Lieb after the Biden administration reversed a previous ruling that would allow leases to drill on Arctic National Wildlife Refuge lands.

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Black bear hunting season is set to open on Oct. 1 around McHugh Creek in the Anchorage area’s Game Management Unit 14C. (WENDY ZIRNGIBL/U.S. FOREST SERVICE)

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Goat season opens in Game Management Unit 1C (Southeast Mainland; area draining into Lynn Canal and Stephens Passage between Antler River and Eagle Glacier/River) Oct. 1 Deer season opens in GMU 3 (Petersburg Management Area and, for residents only, remainder of Mitkof, Woewodski and Butterworth Islands) Oct. 1 Elk season opens in GMU 3 (Etolin Island) Oct. 1 Moose season opens in GMU 5 (Yakutat, in area east of Dangerous River and Harlequin Lake) Oct. 1 Deer season opens in GMU 6 (North Gulf Coast and Prince William Sound) Oct. 1 Goat season opens in GMU 6C Oct. 1 First elk season opens in GMU 8 (Raspberry Island) Oct. 1 Black bear season opens in GMU 14C (McHugh Creek) Oct. 8 Elk season opens in GMU 8 (Southwest Afognak, that portion of Afognak Island and adjacent islands) Oct. 11 Second elk season opens in GMU 8 Oct. 15 Nonresident deer season opens in GMU 3 (Petersburg/ Wrangell, in remainder of Mitkof, Woewodski and Butterworth Islands) Oct. 15 Moose season opens in a portion of GMU 5 (west of Dangerous River and Harlequin Lake, and southwest of Russell and Nunatak Fjords and the East Nunatak Glacier) Oct. 15 Youth-only deer season opens in GMU 5A Oct. 15 Brown bear season opens in GMU 6D (Montague Island) Oct. 16 Second/alternate elk season opens in GMU 3 Oct. 21 Resident caribou season opens in GMU 13 (Nelchina/ Upper Susitna) Oct. 23 Third elk season opens in GMU 8 Oct. 25 Fall brown bear season opens in GMU 8 (Kodiak/Shelikof)

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A GREE GETS H

FIRST-TIM

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EENHORN H HIS GOAT

BY BRIAN WATKINS

ST-TIMER SCORES FIRST BILLIE ON KODIAK ISLAND HUNT

FIRST OF TWO PARTS

aving hunted goats for over a decade now, I can say I still haven’t had enough! Goat hunters are a rare breed. They like the pain, discomfort, danger and adrenaline.

Goat hunting takes place in the nastiest part of the mountains, high in the shale rock amidst cathedral-like spires of stone. One slip and death is certain.

Your footing is crucial, and focus must be at an all-time high. The conditions encompass rain, snow and wind. To thoroughly enjoy that, something must be off in your brain. The following is the story of my 14th goat hunt.

I SET OUT IN these conditions yet again

with my close friend Trevor Embry and a new friend, Zach Welch. It’d be the fourth year in a row of hunting goats with our bows for Trevor and I, but it was Zach’s first time. Our goal was to fly into the same place Trevor and I hunted in 2021.

We had success there, taking two Pope and Young billies, and we longed to return.

Prior to leaving for our trip, the weather looked dismal for our fly-in day.

We were booked with Island Air to fly into the south end of the island. And I should tell you that it’s important to be flexible when hunting Kodiak. It’s the first land mass that storms hit coming in off the North Pacific. Wind and rain are synonymous with Kodiak.

Given the forecast, the three of us changed our work schedules and figured that if we left a day early, we could get into our spot. The plan worked. A day early proved to be a beautiful sunny one. Since we have tenure with the pilot, he agreed to take us back to a certain lake, but warned, “If the weather isn’t perfect, you’ll have to hike down to saltwater for pickup.” The outfit no longer flies into this lake for that reason; however, he knows we are willing to hike out if need be. We have a history of riding storms out in a tent, which can be demoralizing and wear on your psyche.

You’ll never tire of the scenery on Kodiak Island, but chasing goats here is anything but a pleasure trip. And bowhunting veterans Brian Watkins and Trevor Embry took along a rookie to this experience, Zach Welch. (BRIAN WATKINS)

OUR EXPECTATIONS WERE HIGH, given our successful goat and deer hunt in 2021 (Alaska Sporting Journal, January 2022), but we knew that had been an anomaly.

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Author Watkins got the now familiar overhead look at Kodiak’s treacherous terrain. (BRIAN WATKINS) “As we flew into Kodiak, we saw three herds of goats, which elevated our excitement,” Watkins writes. After their hunt commenced, they hiked until finding a herd of 17 animals. (BRIAN WATKINS)

As we flew into Kodiak, we saw three herds of goats, which elevated our excitement. Since we could hunt deer the same day as flying, we spent the afternoon trying to find them. We hunted different directions and hoped to turn deer up. After shedding their velvet, bucks head further down in elevation as they wait on the rut to start. They become nearly nocturnal and stay in thick brush throughout the day. Just at last light, I spotted a decent buck and about 20 does.

I didn’t have enough daylight to close the distance, but made a mental note of where to hunt when the time came.

THE FOLLOWING DAY, WE set out in pursuit

of said goats, planning to hunt the closest group first. We hiked over the ridge and laid eyes on the animals. A herd of 17 goats sat atop a spine within rifle range, but we were only equipped with bows.

We crested the ridge first thing in the

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Reaching a spot where a goat can be taken is just as difficult as the shot from a bow can be. “Heart pounding, pouring sweat and exhausted, we found ourselves above where the goats’ last known location was,” Watkins writes. (BRIAN WATKINS) Welch was experiencing his first Kodiak goat hunt, but he took a moment to take in the island’s rugged mountains. (BRIAN WATKINS)

The guys glass for goats. (BRIAN WATKINS) aksportingjournal.com | OCTOBER 2023

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morning and had to stay downwind and out of sight for the entire day. It was 36 degrees, raining and windy, per Kodiak standards. The joy of bowhunting is patience and, in this instance, freezing.

The day wore on and just before dark we called it. Back in camp we pondered whether we’d made the right call keeping our distance, but we had eight days of hunting to figure it out.

We experienced déjà vu the next morning. The goats were feeding in the same direction and bound to bed in the same area. We found our roost and set up just as we had the previous morning.

For three hours we contemplated what to do and how to close the distance. The difference that morning was the wind was a bit more in our favor and two goats kept a distance from the main pod.

I had the idea to skirt the mountain and make a move on the two lone goats. I wanted Zach to get his first goat, so I laid the plan out and told him to set out after

them. Having no mountain experience, he wasn’t comfortable going solo, so I took him with me. His words were quite humorous: “I don’t care if you guys go,” he said. “But I ain’t goin’ alone.”

We moved fast, covering ground nearly at a run. Heart pounding, pouring sweat and exhausted, we found ourselves above the goats’ last known location. As we moved closer, a goat popped out. I whistled to Zach to lay low as he was cruising into position to avoid detection. Once the goat turned to look the other way, I whistled again to move.

When Zach was within 60 yards of the goat, another one popped out of nowhere. This one was within 20 yards of Zach, so he didn’t even need to range it. He sent an arrow through the perfect spot. The goat was dead on his feet and tumbled down the mountain.

Unfortunately, he was on the wrong side of our camp, so we had to pack him back up the 800 feet that he tumbled

The moment of victory for the newbie. When Welch’s billie popped up within 20 yards, he didn’t even need to range the animal. “He sent an arrow through the perfect spot,” writes Watkins. (BRIAN WATKINS)

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down. It was 11:30 at night before we arrived back to camp with a goat in tow.

WITH THE DAY’S PLAN plan working out perfectly, the original group of goats we’d had our eyes on were still undisturbed.

We set out in the morning to see if we could get to bow range. The goats stayed the course and were out of a stalkable area. I had spotted another goat a couple of mountains away and in typical fashion wanted to give chase immediately.

Trevor, being a more thoughtful and methodical hunter, talked me out of giving chase so as to focus on the group closer to camp. As we kept in rifle distance, I grew ever more impatient. It didn’t seem like we would be able to get a shot at this herd. To be continued ... ASJ Editor’s note: Next month, author Brian Watkins and longtime hunting partner Trevor Embry hope to join first-time goat harvester Zach Welch with billies of their own.

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The brant goose population is in decline and some 100,000 of the Arctic birds are missing from recent surveys for reasons biologists don’t understand.

They hope to soon be able to better track these little geese. (SCOTT HAUGEN)

THE BRANT MYSTERY PONDERING THE STATUS OF ONE OF ALASKA’S ICONIC WATERFOWL SPECIES

BY SCOTT HAUGEN

I

n 1990 I became the sole high school teacher in Point Lay, Alaska, a tiny Inupiat village of 100 people at the time that’s situated on the remote Arctic coast. My formal education in the sciences, along with a lifetime of hunting experience and a thirst to live in this part of the world, took me there.

Every year I lived in Point Lay, the end of August marked the start of fall.

This was when the brant migration commenced, and it was a spectacle to

behold. No one really knew where all the brant came from that migrated down Kasegaluk Lagoon past my home. Today, it’s still not certain if any of the brant in this part of Alaska are coming from Russia, although we know some are from the North Slope and many from Canada.

Pacific black brant are an icon, a bird of mystery and intrigue for hunters and biologists. “1924 marked the first trip to the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, where brant colonies were initially documented

and studied,” shares Jim Sedinger, PhD, professor emeritus at the University of Nevada Reno. He has been studying waterfowl on the Y-K Delta since 1977.

“In the 1930s, Pacific black brant populations were estimated to be around 270,000 birds, and today that number is about 170,000,” he adds.

A MYSTERY DECLINE But what Sedinger reveals about current brant populations is interesting. “We

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FIELD ENJOY STREET TACOS WITH ALASKAN FLAVOR

BY TIFFANY HAUGEN

O

n a recent trip to Mexico, Scott and I spent one night foodhopping backstreet taco stands.

One stood out: the birria taco! First, we had it with beef, then goat. I was so inspired I couldn’t wait to get home and try it on all our game in the freezer.

I Initially made it with deer and then elk, and that was amazing. Then I tried bear meat and it was delicious. Then I moved on to ducks and geese, and when Scott brought home some fresh brant – our favorite waterfowl to eat – it was simply incredible.

Traditionally a dish prepared with goat, most local taco stands use beef in their birria tacos. Almost any cut of wild game works great – including waterfowl – for this recipe because the secret is the marinade and the cooking method.

Pressure cooking, slow-cooking or a lowand-slow simmer on the stovetop will produce a great end result.

1½ pounds brant meat (or any wild game) ⅓ cup melted butter or coconut oil One 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes

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An evening spent food-hopping authentic taco stands in Mexico inspired chef Tiffany Haugen to infuse Alaska flavor into delicious birria tacos. She tried this recipe with brant goose meat. (TIFFANY HAUGEN)

1 7-ounce can chipotle peppers in adobo sauce ¼ cup cider vinegar 6 cloves garlic, crushed 1 teaspoon guajillo chili powder 1 teaspoon oregano 1 teaspoon smoked paprika 1 teaspoon cumin ½ teaspoon cloves ½ teaspoon salt 2 cups beef or vegetable stock Two cinnamon sticks Three bay leaves 1 cup grated cheddar or jack cheese, optional Additional butter or coconut oil for frying tortillas 20 corn tortillas Fresh lime, chopped onion and cilantro for garnish Trim meat and cut into chunks or strips as desired. In a sealable container or baggie, mix butter or coconut oil, chipotle peppers with sauce, vinegar, garlic, chili powder, oregano, paprika, cumin and cloves until thoroughly combined. Add meat, seal and refrigerate overnight.

When ready to cook, place meat with all the marinade in a pressure cooker, slow cooker or Dutch oven. Add tomatoes, stock, salt, cinnamon sticks and bay leaves. Pressure cook on high pressure

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55 to 60 minutes or slow-cook on high four to six hours or until meat is tender.

If cooking on the stovetop or in the oven, bring all ingredients to a boil and simmer on medium-low heat until meat reaches desired tenderness. Pull meat to shreds or chop into desired size for taco filling.

To assemble birria tacos, heat a large griddle (or skillet) on medium-high heat. Coat griddle with a layer of butter or coconut oil. Dip both sides of each tortilla in birria mixture and place on the hot griddle. Place a scoop of shredded or chopped meat on half of each tortilla and fold. Sprinkle a bit of cheese onto the outer side of each taco. Once the tortilla begins to brown, turn over so cheese can caramelize to the shell. Add additional cheese to the other side and flip once more before serving. Garnish with a wedge of lime, fresh cilantro and chopped onion if desired. Serve with a side of broth from the birria mixture.

Editor’s note: To order signed copies of Tiffany Haugen's popular book, Cooking Game Birds, visit scotthaugen.com for this and other titles.

FIELD can account for 70,000 brant, but we’re missing 100,000 brant somewhere due to variables we don’t understand. Midwinter aerial counts stopped in Mexico about a decade ago, so now we’re relegated to ground counts, which aren’t as accurate.”

Chris Nicolai, waterfowl scientist at Delta Waterfowl, completed both his master’s and PhD on Pacific black brant.

He’s spent countless hours in the field banding and studying brant and has hunted them from Alaska to Mexico. “To tell you the truth, I’m concerned about native village harvests on these brant because those estimated annual harvest rates are between 10,000 and 30,000. To put it in perspective, sport hunters only take about 5,300 brant a year – 2,000 in Mexico, 1,500 in Cold Bay, Alaska, 1,000 in California, 500 in Oregon, 300 in Washington.”

Alaska hunters are seeing a drop in how many birds they can harvest.

“This is the fourth season hunters have been allowed only two brant in Alaska,” shares noted guide Jeff Wasley, owner of Four Flyways Outfitters in Cold Bay. The

limit used to be three. Wasley has a biology degree and spent four years working as a waterfowl biologist for the United States Geological Survey. He’s been a full-time waterfowl guide since 2008 and, like many of us, grew up waterfowl hunting.

“Some people are concerned about the number of brant wintering here, but I’ve spent several winters living in Cold Bay and closely watch brant all winter long on Izembek Lagoon,” Wasley says. “Two Novembers ago was the coldest I’ve ever seen it here. Izembek Lagoon froze over and all the brant left. Then, as the ice began to melt, the brant returned, and they just kept coming. I watched flock after flock of brant landing atop 3-feet-thick chunks of overturned ice in the lagoon, eating the lush, green eel grass that was frozen to the bottom. By January, 70,000 brant were here.” When the brant temporarily left Izembek Lagoon in November, they were obviously feeding on eel grass somewhere else, likely amid the islands to the south.

Paul Flint has 30 years as a research biologist with the USGS. He also completed his PhD on brant in the Y-K Delta and agrees with Sedinger that there are at least 100,000 brant missing from recent surveys.

“There may be more than that, but we know they’re not in Alaska,” Flint

Pacific black brant gathering at Izembek Lagoon in Cold Bay is one of the most awesome sights to witness in the world of waterfowl in Alaska. (SCOTT HAUGEN) 26

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confirms. Flint is working on some ground-breaking technologies to study brant as these words are being written.

PREDATOR-PREY IMPACTS Predation is also impacting brant populations. “Arctic foxes hit the brant nests hard the summer before last and wiped out close to 50 percent of the nests on our study grounds,” Sedinger adds. So why can’t problem foxes simply be killed? The answer is tangled, partly because removing predators has gotten a bad rap in recent years; partly because funding for the USFWS has been short; and partly because different refuge managers have different visions.

A DIET PROBLEM Natural mortality is another factor affecting brant numbers. “On the Y-K Delta, brant recruitment rates are declining and have been since the year 2000,” Sedinger confirms, and turns to the importance of “grazing lawns” for young brant. “Goslings need protein, and grazing lawns offer three times more protein than mature grasses.

Grazing lawns are created by adult brant feeding on grass in the nesting area. The goslings then feed on the nutrient-rich, short grass. We’re seeing fewer grazing lawns on the Y-K Delta as adult brant

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FIELD

Author Scott Haugen hoists a brace of black brant taken in Cold Bay. He’s hunted them from Alaska’s Arctic to the Baja Peninsula of Mexico and loves everything about these majestic geese. (SCOTT HAUGEN)

numbers continue to decline.”

The effects of a gosling’s less-thanideal diet is quickly realized on their first migratory flight, in this case from the Y-K Delta to Izembek Lagoon. “Y-K brant are fledging at 600 grams, compared to those on the North Slope that are fledging at 900 grams,” Sedinger notes.

“Adult brant weigh 1,000 grams when the fall migration commences. As a result, there’s a recent, large mortality rate of fledgling brant that don’t even make it to Izembek Lagoon from the Y-K Delta.”

FLUCTUATING NUMBERS “I think a big key to look at when it comes to estimating brant populations is how much numbers bounce around from one year to the next, in a fashion that’s not plausible,” says Flint.

When you look at the remote places where the brant nest and take into consideration we don’t know the migration routes and timing of all brant populations because we’ve not been able to fit them with transmitters, Flint makes a good case.

Studies are currently being done on the world’s largest eel grass beds – nearly 45,000 acres – in Izembek Lagoon, where a growing number of brant are wintering. Scientists are also close to finding a way to track brant migrations with transmitters.

In November of 2017 I was hunting Izembek Lagoon with Wasley when a major storm hit. Right before dark, every brant on the west side of the lagoon funneled high into the sky – almost out of sight – and headed for Mexico. Just like that, tens of thousands of brant were gone. It’s one of the most awesome acts of nature I’ve witnessed.

While some brant did stick around for the winter, what intrigued me most was the 3,000-mile, 60-hour nonstop flight these little geese endure. Right then, I vowed to hunt brant in Mexico. I did, and it was one of the best waterfowl hunting experiences of my life. ASJ Editor’s note: To book a guided brant hunt in Cold Bay, Alaska, from September to December, visit scotthaugen.com. Follow Scott’s adventures on Instagram.

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The Hanson Cabin, near the headwaters of the Thorne River on Prince of Wales Island, represents the site of what has been a mystery dating back to 1939, when a trapper named Crist Kolby died of mysterious circumstances. Some believe Kolby was killed by wolves. (BJORN DIHLE) 30

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THE MYST CRIST

A MISSING TRAPPER, WOLVES AND A BROKEN PISTOL – WHA

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BY BJORN DIHLE

D

uring the winter of 1939, a woodwise bachelor named Crist Kolby traveled up the Thorne River on Southeast Alaska’s Prince of Wales Island to trap for the season. He set up his base near its headwaters, at a small shack hewn together by a couple other trappers a few decades before and known as the Hanson Cabin. Kolby hailed from Ketchikan, a bustling logging and fishing community that lay 50 miles away by water. He was around 40 years old, in good health and an expert woodsman. So it was something of a surprise when Kolby failed to return to town the following summer.

That July, authorities sent two men to look for him. Ketchikan game warden W.R. Selfridge detailed the investigation in a 1943 article for the Alaska Sportsman: “They had found his camp in perfect order, with indications that he left it intending to stay only a day, or possibly overnight. March 2 was the last day marked on the calendar in the Hanson Cabin. That must have been the last day Crist Kolby used it.”

THE SEARCH PARTY

STERY OF ST KOLBY – WHAT HAPPENED ON P.O.W. ONE WINTER 83 YEARS AGO?

It was at the Hanson Cabin 80 years later that I first learned of Crist Kolby. A friend and I were hiking and packrafting through the Honker Divide, a 30-mile protected corridor that includes the cabin and the Thorne River. We stopped to look around the old building and discovered it had been refurbished at some point. There was even a laminated copy of Selfridge’s article hanging on the wall inside.

At the end of October 1939, Selfridge and three of Kolby’s friends departed Ketchikan with a month’s worth of provisions to search for the missing trapper.

Selfridge knew the Thorne River country well and led the party. He admitted that his reasons for searching for Kolby went beyond official duty; he wanted to solve the mystery of how an able man like Kolby could have gone missing.

The timing of the expedition was deliberate: Selfridge chose late fall because summer vegetation had dwindled and snow had yet to fall, which would make it easier to find clues of Kolby’s fate. The men lined and poled their boat up the

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The old wolf traps hanging from the Hanson Cabin reflect a way of life that Kolby embraced back in the 1930s and led to his untimely demise. (BJORN DIHLE)

Thorne River in a heavy rainstorm. Despite the weather, Selfridge mentioned how enjoyable the trip would have been if it hadn’t been for their morbid task.

“The forest seems alive with birds and animals, and the water is teeming with fish,” he wrote. “I have never talked with anyone who made the trip up this river who did not mention a wish to make it again.”

When the searchers finally made it to the Hanson Cabin, however, they were exhausted, famished and soaked to the bone. Selfridge shot a buck while Kolby’s friends made the cabin comfortable for a long stay.

The Thorne River connects a series of lakes and numerous tributary streams, which, depending on trapping pressure, can be rich with beaver, mink, otter and wolves. There were a lot more trappers in Alaska in those days, and some of them made fortunes when fur prices were high. Men like Kolby could make good money in a single season. Tension 32

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and even violence between competing trappers was not uncommon.

That’s one reason Selfridge and the search party initially suspected that Kolby had been murdered for his furs.

Little details the searchers normally would not have thought twice about at the cabin – like a possible bullet hole in a piece of wood – took on a potentially sinister significance.

A DEAD MAN’S REVOLVER The four men spent the next several days searching the nearby land and packing a small boat a couple miles through muskeg and forest to Thorne Lake. They would often split up to cover more ground.

On the evening of the sixth day, one of the searchers, a man named W.A. Miller, found the remains of a trapper and reported it to the others. But Miller insisted the dead man wasn’t Kolby.

Even more startling, Miller said, the man appeared to have been killed by wolves.

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When pressed by his companions about the dead man’s identity, Miller revealed a rusted .357 Magnum revolver. He had discovered it – unloaded and holstered – among the scattered clothing and human bones.

“Well, for one thing,” Miller told Selfridge and the others, “I found this gun there, and there was cartridges in the coat pocket. Now, you fellows know that no woodsman like Kolby’s gonna get ganged up on and killed by a bunch of wolves while he had a gun. And this guy was done in by wolves! There’s teeth marks on that gun holster, and they weren’t made by no beaver!”

The men tried to make sense of the possibilities. It sounded far-fetched to them. In that era, wolves were almost unilaterally unliked, but none of the men believed them to be much of a threat. Selfridge admitted they knew of no case of a wolf killing a human in Alaska. Kolby was a paramount woodsman and known to be adequately armed. Certainly, he wouldn’t

be the first to meet such an end.

Back at the Hanson Cabin, Victor Hautop, a close friend of Kolby, cleaned up the pistol and then disassembled it and found that the mainspring was broken, which had rendered it useless and explained why it was unloaded. Hautop recognized the pistol and told the group he was sure that it belonged to Kolby.

EATEN BY WOLVES The following morning, the rest of the search party investigated the site of the trapper’s death for themselves.

“By the water’s edge was the coat, torn at the right shoulder, and the cuff of a shirt sleeve,” Selfridge wrote, describing the scene. “The skinning knife, with large tooth marks on the handle, lay nearby, and the bones of one arm were about three feet out of the water … The clothing, all badly torn, was scattered around under the two trees fifty feet from the shore. The belt was still buckled. From the holster of the belt Miller had removed the gun … Scattered within a radius of a hundred feet, we found the bones. All but the skull

were chewed and broken, and only parts of the larger bones were left.”

The men considered different scenarios and kept returning to the same conclusion: that Kolby had indeed been killed by wolves. Selfridge believed that Kolby had been walking on the frozen lake and, when he realized a pack was coming for him, abandoned his backpack on the ice. This would explain why the search party didn’t find his pack at the scene: It had fallen into the lake during the spring thaw. Kolby must have raced toward shore for a tree to climb.

A wolf in Southeast Alaska foraging the intertidal zone. Wolves remain a big presence on Prince of Wales Island. (BJORN DIHLE) 34

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“But the wolves were too close,” Selfridge writes, recreating Kolby’s final moments. “One met him at the edge of the ice, and seized his coat by the right shoulder. Crist struck at the murderous beast with his skinning knife, but lost his knife in the struggle. Somehow, too, his coat and the wristband of his shirt were torn off. Desperately, Crist ran for the two trees about fifty feet from the struggle. If he could only make it! Just under one tree, another wolf attacked, and this time its fierce fangs found their mark before the victim could tear away and reach the safety of those low branches!

We stood for some time as if watching helplessly while that bloody drama was re-enacted before our eyes. My tongue felt swollen, and ached in my throat as

Black bears and lesser white-fronted geese reside around Thorne Lake. (BJORN DIHLE) 36

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Author Bjorn Dihle checks out a big Sitka spruce along the Thorne River, in the area where Kolby’s Alaska adventures came to an end. (BJORN DIHLE) 38

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I thought of the panic, the desperate struggle, and the anguish of those few moments before a human soul was sent too soon to its maker!”

Selfridge and his companions collected Kolby’s bones and returned to Ketchikan, where they buried their friend.

The story of the trapper who had been killed by wolves was quickly picked up by territorial and national newspapers.

Kolby’s story had many similarities to a few accounts from earlier in the 20th century telling of other trappers being killed by wolves. Each case involved the discovery of a trapper’s remains and evidence they had been eaten by wolves.

In the case of Ben Cochrane, a trapper in northern Canada, the story of him killing 11 wolves before being torn to shreds himself made numerous newspaper headlines during the spring of 1922. To this day, the Cochrane story is still circulating on the web. Newspapers later reported, however, that Cochrane showed up in Winnipeg in May 1922 – very much alive and with no idea where the story had come from. It’s unclear if the story is completely fabricated, or if wolves had killed a different trapper whose identity remains unknown.

In North America, wolf attacks are so rare that for a long time, there was a commonly held belief that a wild wolf wouldn’t attack a person unless it is rabid. This is not true, as the 2005 killing of Kenton Carnegie near Points North Landing, Saskatchewan, or the 2010 killing of Candice Berner near Chignik Lake, Alaska, show. I’ve had dozens of encounters with wolves across Alaska and the Yukon, and I’ve only had one experience that was threatening. It was an injured wolf that appeared to know if it did not eat me, it would die.

There is a no shortage of controversy and contradictions surrounding wolves on Prince of Wales Island presently.

Many believe they are distinct subspecies, the future of which is in peril and should be protected by the federal Endangered Species Act. Many residents of POW believe there are way too many wolves and that they are depleting – and could even eradicate – the island’s deer population. One thing everyone seems to agree on is that wolves on POW don’t pose any real threat to people.

AN UNCERTAIN END It’s entirely possible that Selfridge’s assessment of Kolby’s death was correct.

Still, there are other explanations for how the trapper could have met his end.

I was surprised Selfridge did not discuss the possibility that Kolby had fallen through the ice. This would also explain why he had abandoned his pack and why his knife – in an attempt to break ice and claw his way to shore – had been found out of its sheath. Kolby could have made it to shore, only to succumb to hypothermia. A similar scenario happened to two acquaintances of mine – one survived.

As for the wolves? Kolby had reportedly been carrying a bottle of anise in his jacket, and his clothes would’ve smelled of the animals he’d been skinning. His corpse would have doubly attracted wolves, bears and other scavengers. Or

if he had drowned as he fought his way through the ice, a bear could have easily dragged his corpse out of the water and back into the woods to feed. The area has no shortage of black bears; I saw three when I paddled across Thorne Lake. Selfridge wrote they found no bear spoor in the area, which he took as evidence that bears did not feed on Kolby.

SEEING IT FOR THEMSELVES My buddy and I left the Hanson Cabin and paddled a few miles down the Thorne River to a small tributary before setting off into the woods. We encountered numerous deer. Wolf sign was plentiful, too, and we found the remains of a few deer they’d eaten. One had been killed in the last few days and was already reduced to hair and bones. That night we built a fire on the bank above the river. I stayed up late, hop-

Was Kolby killed by wolves? His fellow trapping fans sure thought so when they erected a memorial to their friend. “Killed and ate up by wolves in March 1939,” their plaque said. (BJORN DIHLE)

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ing to hear wolves howling, but there was only the sound of the river flowing by and tree branches swaying in the darkness. I had the feeling we were being watched, and I wondered if our camp would be visited during the night.

On a tree near where they had found Kolby’s remains, Selfridge and the men left a wooden plaque that read: “IN MEMORY OF CRIST KOLBY Killed and ate up by wolves in March 1939. Found Nov. 5, 1939.” ASJ Editor’s note: This piece was first published in Outdoor Life and is being reprinted by permission of the author. Bjorn Dihle is a lifelong Southeast Alaskan. His most recent book is A Shape in the Dark: Living and Dying with Brown Bears. Order it at amazon.com/Shape-Dark-Living-DyingBrown/dp/1680513095.

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RIDING THE CRIMSON WAV BOOK EXCERPT PAYS HOMAGE TO BRISTOL BAY’S SOCKEYE, BOUNTY

The beauty and importance of Bristol Bay salmon made an impression on The Crimson Wave author Bill Horn, who first made an appearance in Alaska in 1977. (ANDREW HENDRY) 42

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AVE

F

rom the first time he set foot in Alaska – in the 1970s, after accepting employment opportunities with Rep. Don Young and Sen. Ted Stevens, Washington, D.C. movers and shakers who represented the Last Frontier in Congress – Bill Horn felt he had arrived in a special place.

Horn, who went onto an intriguing career in both politics and law, is also a passionate outdoorsman who became particularly smitten by the endless supply of migrating salmon and hungry trout in Bristol Bay. The author who says he’s “about 95 percent retired” has published works that include fishing in Florida – he lives in the Florida Keys with his wife Jeannette – and ruffed grouse hunting “Each year 60 million or more wild salmon pour into the Bay to fight their way upstream past nets, bears, swirling rapids, cascading waterfalls and anglers in lake and river systems with extraordinary names – Iliamna, Kvichak, Naknek, Nushagak, and Ugashik – that set anglers’ hearts aflutter,” Horn writes in his new book that pays respect to Bristol Bay, its remarkable salmon runs and other species that inhabit these waters. “It is the last place on Earth where great wild salmon runs remain the dominant force shaping not only the ecology, but human enterprise too.”

Horn cares just as much about protecting the watersheds of Bristol Bay – he spent time during the Reagan administration working on Alaska projects with the Department of the Interior – as he does catching the region’s fish.

The following is excerpted from The Crimson Wave: Sockeye Salmon, Rainbow Trout, and Alaska’s Bristol Bay, published by Stackpole Books.

BY BILL HORN

R

ivers and streams littered with salmon carcasses is a sure sign of seasonal change. The short Alaska fall has arrived, with the long, cold, dark winter not far behind. Daylight grows shorter by about six minutes each day.

By October 1, the sun doesn’t rise until nearly 9 a.m. – thanks, daylight saving time!

Daytime highs in September drop to the mid-50s, and there will be more rainy days than sunshine. Powerful storms packing mean winds and driving rain blow in from the North Pacific and Bering Sea. Fall anglers must be prepared, psychologically and physically, to get weathered in, and for the conditions when they can get out on the rivers.

Fall weather is no joke, and smart anglers should carry some basic survival

gear in case they get stranded overnight.

A 1-gallon ziplock bag with a lighter, waterproof matches, firestarter material, a chocolate bar, a small water filter, a space blanket and a Leatherman tool will let you stay relatively warm, dry, watered and fed.

The ensemble fits easily in the back of most fly-fishing vests. And don’t leave your rain jacket unattended on a riverbank on an apparently warm, dry day. Porcupines will chew on it and curious bears will carry it off, leaving you unprotected when unpredicted rain or snow blow in.

The September 11 terrorist attacks demonstrated the need to carry some emergency supplies. That morning, the fly-out lodges dispatched their floatplanes loaded with guides and clients for another day of fishing.

Anglers got dropped off, and plans were made for a late-afternoon pickup and return to the lodge. By midday,

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AUTHOR BILL HORN ON ALASKA, PEBBLE MINE AND LOST ’BOWS Chris Cocoles Congratulations on a great book that captures the spirit of Alaska and Bristol Bay’s fishing scene. Was this your first project that focused solely on the Last Frontier?

Bill Horn Yes, it is my first writing venture about Alaska that wasn’t related to my government service or legal practice, and definitely more fun to write. The idea of telling the Bristol Bay angling story via the life cycle of the sockeye was born long before I wrote my books on saltwater flats fishing and ruffed grouse hunting, but I wasn’t sure I had the ability to actually write a book that would do justice to the Bay region. Guess I “tuned up” with the others so I could do right by the sockeye, rainbows and the 49th state!

Bill Horn, here releasing a rainbow on an Alaska Peninsula stream in 2004, found a new passion when he first started doing government work in Alaska. “The idea of telling the Bristol Bay angling story via the life cycle of the sockeye was born long before I wrote my books on saltwater flats fishing and ruffed grouse hunting,” he says. “But I wasn’t sure I had the ability to actually write a book that would do justice to the (Bristol) Bay region.”

(BILL HORN)

CC Your Alaska ties date back to 1977 when you began to work with Rep. Don Young and Sen. Ted Stevens. How did that come about?

BH The connection really started in 1972 when I was working part time – I was still in college – for Trout Unlimited. We made a pitch to the U.S. Department of the Interior about conserving the Iliamna Lake and river systems for the benefits of salmon and trout. That was my first real exposure to Alaska issues. Two years later I was a young congressional staffer and Horn (with a pike he caught on a mouse fly at Tikchik Lakes back in 1994) still wants to fulfill his “catch list” by taking a twice-delayed sheefish expedition and also by targeting steelhead. “Maybe one of these days,” he declares. (BILL HORN)

ended up working on the Alaska pipeline bill when I met Don Young, who had just been elected to the House. In early 1977, the House was about to wrestle with the big Alaska lands bill and the proposed Alaska natural gas pipeline. Don had just become the ranking Republican on the new Alaska Lands subcommittee and had the right to hire a staffer for it. He remembered me from the oil pipeline fight and offered me the subcommittee slot – I jumped on it.

I spent the next four years consumed with the giant lands bill that became the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980. Got to travel all over Alaska during those years, including my first trips to Bristol Bay for hearings and meetings in Dillingham, King Salmon, Katmai, Togiak and Port Alsworth. When the bill would leave the House and go to the Senate, Don detailed me over to Sen. Stevens to work on the bill on that side of Capitol Hill. I was one of two staffers who had the privilege of working on ANILCA on both the House and Senate sides.

CC From a pure fishing standpoint, did you have a welcome-to-Alaska-moment?

BH Absolutely. The subcommittee was

conducting hearings all over the state in 1977 and we ended up in King Salmon.

The National Park Service arranged for an overnight stay at Brooks Camp in Katmai and I stole a couple of hours to get on

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the Brooks River. It was full of bright red prespawn sockeye, and I was told the rainbows would follow the salmon. Found my way to the river, keeping a wary eye open for brown bears, and started pitching a No. 6 Polar Shrimp. It was drifting/swinging along when it got grabbed, and a hot rainbow raced off, leaping en route.

Landed this bright, hard, red-striped, 16-inch fish and couldn’t believe that a kid who had grown up in Florida and New Jersey was holding and releasing a bona fide Alaska trout in this incredible place. I was hooked on the 49th state.

CC When you worked as deputy

undersecretary for the Department of Interior during the Reagan administration, Alaska was one of your focuses. Did that give you even more perspective about how special the state’s natural resources are?

BH The great privilege of traveling all over the state during the lands bill battle had already impressed on me how special and unique Alaska was and is. Then the opportunity to direct implementation of the bill, and the major compromises it represented and codified, was a continuing education about the Great Land.

A seminal moment for me was a 1981 return to King Salmon with then Alaska Gov. Jay Hammond.

Jay, who was from the Bristol Bay region, wanted to impress on the new Interior Department leadership the unique value of the Bay region.

I spent a full day with him and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game Bay personnel getting briefed at length about the sockeye run, how it’s managed and how the state was struggling to restore the runs that had been decimated by federal mismanagement in the 1950s and foreign overfishing during the ’60s and ’70s. It was an incredible eyeopening experience and the lessons learned that day, and later, helped me in the fisheries conservation and management business when I was chairing the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, helping negotiate the U.S.-Canada Pacific Salmon Treaty,

Access to the region’s lakes, rivers and fishing lodges requires use of floatplanes such as the workhorse de Havilland Beaver. (BILL HORN)

the FAA had shut down U.S. airspace, including Alaska; all planes were grounded. Anglers and guides, totally out of touch in the Alaska bush, assembled at their prescribed pickup spots and waited and waited. One bush pilot friend was unaware of the grounding orders and took off to pick up waiting clients. An F-16 jet swooped down, stood off his wing, and gave him an emphatic thumbs-down

sign. He landed at a nearby village and was stuck there for days.

As the lawyer for a number of the lodges and pilot services, I started getting frantic satellite phone calls about grounded planes and stranded clients. It took a major effort by Alaska’s congressional delegation to get the FAA and the U.S. Air Force to let the lodges and bush pilots go out and pick up the clients.

The author lands a big Ugashik Narrows grayling.

Volcanic Mount Peulik looms in the background.

(BILL HORN)

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and serving on the boards of private fishery groups such as the Bonefish & Tarpon Trust and Trout Unlimited.

CC It looks like you’ve fished all over

the place. But what makes the Alaska experience so unique?

BH I need a whole book to answer this question! The “time machine” quality of Alaska is unique – a chance to be part of a complete fish-driven natural system in a vast, wild setting. You see millions of salmon return to the Bristol Bay rivers and lakes supporting a vibrant ecology, including trophy rainbow trout, bald eagles and brown bears to name a few of the other species dependent on the sockeye.

In contrast, throughout the Lower 48 states and elsewhere, we struggle to hold on to the remnants of great natural fisheries, where the fish are all too often an afterthought standing at the back of the line behind water supply for agriculture and cities, electric power generation and land uses incompatible with healthy streams, rivers and estuaries.

CC I can tell in reading through the

book that you have a real admiration for salmon and the life cycle that those remarkable fish run through again and again. What has that meant to you to be a part of fishing for Alaska’s salmon?

BH Following on from what I said before, you stand in a Bay region river during the sockeye run and you’re in the middle of a great pageant of life.

There is life and death being played out on a grand scale above the water and below. For anglers and others who appreciate aquatic habitats, this is the Serengeti of fish. Becoming part of this, as an angler, touches those remnant parts of us connected to natural cycles. Those connections are ever more important in a modern, urbanizing, crowded world.

CC You also write a lot about trout

fishing in the Last Frontier. Can you share some rainbow memories in Alaska?

BH Odd as it may seem, my most vivid memories are of big rainbows that 46

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“Fishing among the bears is a great part of the Bristol Bay angling experience,” Horn writes. “They are magnificent creatures, and the opportunity to be on their ground in fairly close proximity is truly awesome. It can also be frightening.” (NEIL OSTRANDER)

Some spent three nights out with no knowledge of what had happened. Many of the survivors of this ordeal reported they believed nuclear war had erupted and it was all over. The sky was empty of aircraft except for military jets streaking back and forth at very high altitudes.

TIME FOR TROPHY RAINBOWS Despite often marginal weather, the sockeye dieoff and the onset of fall can produce spectacular fishing, especially for trophy rainbows. Around Iliamna Lake, the biggest rainbows move into tributaries like Lower and Upper Talarik Creeks, Gibraltar Creek, the Newhalen River and down into the Kvichak. In nearby Katmai Park, big ’bows are on the move in the Kukaklek Lake headwaters: Moraine Creek and the Battle River.

Among these, Lower Talarik gets the most headlines. A modest, low-gradient stream, it flows through a series of small lakes and ponds into the north side of Iliamna Lake about 20 miles west of the village of Iliamna.

Noticeably big rainbows move in during September and October, when it becomes a prime place for trophy fish to

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10 pounds or more. Lodges and anglers literally fight to get on good stretches of the creek, like the famous Rock Hole, where a big out-of-place rock sticks out like a sore thumb. Such is the creek’s fame that even 40 years ago area lodges made special plans to fish it. Only a few floatplanes can safely land and tie up there, so it was a daily race to see who could get there first and secure one of the spots. Lodge guests were rousted from bed in the predawn dark and jammed into the plane at first light. That still goes on.

I’m not a big fan, even though I’ve caught a couple of good rainbows there.

Contemporary anglers enjoying Talarik’s trophy ’bows are unaware that public access to the creek was almost lost 30 years ago. A mostly unknown Native allotment application filed in 1971 came up for adjudication by the federal government (up until 1971, Native Americans were able to file applications for ownership of up to 160 acres of federal land if the applicant could demonstrate certain levels of customary use of the parcel). The state typically tried to track applications/adjudications that had possible impacts on Alaska Statehood

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I’ve lost. As told in the book, I have never been able to catch the trophy 30-inch/10-pound rainbow trout. A couple have reached 29 inches and the damn ruler wouldn’t stretch to give me 30.

The first “big one that got away” was a monster on the Naknek one cold, rainy late-August day. It leapt around the boat, letting us get repeated good looks before racing off, pulling the hook and breaking my heart.

Years later, we were creeping around Funnel Creek sight fishing for big single rainbows. One in our group spotted a “kahuna” – we all agreed it was 30 inches plus – in a tight lie that was best fished by a left-hander: me.

The dark-green-backed trout was below a willow tangle and the key was to hook it and get it going downstream away from the line-breaking snag.

Crawled into casting position and stayed on my knees. On the fifth cast, the big trout drifted right, I saw the white mouth open and it took the bead. Set the hook, pulled hard to turn the fish downstream and scrambled up. For a minute I got the fish coming my way and hope flared – briefly. Mr. Trout promptly regained his bearings, and bulldogged upstream heading for the snag. I put on major pressure – pretty major, as I was using 2x tippet – but the trout shook it off and bored into the snag, shearing the leader.

In the words of Snidely Whiplash, “Foiled again.”

Act land selections or public fishing and hunting access and raise timely objections that could get resolved before final approval of an allotment application.

However, the state missed this one until it was on the cusp of approval.

Anglers and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game were upset because the allotment covered most of the lower end of Lower Talarik, including the famous Rock Hole. Mac Minard was tasked with trying to resolve the dispute at the eleventh hour. As he recounted to me, he was in a real bind: On one hand, a respected Native elder had filed the claim, and on the other, the state had failed to contest it in normal fashion (i.e., work out boundary and access issues), so the only apparent remaining option was to flatly oppose the claim. Mac pictured the damning headline: “ADFG seeks to kick tribal elder off his land to expand public fishing access.”

Things were looking grim for Lower Talarik anglers. Fortunately, Minard got in contact with the Alaska Nature Conservancy and together went to work negotiating an arrangement with the claimant, Mr. Anelon. He was a

sincere and thoughtful man interested in preserving his traditional use of the land for hunting, fishing and berry picking without running off the public.

A complicated deal was struck in which the land would be transferred to the state of Alaska subject to a conservation easement to protect Mr. Anelon’s uses, traditional uses by other local Natives, and angler access. Orvis played a critical role in soliciting and donating funds for the transaction. Angling artist Adriano Manocchia did a painting of the creek to commemorate the deal. Mac considers it one of his finest professional moments.

And every angler who enjoys chasing Lower Talarik’s trophy ’bows should take a moment and tip his or her hat to Mr. Anelon, the Alaska Nature Conservancy, Orvis, Mr. Minard and Mr. Manocchia.

BRISTOL BAY CONSERVATION ROYALTY Jim Repine was “Mr. Alaska Fly Fishing” in the 1970s and 1980s. A larger-than-life Falstaffian character, during his heyday he hosted an Alaska fishing television show, edited Alaska Outdoors magazine, wrote four books on Alaska fly fishing and was a ubiquitous presence at Lower 48 fly-

CC This book also seems like it’s an

ode to Bristol Bay. Is that a special place to you?

BH The Bay and its river/lake systems are a super special place for me. It has everything that makes Alaska special: sparkling jagged mountains, smoking volcanoes, deep mountain passes lined with blue hanging glaciers, giant lakes, big sweeping rivers along with intimate streams, millions of salmon, great trout, the magnificent brown bears, traditional villages and an entire culture tuned into the fisheries.

What’s not to like?

I’ve also been able to become friends with many of the locals and 48

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Jim Repine was concerned about protecting Bristol Bay long before the threat of the proposed Pebble Mine got the attention of many people, including the author.

“I like to think I have some credibility when concluding that the impacts and risks from copper/gold mining in Bristol Bay are unacceptable,” Horn writes. (BILL HORN)

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poke around a lot of little-visited corners of the region. An incredible landscape, fish and wildlife beyond compare and wonderful people is an unbeatable combination.

CC You make a passionate argument

to protect Bristol Bay’s salmon runs and not risk implementing the Pebble Mine project. While you acknowledge that you’ve been a proponent for mining and drilling in other areas of Alaska, do you just think when it comes to what Bristol Bay produces, it’s not a gamble worth taking there?

BH Bristol Bay contains an irreplaceable wild salmon fishery.

There is a complete three-legged sustainable economy built on that last, best salmon run: a commercial fishery (boats and set netters), a traditional subsistence fishery, and an angling industry. I got taught, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” and given the management success represented by sockeye runs topping 70 million fish, it ain’t broke. It makes no sense to jeopardize this last, best wild salmon run and a working sustainable economy for the short-term benefits of high-risk mining straddling the headwaters of the Iliamna/Kvichak and Mulchatna/Nushagak systems.

One other factor deserves consideration. The fight is not about just one mine project. If Pebble is built, a vast infrastructure of roads, pipelines, electrical facilities, ports, housing and other facilities will be created. There are other mineral deposits in the area that are not big enough to carry the costs of such infrastructure. But if Pebble is built, these smaller deposits can piggyback on the Pebble infrastructure. The result will be a full-fledged mining district – with multiple operations in the area – not just a single project.

That’s plainly too much of a gamble.

CC Do you have a favorite Bristol Bay/

Alaska fishing area that you could be content spending every fishing experience for the rest of your life and be satisfied with just casting there?

BH As much as I adore the Katmai and Wood River/Tikchik areas in the 50

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fishing shows. I met Jim in 1981 and had the pleasure of fishing with him (and his dog) throughout the 1980s. A genuinely great guy, he never let his 49th state fame go to his head. On a fishing trip to Chile, he met a widow, fell in love, married and moved south. Later they ran Futaleufu Lodge deep in the Chilean Andes. Jim succumbed to brain cancer in 2009.

Repine recognized the substantial economic value of well-managed recreational fisheries and fervently believed Bristol Bay could be a showplace for how to integrate and manage conservation, commercial fishing and sport angling. He would have been a loud voice for protection of Iliamna Lake and its fish rich environs from the proposed Pebble pit mine.

Bristol Bay’s conservation story must always include the late Jay Hammond, former governor of Alaska (1974–1982).

Jay was a Marine Corps fighter pilot in

World War II flying with the famous Black Sheep Squadron in the Pacific.

He moved to Alaska after the war to become a bush pilot and was quickly entranced by the Bristol Bay country. He homesteaded on the shores of Lake Clark and married a lovely Native woman, Bella Gardiner. Quickly attracted to local politics, he was elected to the Alaska legislature in 1959 and served there until 1973. From 1972 to 1974 he was also mayor of the Bristol Bay Borough.

Designation by the state of Alaska of the Bristol Bay Fisheries Reserve as well as five important salmon-related critical habitat areas occurred in 1972, with Jay providing key leadership.

He was elected governor in 1974, as a Republican, and barely reelected in a wild race in 1978. Challenged by former Alaska governor and Secretary of the Interior Wally Hickel, Hammond prevailed by 89 votes. Jay was quick

PEBBLE MINE: DOES IT MAKE SENSE? FROM BILL HORN’S BOOK THE CRIMSON WAVE

D

oes it make sense to create a full-fledged mining district in the headwaters of Bristol Bay? Although Pebble is a single proposed mine, the likely consequence of its development would be the creation of a full-fledged mining district straddling the headwaters of the Nushagak and Kvichak/Iliamna systems. Development of Pebble would require a complete infrastructure, including a new town for workers, power generation, transmission systems to deliver electricity to the mine and ore treatment facilities, water management, and, as noted earlier, access roads from Cook Inlet around the east end of Iliamna Lake and across the Newhalen River to the mine site.

The mineral deposit at Pebble might be large enough to support the costly investment in this “grassroots” infrastructure. However, the Pebble deposit is surrounded by a number of other, smaller ore bodies subject to mining claims. These smaller deposits are insufficient, by themselves, to support the necessary capital investment in infrastructure to enable profitable development. But development of infrastructure for Pebble would immediately make a number of these other deposits profitable to develop. The smaller mines could piggyback on Pebble’s infrastructure, resulting ultimately in establishment of a mining district in this sensitive area.

I testified to this effect to the Alaska Board of Fisheries a few years ago and have seen nothing since that changes my conclusions. My recommendation to Alaska then and now is to act to ensure the long-term conservation of the irreplaceable, sustainable sockeye fishery and not take any action that might risk creation of a mining district in the critical Nushagak/Kvichak headwaters. Having been an advocate for mining and oil and gas development in other areas of Alaska, where I am persuaded that the impacts are acceptable, I like to think I have some credibility when concluding that the impacts and risks from copper/gold mining in Bristol Bay are unacceptable. BH

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BEST OF

CHARTERS

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Bay, I’d hate to be confined to one fishing spot. Alaska rainbows are great – in my top four fish – but I’d hate to give up on my saltwater flats pals: the tarpon, bonefish and permit. If you read my flats books – On The Bow and Seasons on the Flats – you’ll know why.

CC And on that note, Alaska has so many angling opportunities, so is there a place or maybe a species you haven’t fished at/ targeted that’s on your bucket list still?

BH Twice I had trips to pursue sheefish canceled, and it sure would be fun to put one of them on my lifetime “catch list.”

And a few friends have tried to get me to try for steelhead by Yakutat, on Kodiak and down the Alaska Peninsula. Maybe one of these days.

CC Do you look back now and think back to 1977 and say that your experiences in Alaska changed and impacted your life?

BH Absolutely. A huge part of my professional life has been

connected to Alaska and I cannot imagine what else could have taken that much of my time, attention and passion. Nothing else that I know of would have been anywhere near as much fun or as endlessly interesting. The chance to be a natural resources/ wildlife professional and lawyer was a dream come true and was the result of my introductions to Alaska all those years ago. I have been extraordinarily fortunate and privileged to have been able to combine my avocation and my professional life.

God forbid that my career was spent doing divorces, car wrecks, wills, real estate closings or tax law! ASJ

with jokes about his “landslide” win and “mandate” from the voters. A burly, bearded and affable man with a great baritone voice and deep principles, he was central casting’s perfect vision of an Alaska governor. One of his books is titled Tales of Alaska’s Bush Rat Governor.

During the Alaska lands battle in Congress (1977–1980), Jay proposed creation of a special federal-state cooperative conservation zone around Lake Iliamna, including the famous rivers that feed into it. As previously noted, the land ownership of the area was considered too fractured for designation of a purely federal or state conservation area. The congressional leadership of that era wasn’t interested but did open the door in Title XII of the 1980 lands bill, ANILCA, to future creation of such a unit. Hammond’s immediate successors weren’t interested either, and by the time the state leadership cared again, the federal administration had changed and did not.

I had the good fortune to work a lot with Jay, and the last time I saw him we shared the stage in 2000 along with former president Jimmy Carter and his Interior Secretary Cecil Andrus at a University of Alaska event on the 20th anniversary of the signing of ANILCA. Jay passed away at Lake Clark in 2005 at 83 years old. ASJ Editor’s note: Bill Horn’s other books include Seasons on the Flats: An Angler’s Year in the Florida Keys and On the Bow: Love, Fear and Fascination in the Pursuit of Bonefish, Tarpon and Permit.

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While Pete Robbins’ first love has always been chasing bass like this largemouth caught at Mexico’s Lake El Salto, after multiple trips to Bristol Bay, Robbins (right, with a Naknek River king) writes that “Alaska has become an obsession.” (PETE ROBBINS/HALF PAST FIRST CAST)

NO BASS, NO PROBLEM

AN ANGLER FINDS HIS FISHING PURPOSE IN ALASKA

BY PETE ROBBINS

I

’ve spent most of my adult life chasing, thinking about and writing about largemouth and smallmouth bass.

That doesn’t make me a prime candidate for Alaskan fishing. After all, the 49th state is the only one of the 50 that doesn’t have either of those two species. Yes, I know that a single 8-inch

largemouth was caught near Anchorage in 2018, but I assume that was either a prank, an accident or the result of a “backyard biologist” who wanted to expand his options.

So arguably, there’s not much reason for me to go to Alaska from purely a fishing perspective. If you’re reading

this article, you likely live in Alaska or revere Alaskan fishing, so you know how ridiculous that last statement was. Every American, every nature lover and every angler needs to visit – preferably multiple times – to experience what the state has to offer.

I’ve been fortunate to fish extensively

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Robbins and his wife Hanna caught a bunch of sockeye on the Naknek during a summer 2020 trip. (PETE ROBBINS/HALF PAST FIRST CAST)

across the country, as well as outside of the United States – from Zambia to Brazil to Panama, and a couple dozen times in Mexico – and yet over the past few years, as I like to think I’ve reached maturity as an angler, Alaska has become an obsession.

MY ALASKAN HISTORY My first trip was in August of 1995, shortly after I’d taken the bar examination but before I’d started my post-lawschool job. Two friends and I drove and camped around the state – from Anchorage to Fairbanks to Denali to Chicken to Wrangell-St. Elias (with a quick jaunt over to Dawson City), and then to Valdez, Seward and Homer. We didn’t have 56

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much money, so we “combat fished,” ate the salmon we caught for the last 11 lunches and dinners, and then splurged on a halibut charter before we left.

As it turned out, I’d end up working with a number of Alaskan clients – primarily in and around Barrow – but they were always coming to Washington, D.C. on business, and I never got a chance to go on the company dime. It was about then that bass fishing turned into an all-consuming obsession for me, and I didn’t have the combination of money, time and desire to head back.

Then veteran Texas bass pro Keith Combs and I were invited to Bristol Bay in summer 2019, and we added in an overnight halibut trip out of Seward.

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The lack of bass-based distractions was meaningful, but so was Keith’s attitude. As he fought a 24-inch rainbow trout on one flyout he reflexively yelled out, “This thing will kick the crap out of any smallmouth.” Writing about it now, I realized that it gave me permission to reassess my belief system. I could learn to love and appreciate other species and techniques without compromising my first loves. I could admit that there were things outside of my comfort zone that still had worth. It’s not necessary to be an expert in everything about an endeavor to enjoy it – in fact, it’s the process of discovery that can make it especially enjoyable.

I’m still a beginner when it comes to Alaskan trout, salmon and halibut, but

I’ve been able to relive that “first timer’s thrill” twice now. During the Covid summer of 2020, my wife and I went back (Alaska Sporting Journal, September 2020). Hanna is typically a much more open-minded learner than I am, and it didn’t hurt that it marked the 48th of 50 states that she’s visited. This year we went back with two other couples – none of the four of them had ever been to Alaska, and two had never fished at all.

All of those experiences helped to crystallize what I’ve gotten out of the experience, how it has made me a better angler in general, a better bass angler in particular, and once again invigorated about the process of learning and discovering.

WHAT ALASKA HAS TAUGHT ME The return trips to Alaska have helped me refine what angling means in my life, how it’s a process rather than a destination, and have explained why self-perceived expertise can be less of a feature and more of a bug. Here are just a few of the lessons learned, in no particular order:

THE BEST WAY TO APPRECIATE WHAT YOU LOVE IS TO STAY AWAY FROM IT The easiest thing to do in fishing, as in life, is to remain in your comfort zone.

For bass anglers, that might mean smallmouth or largemouth, north or south, shallow or deep. I know guys who

“Don’t tell the bass people, but wild rainbows fight harder than their warmwater counterparts,” Robbins says of these two Alaska beauties he and Hanna caught. (PETE ROBBINS/HALF PAST

FIRST CAST)

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fish a tournament – or sometimes two – on the Potomac River around the Washington, D.C. area every weekend, following the same patterns and same general locations that produced in years past.

They may sometimes do well, even cash a check, but it’s not a recipe for growth.

You want to see the Potomac through new eyes? Go to Lake Champlain in New York, Lake Guntersville in Alabama or Sam Rayburn Reservoir in Texas. It forces you to avoid going on autopilot. Going even further outside of that – to the salt if you’re a freshwater guy, to warmwater species if you’re a trout freak – will further allow you to keep things in perspective.

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THE BREADTH OF THE OBSESSION In one trip to Alaska – or even in back-toback days – it’s possible to experience a variety of angling so diverse that the only thing that really makes them part of the same pastime is that all of the endeavors involve finned creatures.

We caught halibut 150-plus feet down and then grayling two days later in less than a foot of water. Two fish that look nothing alike, and are vastly different in size, yet all part of the continuum.

One sipped on delicate flies, while the other ate a shish kebab of salmon and herring parts. For one, I used a light fly rod and a delicate tippet, while the other presentation demanded a heavy braided line and a huge hunk of lead. One was destined for the table and quickly dis-

The author took his first trip to Bristol Bay in 2019, with Texas bass pro Keith Combs instead of wife Hanna, but after seeing these pictures she wanted to go the following summer. Now they’re both hooked. (PETE ROBBINS/ HALF PAST FIRST CAST)

patched, while we took great pains to ensure that the other would survive and thrive, yet one wasn’t more legitimate or more valued than the other.

BUDGET NOT DETERMINATIVE My first experience, as noted above, was “combat fishing” from the beach in Valdez, standing shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of other tourists, but lately my favorite days have been flying out to where I’m unlikely to see another angler – and yet they’re both part of the same genre, albeit loosely related. I had fun doing both. I recognize that not everyone can dedicate the resources for a flyout trip in Bristol Bay, yet there’s world-class roadside fishing throughout the state. I see so many guys in the bass world who are convinced that they can’t have an exceptional experience or can’t compete in tournaments because they don’t have a current-year boat, or haven’t purchased forward-facing sonar, or lack some specific lure. Yes, equipment matters, and access to prime waters matters, but it’s not the primary factor in determining whether the experience is fun, productive or instructive.

Hard-fighting bass like this smallmouth – caught at a northern Michigan lake in the fall of 2021 – are what shaped Robbins’ fishing career. Yet he found that he “could learn to love and appreciate other species and techniques without compromising my first loves.” (PETE

THE WILLINGNESS TO SAY ‘I DON’T KNOW’ This has been the most important lesson of all for me. I’m a control freak; I’m a gearhead; I’m a knowledge junkie.

Nevertheless, the most freeing aspect of fishing in Alaska (and other new places)

ROBBINS/HALF PAST FIRST CAST)

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The Robbinses have fished exotic locales around North America and other continents, but their experiences at Bristol Bay’s Bear Trail Lodge have become something even more special. “There are so many more places to fish before I die,” admits Pete, “but I will always make time for Alaska, a place that has given me so much.” (PETE ROBBINS/HALF PAST FIRST CAST)

has been learning to say that I don’t understand something, or can’t figure it out, or have never heard of it. I’ve become a sponge for knowledge because it’s less about ego and more about opening my mind to new experiences.

Now it makes sense to me why Kevin VanDam, the most accomplished and heralded bass tournament angler of all time, 62

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said upon his retirement from competition that he intended to take a long trip to Alaska. Those who have nothing left to prove have gotten where they are by not assuming that they know everything.

There are so many more places to fish before I die, but I will always make time for Alaska, a place that has given me so much. ASJ

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Editor’s note: Pete Robbins lives in Vienna, Virginia, and is a senior writer for Bassmaster as well as serves as a member of the board of directors of the Bass Fishing Hall of Fame.

He and his wife Hanna blog about their extensive fishing travels and learning experiences at Half Past First Cast (halfpastfirstcast.com). He can be reached at fishmore @halfpastfirstcast.com.

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For Black Hills’ first loading, they chose to load this cartridge with the Hornady 143-grain ELD-X.

Knives of Alaska knivesofalaska.com The slim drop-point Alpha Wolf coupled with the Cub is specially designed for hunters who need excellent field-dressing capabilities with almost no weight. This set is super light (9.9 ounces) and perfect for hunters who hunt the mountaintops, where every ounce of weight matters.

Holiday Gift Guide

Alaska Family Motorhomes

alaskafamilymotorhomes.com Alaska Family Motorhomes is offering a free bedding package on any motorhome or camper van rental booked prior to January 15, 2024. Just email afmotorhomes@gmail.com with the subject “Holiday Free Bedding” and make your reservation on their website and they will do the rest.

Dead Foot Arms

deadfootarms.com The SCW 2.5 kit is by far the most compact PDW-style stock or brace that the industry has ever seen. While compact, it is very versatile with a collapsed length of 2.5 inches, button-free deployment, and six length-ofpull settings.

AlumaGrips

alumagrips.com The Desert Eagle grips from AlumaGrips have undergone a redesign with improvements that are second to none.

First, almost 1/8 inch was removed from the thickness of each grip, then the radius on the back edge of the grip was enlarged to reduce the overall circumference. Finally, AlumaGrips eliminated the need for two screws, as well as the plastic insert that traditionally is needed for mounting the grips.

Excellence in design and function, that is the goal of AlumaGrips.

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Holiday Gift Guide

WMD Guns

wmdguns.com Give the gift of long life! The proprietary NiB-X nickelboron-coating process from WMD Guns extends firearm life by permanently defending against wear, abrasion, rust and corrosion.

So this year, give NiB-X-coated parts – they just might be the longest-lasting gifts you ever give! (And check out WMD’s Beast NiB-X AR rifles/pistols.)

TactaLoad

tactaload.com TactaLoad is a new company providing quality aftermarket accessories. The FLASH-5 is a unique shotgun stock incorporating an internal magazine that offers the shooter instant access to five additional rounds of ammunition. The FLASH-5 protects your spare ammunition and feeds them out the bottom of the stock fast!

Patrick’s Fly Shop

patricksflyshop.com Patrick’s Fly Shop offers fly casting and fly-tying classes for all experience levels. Fly-tying class schedules are listed on the website and casting lessons are scheduled by appointment. Gift cards for classes or products can be purchased in-store or online!

Eastern Washington Guides

Anglers Edge Sportfishing

anglersedgesportfishing.com At Anglers Edge Sportfishing, a six-person fishing charter out of Westport, Washington, they are passionate about fishing and providing their clients with the best experience possible.

If you’re ready to have a great time and make some unforgettable memories, contact them today. Gift certificates are available and make a great Christmas present.

easternwashingtonguides.com The perfect gift: a waterfowl facial! The folks at Eastern Washington Guides love landing birds in your face! They offer fully guided hunting and fishing trips around the greater Columbia Basin, Moses Lake and the Potholes Reservoir. Waterfowl trips target Canada geese, snows and ducks with hunts available throughout the holiday season. Give the one you love the perfect gift, a waterfowl facial from Eastern Washington Guides. Happy holidays!

To get $50 off your booked trip, use code NWSGIFT at checkout.

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