FIELD
THE EGEGIK DIARIES
AN ANGLER’S ODE TO HIS FAVORITE ALASKA COHO RIVER AND LODGE
BY SCOTT HAUGEN
A
fter more than an hour of watching friends catch coho after coho, I felt the urge to cast. The action had been red-hot, yielding salmon on just about every cast. Then the bite stopped, as it often does when salmon move out of a hole. I walked a short distance upstream, where I’d been seeing dorsal fins splitting the surface of the calmly flowing Egegik River. I baited my hook with freshly cured eggs, and no sooner had the cluster hit the water than a hard-fighting coho attacked. The same results came on the next cast, and the next. Twenty-one casts saw me landing 21 coho, keeping four that were hooked too deep to release. I kept my fifth and final salmon a few casts later.
Author Scott Haugen has been fishing the Egegik River for 15 years, and he ranks it atop his favorite rivers in Alaska, for many reasons. Maybe this summer you can join him at his favorite Egegik lodge. (SCOTT HAUGEN)
aksportingjournal.com | FEBRUARY 2021
ALASKA SPORTING JOURNAL
57
