Alaska Sporting Journal - May 2023

Volume 12 • Issue 12

www.aksportingjournal.com

PUBLISHER

James R. Baker

GENERAL MANAGER

John Rusnak

EXECUTIVE EDITOR

Andy Walgamott

EDITOR

Chris Cocoles

WRITERS

Scott Haugen, Tiffany Haugen, Cal Kellogg, Mary Catharine Martin, Steve Raymond, Brian Watkins

SALES MANAGER

Paul Yarnold

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES

Mike Smith, 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

Correspondent Cal Kellogg shows off an Alaskan halibut. Whether you catch a smallish flatfish or score a barn door monster, halibut offer some outstanding table fare to anglers. (CAPTAIN STEVE’S FISHING LODGE)

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CORRESPONDENCE

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the

of Soldotna, Alaska on the World Famous Kenai River!

• Kenai Riverfront Cabins • Bank Fishing • Over 700 ft. of River Frontage

A PADDLING WE WILL GO

The 30-mile Cross-Admiralty Canoe Route is a spectacular journey through breathtaking Southeast Alaska scenery. Mary Catharine Martin recounts a fishing and paddling excursion with three local high school kids who enjoyed the adventure of a lifetime.

FEATURES

14

A FLY ANGLER’S STORYTELLING GIFT

Pacific Northwest native Steve Raymond has written about a dozen books on his love of fly fishing. Raymond’s latest credit, Six Fish Limit, is a collection of short stories (plus a novella) that allowed him to add some fiction to his CV chronicling a sport he’s loved for most of his 83 years. Along with an excerpt from his new book, we also asked Raymond a few questions about his fishing memories in Alaska, his love of writing and the precarious situation West Coast salmon and steelhead are enduring.

25 HELLO HALIBUT!

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE

9 Editor’s Note

11 The Alaska Beat: ADFG cites overharvesting in reduction of saltwater rockfish limits

13 Outdoor calendar

61 From Field to Fire: Head south (to Mexico) for some outstanding turkey hunting action

Californian Cal Kellogg enjoys getting up to the Last Frontier for the state’s best fishing opportunities, and at the top of his list just might be halibut in the saltwaters around the Kenai Peninsula and beyond. If you’ve never tried it, Kellogg offers some trip-planning advice based on his time spent battling keeper-sized and massive barn door beauties of the deep. Get ready for sore arms and delicious meals!

52 SUPER 10 SUPERSTAR

For hardcore hunters, there’s a “Super 10” to bag right here in North America – a critter each from categories such as caribou, deer, bear and moose, to name a few. Brian Watkins has ventured both inside and outside of Alaska to reach Super 10 status. Find out how he reached that milestone and overcame some of the challenges it takes to complete such a daunting checklist.

When I was a kid, I went in and out of obsessions, going all in one day and losing interest a little bit later.

I remember my dad got me a stamp book for Christmas one year, and probably for the rest of that winter holiday break I pestered him to try and

EDITOR’S NOTE

track down more than the handful of stamps he included with the original book. I’d like to think that I kept trying to track them down the rest of the school year. But admittedly, I got disheartened every time I’d open my book and the spots stayed mostly empty.

My other great passion in those days was trying to collect those Major League Baseball replica plastic batting helmets sold at games. Growing up around California’s Bay Area, I went to enough San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics games to purchase probably 75 percent of the MLB teams’ helmets, so I fared a little better statistically than with filling in those stamps.

But considering the persistence and dedication of our correspondents Scott Haugen and Brian Watkins in this month’s issue, I really want to set an outdoorsrelated goal now that I’m a middle-aged man with no stamp book or batting helmet fascination to keep me motivated.

Watkins (page 52) wrote about his

quest to score a “Super 10” of North American big game species (Brian gets an extra bonus for also closing in on his goal using only a bow), while Haugen reports on a Mexico turkey hunt he experienced (page 61) with friends in which they hit the “world slam,” taking multiple subspecies of the supersize upland birds.

As I prepared those stories for publication, I realized that I’ve now caught fish on three continents (plenty, of course, here in North America; some European-style chub – known there as roach – in Slovenia; and a whole bunch of snapper in New Zealand, so I’ll count that as Oceania).

So that’s three continents down; four to go. I long to cast for South American trout in Argentina or Chile, fight a massive Nile perch in Africa and maybe hook a Mekong catfish in Southeast Asia. Antarctica? Maybe getting close to a penguin would suffice! Indeed, like Watkins and Haugen show, fulfilling a bucket list is feasible. -Chris Cocoles

The editor once had a passion for collecting baseball teams’ batting helmets, such as this one from his beloved Oakland Athletics, and Brian Watkins’ “Super 10” hunting success is inspiring him to set new goals. (CHRIS COCOLES/BRIAN WATKINS)

Reductions in Prince William Sound yelloweye bag and possession limits – plus other rockfish species in Cook Inlet and the waters around the North Gulf Coast/Resurrection Bay – were based on recent increases in harvest in those fisheries.

(NOAA FISHERIES)

ALASKA WATERS SEE REDUCTION IN ROCKFISH LIMITS FOR SPORT ANGLERS

First, it was king salmon closures throughout the state that rankled anglers this year; now comes Alaska Department of Fish and Game bag and possession limit reductions for some rockfish species in popular Southcentral fisheries.

“Rockfish are slow-growing and long-lived fish that are consistently found in the same locations,” said Cook Inlet Area management biologist Mike Booz. “Because of these traits, rockfish are susceptible to overharvest with long periods for recovery, which requires a conservative management approach.”

One of ADFG’s mid-April announcements covered Cook Inlet and North Gulf Coast/ Resurrection Bay saltwaters, where, effective May 15, the rockfish limit is three per day and six in possession, but only one nonpelagic rockfish a day and two in possession. Yelloweye limits will also undergo changes in Prince William Sound.

“ADFG  is reducing the rockfish bag and possession limits in Prince William Sound saltwaters from four per day, eight in possession, to three per day, six in possession, of which only one per day, one in possession, can be a nonpelagic rockfish,” an agency press release stated. “In addition, yelloweye rockfish may not be retained from May 1 to June 30, 2023. Prince William Sound saltwaters are all waters east of Cape Fairfield and west of Cape Suckling.”

In all the announcements dropping the bag and possession limits, ADFG cited recent years’ increased rockfish catches: “Pelagic rockfish harvest levels are at an all-time high in Prince William Sound, with black rockfish being the dominant species

“By implementing a seasonal nonretention regulation for yelloweye rockfish from May 1–June 30, these fish will be able to have the opportunity to have a successful reproductive event and harvest could be reduced by as much as 25 percent,” Prince William Sound area management biologist Brittany Blain-Roth said.

In Cook Inlet, ADFG concluded that 50,000 rockfish were harvested annually from 2019 to 2022, a 300-percent increase from the historical average from 2006 to 2013. Similar increases occurred in North Gulf Coast/Resurrection Bay saltwaters.

“Although black rockfish stocks currently appear healthy, these increased harvest trends and changes in biological data indicate a possible change in the population structure and that current harvest levels may be unsustainable,” ADFG stated.

Blain-Roth thinks the reductions could pave the way for increases down the line.

“If we manage rockfish more conservatively now, we may avoid further reductions or closures in the future,” Blain-Roth said. “Anglers should also remember that the use of a deepwater release is not only mandatory when releasing rockfish, but it is a valuable tool to increase survival when releasing rockfish at depth, versus at the surface.”

AL ASKA BEAT

TWEET OF THE MONTH

northern tier of the U.S., but the lights were perhaps at their most amazing over Alaska.

Moose were making themselves at home in the Last Frontier last month. One followed the family dog into a Soldotna home, another wandered into a medical facility in Anchorage, while a third munched on discarded snacks inside a Kenai movie theater. The nerve of these home intruders!

A series of solar storms sent the aurora borealis shimmering across even the

FROM THE ASJ ARCHIVES – OCTOBER 2017

DISCOVERY CHANNEL SERIES STAR STAN ZURAY LEFT BOSTON FOR ALASKA WILDERNESS

Approximate number of public comments from “Alaskans and concerned citizens urging the council to take meaningful action to address the pollock trawl fleet’s catching and wasting of chum salmon, Chinook salmon, halibut, crab and other species,” according to a SalmonState press release that was critical of the lack of action from the North Pacific Fishery Management Council  .

THEY SAID IT

“Short of family, these dogs are the most important thing; they’ve been my life for 40-something years,” said Stan Zuray when he starred on the Discovery Channel series Yukon Men. “When I moved here, I recognized dogs are a pretty necessary part of surviving out here.” (STAN ZURAY)

If Stan Zuray was going  to find his happy place, it was going to be through adventure and the challenges a homesteader would take on. So he left Boston for good in the early 1970s.

“It was a long process to go from Dorchester to the West Coast, and then to (British Columbia) in Canada and the progression into the woods, and then eventually to Alaska and the Tozitna River (his cabin there has been featured frequently on Yukon Men) and where I started living,” he says.

“And now I’ve been living around there for the last 40-something years. When I got there I realized that’s what I wanted. Once I was there I thought, ‘This is it,’ and something I’ve wanted for a long time, from when I was a little kid in a vacant lot catching snakes at 8 years old.”

As you can imagine, it wasn’t easy at first. (“Those early years in Alaska were the toughest,” he recalls.) Even for someone as resourceful and in his element fishing, hunting and foraging for food, life in Alaska was full of challenges, setbacks and near misses.

But being in an area surrounded by Natives who knew a lot about the subsistence way was invaluable (Stan’s wife Kathleen is also an Alaskan Native).

“I didn’t know what I was doing, although I had some experiences and had been around some people and found myself trying to copy them,” Zuray says.

“You’re around Native people who made some stuff out of the woods: The drills they drilled the wood with; the moose hide and webbing. But when it came to doing it from scratch with no help at all, it was hard and you’d make mistakes. We made a lot of mistakes, which I really wouldn’t trade for anything. But it caused us a lot of difficulty and to do a lot of things that were pretty crude.”

Now some of his best friends aren’t his cronies in Boston but of the four-legged variety. In the sixth season premiere episode, Zuray is preparing to leave his riverside salmon camp, 40 miles from Tanana. He chops up chunks of chum salmon, throws them into a pot for cooking so he can feed his dogs, not just companions but also a lifeline for transportation in an area where fuel for snowmachines can be scarce.

“Short of family, these dogs are the most important thing; they’ve been my life for 40-something years,” Zuray says on the show. “When I moved here, I recognized dogs are a pretty necessary part of surviving out here.” -Chris Cocoles

-Erik Grafe, deputy managing attorney in Earthjustice’s Alaska Regional Office after a federal judge denied a motion for a preliminary injunction to halt the Willow Project, a Northwest Alaska drilling project that environmental groups say could harm migrating caribou.

“

“We will do everything within our power to protect the climate, wildlife, and people from this dangerous carbon bomb. Climate scientists have warned that we have less than seven years to get it right on climate change, and we cannot afford to lock in three decades of oil drilling that will only serve to open the door to more fossil-fuel extraction.”

OUTDOOR CALENDAR

TROLLING MOTOR MOUNT

The #MK02 Trolling Motor Mount accommodates some Minn-Kota, Garmin, and Lowrance bow mount trolling motor’s installation in any of the LeeLock Quick Change Bases. Simply slide your Motor Mount on the base and lock it in with the pin. The #MK-02 Motor Mount will fit in the LeeLock #QB-01 Quick Change Base, the #QBR-01 Quick Change Bow Roller Base or either of the bases that are sold with the Large Anchor Can Assemblies (#LCA-02 and #LCA-03

May 10 Spring brown bear season opens in Game Management Unit 10 (Aleutians)

May 25 Last day of brown bear hunting in GMU 6D (Montague Island and remainder of unit)

May 27-Sept. 3 Valdez Halibut Derby (valdezfishderbies.com)

May 31 Brown bear season ends in several GMUs

June 1-30 Homer Halibut Tournament (homerhalibuttournament.com)

June 2-11 Valdez Halibut Hullabaloo (valdezfishderbies.com)

June 15 Brown bear hunting season ends in several units

June 30 Black bear hunting season ends in several units

July 1 2023-24 hunting regulations take effect

July 4 Mount Marathon Race, Seward (mountmarathon.com)

July 22 Valdez Kids Pink Salmon Derby (valdezfishderbies.com)

July 22-Sept. 3 Valdez Silver Salmon Derby (valdezfishderbies.com)

July 28 Valdez Big Prize Friday (valdezfishderbies.com)

Aug. 12 Valdez Women’s Silver Salmon Derby

Aug. 12-20 Seward Silver Salmon Derby (seward.com/ salmon-derby)

Sept. 1 Valdez Big Prize Friday (valdezfishderbies.com)

Sept. 12-17 Kenai Silver Salmon Derby (kenaisilversalmonderby.com)

For more information and season dates for Alaska hunts, go to adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=hunting.main.

LEELOCK CRAB CRACKER

This new tool from Leelock will allow you to measure your Dungeness crabs to determine which ones are legal to keep. Then use the Crab Cracker to crack them in half, separating the two clusters from the shell and guts.

The Crab Cracker has been designed so that it sits nicely on top of a 5-gallon bucket, perfect for when you clean crabs. The bucket gives you a stable base, which makes it easier to clean – the guts and shell go into the bucket, making cleanup a snap. Crabs cleaned this way take up half as much space as whole crabs, so you can cook twice as many in your kettle.

The Crab Cracker is a unique tool made from solid aluminum, and comes in handy for cleaning Dungeness crabs.

The Homer Halibut Tournament, formerly named the Homer Jackpot Halibut Derby, makes its debut on  June 1 and runs through June 30. For more information, go to homerhalibuttournament .com. (HOMER HALIBUT TOURNAMENT)

FISH TALES TO

MEANT BE TALL

AUTHOR/ANGLER STEVE RAYMOND TALKS ALASKA ADVENTURE, PASSION FOR FLY FISHING AND STEELHEAD

BY CHRIS COCOLES

In his latest book, Six Fish Limit, Steve Raymond pivots away from his nonfiction portfolio for a series of short stories – plus one novella – that bring to life the joy, passion and beauty of fishing, with a juicy scandal about plagiarism thrown in the mix.

“Fly-fishing literature is a genre rife with tired cliches and posturing, but Steve has a knack for reinventing the wheel in fresh and interesting ways,” says fellow scribe John Gierach, author of Dumb Luck and the Kindness of Strangers. “It’s always a pleasure to read Steve Raymond.”

Now 83, Raymond, a Pacific Northwest native and a former newspaper editor in Seattle, has written more than a dozen fishing books, and Six Fish Limit features tales such as “Welcome to the Stub Mountain Fly Shop,” about a mom and pop fishing store owner desperate to keep her father’s business afloat after inheriting it. And in “Diary of an Unknown Angler,” Raymond creates fishing detective Andrew Royster, a college professor and avid fly angler who reads an old diary entry that “appears to hold the solution to one of fly fishing’s greatest mysteries.”

This book (see sidebar for an excerpt) offers another chance for Raymond to profess a lifelong affection.

“Life is short; go fishing whenever you can!” Raymond said in an email interview. He talked to us about some memorable Alaska adventures, his admiration for steelhead fishing and how critical it is to preserve anadromous fish runs up and down the West Coast.

Chris Cocoles What was the inspiration for the short stories/novella you tell in Six Fish Limit?

Steve Raymond The “inspiration” – if that’s what it was – is that I really needed to do

Longtime author Steve Raymond, whose latest book, Six Fish Limit, features a collection of fiction stories, has enjoyed decades of fly fishing adventures both in his native Pacific Northwest and Alaska. (CRAIG McCAA/BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT)

something to keep from going stir-crazy while my wife and I hunkered down during the early days of the Covid pandemic, and writing another book seemed the perfect remedy. It not only kept me entertained, but I hoped it also would entertain others in the days ahead. It also gave me an opportunity to write some stories I’d been carrying in my head for a long time.

CC There are so many great fish tales and anecdotes in this book. As a longtime newspaper sports reporter and now a magazine editor, I love the idea of storytelling through writing profiles and feature stories. Is that something you’ve always loved as you’ve evolved as an author and also a newspaperman yourself during your career at The Seattle Times?

SR As a reporter I was pretty much a hard-news guy, and in those days The Seattle Times had six daily deadlines, which kept everybody busy. But tackling hard news didn’t allow much flexibility in writing, so I started freelance writing about fly fishing (my passion) and that soon led to writing books. That gave me the freedom to describe some of the people and places I’ve encountered in

my fishing experiences, usually with the goal of trying to alert readers to the wonders of the natural world that make up so much of the fishing experience; I call it the “awe” of fishing.

CC I think my favorite story in the book was “The Man In the Black Waders” about Clint Steele, “the most famous fly fisher in the world,” who was accused by a retired teacher of plagiarism. Is there a backstory to your idea about writing that novella?

SR Actually, there is. As editor of two fishing magazines I learned the hard way that plagiarism can be a problem in that business. It usually happens when an unethical person copies part or all of someone else’s work and submits it to a magazine under his or her own name. Since it’s impossible for editors to read everything about fishing, some of those stories inevitably get published, and then a reader, or perhaps the original author, will discover the story was plagiarized and complains to the magazine. This almost always leads to a difficult, messy situation that leaves everyone unhappy, and the person who perpetrated the pla-

giarism ends up blacklisted by the magazine that published the purloined material. Fortunately, there isn’t too much of this, but The Man in Black Waders gave me a chance to let readers know that it does happen, and usually has very bad consequences for the guilty party.

CC Do you have a favorite of all the fishing books you’ve penned?

SR Actually, I have three favorites: The Year of the Angler, The Year of the Trout and Rivers of the Heart

CC Where did you first find your passion for fly fishing?

SR My earliest memory of my father was when I was 5 years old and he came home from serving in World War II. He was a fly fisherman and one of the first things he wanted to do when he got home was go fishing, and he took me along. After that I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather do than go fishing with a fly.

CC Tell me about some of your Alaskan fishing adventures.

SR My Alaska fishing adventures, unfortunately, have been rather limited, but

One of Raymond’s lasting memories of fishing in Alaska is the time he and friend Errol Champion hiked inland from Southeast’s Spacious Bay and caught cutthroat trout at a pristine lake. “I stopped counting after I’d released 20, but it was Alaska fishing as I’d dreamed it would be.” (U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE)

FISHING ADVENTURES ON THE ‘BISCUIT RIVER’

Excerpted from Steve Raymond’s latest book, Six Fish Limit, published by Skyhorse Publishing and available for purchase at amazon.com/Six-Fish-Limit-Stories-Fishing/dp/1510770011.

Itried to resume my fly-fishing education by looking at other websites. What I found wasn’t very helpful; there were so many sites and they were so variable in content that I soon gave up. The only thing I learned was that fly fishing was a sport heavily laden with celebrities, of whom Clint Steele was the foremost. But I had known that already.

I decided my time might be spent more profitably at the public library, so that’s where I went next. And that’s where I learned that fly fishing has even more books – many more – than it has celebrities. There were also lots of videos, including “Fly Casting with Clint.” I checked it out, along with several promising books, including Steele’s Eight Great Western Steelhead Rivers and another titled Permit Me, which I subsequently learned was about fishing for a saltwater species called permit, which I’d never heard of. The library didn’t have a copy of Mickey Cutter’s book, so I returned to my office and ordered a copy from the Internet. Everything else I took back to my dingy, cramped, hugely overpriced apartment to study.

And that’s pretty much all I did for the next few days. Somewhat to my surprise, I learned that fly fishing is a complex sport combining elements of philosophy, nature study, literature, biology, limnology, and probably a few other ologies I hadn’t encountered. It even had touches of religion.

Oddly enough, it was Steele’s casting video that was most helpful. I didn’t like his high, nasal voice, but his presentation was clear and well-organized. From it I learned that the fly rod acts as a lever to propel the weight of a thick, tapered fly line, which has on its end a translucent leader with a virtually weightless fly attached, and in this it is different from all other forms of fishing where casts are made with the weight of the lure pulling an almost weightless line behind it. That made everything clear and helped me understand why there were

so many different lengths of fly rod and weights of fly line.

The video was much clearer and easier to absorb than Steele’s prose. I figured someone else had written the video script and Steele had read it off a teleprompter.

When Cutter’s book arrived I opened it and started reading the foreword:

Let me tell you about a river. Its name is the Biscuit – an odd name for a river, but that’s not the river’s fault. It was the name given by the country’s original inhabitants in a language no longer spoken or understood. The earliest European settlers translated it phonetically into a word most often spelled “Boisquoit,” or something similar. Inevitably, the word was eventually corrupted into an Anglo term more familiar to the settlers, and the name became Biscuit. The exact meaning of the word has been lost to history, but there’s an enduring legend that in the long-dead language of the local tribes it meant “thunderwater.” That seems unlikely to me, because the Biscuit is, at most, a medium-sized river, and while it

may sometimes run fast and noisy, never have I heard its sounds rise to the level of thunder. More likely this was the brainstorm of some real-estate developer.

The Biscuit is a rain-fed river, rising in coastal mountains where rain is abundant and frequent. Its headwaters are a series of small creeks that flow from the high country in shadowed canyons, creeks with names like Blaze, Spar, Harvey’s, Bitter, Spruce, and Fog, and finally join one another to form a juvenile river that soon grows larger with the addition of other tributaries as it makes its way first south, then abruptly turns west to begin a 60-mile flow to the sea.

Those little headwater creeks have been treated badly. A couple of generations of loggers cut them down to their edges and left them full of trash and silt washed down from the naked slopes. Miraculously, over time, most of those little streams managed to recover, and their recovery brought health back to the river itself. Of course it is not the same river the Indians knew, no longer as swift or cold or clear, and its runs of salmon and steelhead are no longer as great as they once were. But they are still good, especially the steelhead runs, and the Biscuit, although little known, provides steelhead fly fishing of a sort not found on most contemporary rivers, even those of much larger size.

There are two runs of steelhead in the Biscuit. The summer steelhead come first, usually about the time June becomes July. They trickle in steadily until late September, and although there never seem to be a great many of them, they spread quickly throughout the river and if you know where and how to look, you can usually find them somewhere. The winter run is much larger and usually bursts into the river during the first big freshet of December. This vanguard is followed by a steady stream of latecomers, and they all join together and rest in the lower pools until mid-February, when the business of spawning begins. So during those seasons – July through September and December into February – the Biscuit

offers fly-fishing opportunities worthy of pursuing.

I know this because for much of my life I have had the good fortune to live in a cottage next to the river, and whenever it was in fishing shape – and I was in similar shape – there were few days when I didn’t spend at least a little time casting a fly into its tempting waters. Many other days I started fishing in the early dawn and continued until I could start counting stars in the evening sky. When you spend that much time on a river, you get to know it very well, to understand the idiosyncrasies of each pool and pocket, the ways and habits of the steelhead, the flies and tactics that seem to work best.

The fishing was never fast. Steelhead fly fishing never is. But if you have patience, persistence and the willingness to put up with some occasional mild discomfort, the results will nearly always prove well worth the effort. One of the most thrilling sights in angling is that of a summer steelhead rising spectacularly to a riffle-hitched fly on the surface, and the sudden hard take of an unseen winter fish is scarcely less exciting. If you think about it, there really aren’t very many people who have experienced such moments. You’re lucky if you are among the few who have.

If you haven’t yet, maybe this little book will help you get there. In these pages I propose to tell you much of what I have learned about the river and its fish. I confess I approach this task with some trepidation, because some of these secrets were very hard-earned and I have a natural reluctance to share them. However, I was a teacher by profession (I’m retired now) and have always believed that anyone with knowledge is obligated to share it, else we fail to keep the human experiment moving forward. That’s my motivation, just so you understand it.

But while I’m willing to share with you some of what I’ve learned, I’m also bound by conscience to ask your pledge to use the knowledge wisely, keeping the health of the river and its steelhead always in mind. By that I mean it’s all right if you keep a fish now and then – remembering always that each one you keep may subtract many others from future runs – so long as you do it in strict moderation and with valid purpose. I mean also that you should become a champion of the fish and the river and be willing to fight for both, keeping the Biscuit and its tributaries free from again being logged down to their banks, or dammed, or filled with silt and trash, or becoming the victims of all the other mean and selfish things people to do rivers and their inhabitants.

Do I have your word that you will do this? OK, then. Let’s get started. -Mickey

Cutter

After reading that I found myself liking Mickey Cutter. It was obvious he wasn’t a very experienced writer, but he had a natural flair for the language and a friendly manner that drew me in. SR

my first trip there provided some of my greatest memories. It’s hard to believe it happened 45 years ago, but I still remember it as if it were yesterday. Errol Champion, one of my old fishing partners, lived in Juneau, where he was contacted by an ecotourist entrepreneur who wanted to establish a business taking fishermen and sightseers into the newly designated Misty Fjords Wilderness north and east of Ketchikan. He needed someone to scout the area and find the best fishing locations, so he invited Errol and me to do the scouting, and chartered a 42-foot boat, the Phaedra Mae, skippered by Tom Ramiskey, to carry us into the Misty Fjords. The Phaedra Mae also had a skiff on board so we could go ashore and check out some of the many creeks and rivers that empty into the fjords. Sure, it was a tough job, but somebody had to do it, right?

The next week was full of adventure. We anchored in Spacious Bay and hiked upstream along a small creek until we came to its headwaters, a  lake that emptied into the creek through a pair of channels, with fish rising in both. Errol took one and I took the other, and during the next hour we caught cutthroat trout on nearly every cast. They weren’t big – 16 inches was about tops – but they were great fun on fly rods. I stopped counting after I’d released 20, but it was Alaska fishing as I’d dreamed it would be.

The next day we made a difficult hike up Wolverine Creek until we came to a long pool that was absolutely full of steelhead, some that looked as large as 20 pounds. We threw everything we had at them, both wet flies and dry, but they were as dour as any steelhead I’ve ever seen, except for one big fish that grabbed Errol’s fly and immediately broke the hook and escaped. My reward was a single 1½-pound Dolly Varden (or maybe it was a bull trout; at that time taxonomists

Of the more than dozen books he’s written, Raymond says his three favorites are The Year of the Angler, The Year of the Trout and Rivers of the Heart (STEVE RAYMOND BOOKS)

hadn’t yet gotten around to separating the species). That night we soaked our hike-weary bones in the thermal pool at Bell Island resort while we gazed at the northern lights overhead.

We later checked out several other streams but found them mostly unfishable in the high spring runoff. Then we turned into a fjord off the main channel and followed it along a narrow passage between vertical gray cliffs towering a thousand feet overhead on either side, leaving only a thin ribbon of sky above. Eventually we reached a place where a river had worn its way down through the cliffs on one side of the channel to form a sheltered estuary. We anchored off the river’s mouth and Errol and I went ashore to explore the river. It rippled smoothly out of a canyon lined with ancient, moss-draped firs, and entered the fjord between a pair of grass-covered headlands. It was like being in a vast park, with great peaks and snowfields on every side. The water in the stream was as clear

“Steelhead have always been an inspiration to me,” says Raymond, whose books have included his famed Steelhead Country. “I think, at a primal level, they exhibit some of the things we humans have always considered attributes of our own species – courage, determination and the will to survive against long odds.” (SAM FLANAGAN II/BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT)

as mountain air, exposing every detail of the golden gravel on its bottom, and as we made our way upstream the canyon gradually opened into an immense natural amphitheater, surrounded by snow-rimmed ramparts with silver waterfalls cascading down their sides. In the upper ramparts we could also see clusters of mountain goats.

But where were the fish? If any were there we should surely have seen them in that clear water, and finally we did: five steelhead, fresh and bright from the sea, lying just above a stretch of rapids, well back and sheltered in deep water. Unfortunately, they could see us as plainly as we could see them, and unsurprisingly resisted our considerable efforts to catch them. However, at that point I didn’t really care because I was totally enthralled by my surroundings, which I thought surely must be one of the most beautiful places on Earth. I still remember feeling a great sense of exhilaration as I gazed at sights few people had ever seen. It almost

seemed sacrilegious to leave even a single footprint in the sands along the river, where the only marks were tracks of deer, bear and smaller animals, or the half-buried skeletons of last season’s spawnedout salmon. As far as I know, that river has no name, but in my mind I’ll always think of it as the Paradise River.

As part of what was intended to be a commercial venture, our scouting trip was something less than a success; we did find a few fish, though we weren’t able to catch very many. But we did immerse ourselves in some of the most magnificent country on the planet, and that’s what I will always remember.

CC Alaska has been the epicenter of many conservation battles, projects such as the Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay, the B.C. mines in transboundary rivers and the potential for large-scale logging around the Tongass National Forest. How important is it to preserve these rivers and the fish

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that swim and spawn in them?

SR I believe there are few things more important, both for the survival of the human race and the welfare of our souls. Rivers and fish, of course, are critically important, but they are only parts of the natural world, and all those parts must be preserved if life of any kind is to survive, let alone thrive. I never thought I’d live long enough to see the destruction of our steelhead and salmon runs, but now I’m seeing both and it hurts unbearably. As far as the Pebble Mine is concerned, I think the decision to stop it was a great victory, but as has been said before, when it comes to conservation every victory is temporary and every defeat is permanent.

CC I’m from Northern California and live in Seattle now. And it’s just so depressing to see the struggles that salmon are having up and down the West Coast, including a lot of the king salmon closures in Alaska. How frustrating is that from an angler’s perspective?

SR Frustrating isn’t the word for it; it’s maddening. I’ve lived in Washington state most of my life and witnessed not only the decline or extinction of the salmon and steelhead runs, but also

most of the trout fishing in the state. Nearly all the places I once enjoyed fishing have since been ruined, either from encroaching “development” or sheer neglect. I’ve seen the same thing in Oregon and British Columbia, where I used to fish much of the time. The care of fisheries and the waters that sustain them has always been a very low priority for state and provincial governments, with little money or attention devoted to them, and now we see the results. Those resources once were important reasons why people wanted to live in the Northwest; now they don’t exist any longer. My children and grandchildren will never have the chance to enjoy the places I loved while growing up, and neither will anyone else. That’s a tragedy of the first magnitude. It saddens me to think about it.

CC You also have written a lot about steelhead in your book Steelhead Country. What have those fly fishing experiences meant to you over the years?

SR Steelhead always have been an inspiration to me. I think, at a primal level, they exhibit some of the things we humans have always considered attributes of our own species – courage, determi-

nation and the will to survive against long odds. So it’s a small wonder that we should admire them so much, or seek, even subconsciously, to emulate their virtues, especially during a time in our history when wild steelhead are threatened over so much of their native range.

CC After all these years, has there been a bucket list fishing destination that you haven’t been able to cross off your list that you still wish you could? Or still want to?

SR Yes. I’ve always wanted to fish for Atlantic salmon in Iceland, but never had the chance to do that. And since steelhead fishing opened in Kamchatka [Russia], I’ve always wanted to fish that amazing place. Another thing I’d like to do is catch a grayling; I fished one river where a few were present but never caught one. Now I’m too old to cross any of those off my list.

CC Of all the ones you’ve fished with, do you have an all-time favorite fly?

SR I get that question a lot, and I’ve never been able to single out one fly. So I’ll answer it the same way I always do: My favorite fly is whatever one I happen to be using at the time. ASJ

Now 83, Raymond has had a front-row seat to the decline of salmon and steelhead in his native Washington, as well as down the coast through Oregon and California and up north to British Colunbia and Alaska. “Rivers and fish, of course, are critically important, but they are only parts of the natural world,” he says, “and all those parts must be preserved if life of any kind is to survive, let alone thrive.” (RYAN HAGERTY/U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE)

MAKE IT A HELLUVA HALIBUT TRIP

COOK INLET FLATFISH VET PREPS NEWCOMERS FOR SUCCESS

BY CAL KELLOGG

Iconsider the Pacific halibut to be Alaska’s premier saltwater gamefish, and my assertion is doubly true for anglers fishing off the Kenai Peninsula, since it borders the rich halibut waters of the Cook Inlet. That’s a bold statement when you consider the popularity of salmon fishing, but I can back it up.

I’ve spent a lot of time fishing Alaska’s Kenai, and over the years I’ve introduced dozens of anglers to the Alaskan saltwater fishing scene. To be sure, there is no species of fish that gets first-time Alaskan anglers as excited as salmon.

Two of the most frequently asked questions I’d get from saltwater anglers accompanying me to the 49th state were 1) whether we’d be getting salmon, and 2) if they could expect to get limits of salmon every day. My answer was always the same: “Maybe; maybe not.”

That’s because saltwater salmon fishing Alaska is a lot like targeting them in other places. When the fish are there, you hammer them. When they aren’t around, you won’t catch any.

I was on a six-pack boat fishing just outside Cook Inlet a few seasons ago when we spotted a surface boil of silver salmon and black rockfish. We put full limits of salmon and quite a few big blacks into the boat in 18 minutes while tossing simple metal jigs. In contrast, I’ve been on weeklong trips at the same time of the year and never saw a king or silver. Salmon fishing along the Kenai Peninsula is a crapshoot.

When it comes to Kenai halibut fishing, chance isn’t part of the equation.

Huge halibut in excess of 300 pounds are landed by Kenai Peninsula anglers every summer. This 376-pound monster was landed during a trip out of Captain Steve’s Fishing Lodge. Get your arms and shoulders in shape to fight flatfish this big. (CAPTAIN STEVE’S FISHING LODGE)

If the conditions are calm enough for safe navigation inside the Cook Inlet, which is typically the case, limits are the rule. And these fish generally run big, bigger and downright massive. A decent keeper is about 30 pounds, and 100-pound “barn doors” are common, plus huge fish weighing well over 300 pounds are caught every season.

ENJOY A GREAT MEAL

As exciting as catching Pacific halibut can be, eating the snow-white halibut meat is just as rewarding. Plus, vacuum-packed Alaskan halibut meat is the gift that keeps on giving because it keeps so well.

The longer you keep salmon frozen, the stronger and fishier the flesh becomes. This isn’t the case with halibut. I’ve kept halibut in the freezer for up to three years and found it to still be quite good!

If you’re interested in packing the freezer, halibut are the fish that make it happen. Lingcod, rockfish and salmon filets are nice additions to the boxes of frozen fish you bring back from Alaska, but make no mistake, halibut are the kings of

the show. Vacuum-sealed bags of halibut stack up quickly when you consistently score your two-fish daily limit.

Halibut are meat-heavy with relatively small organs and a small head. Each fish produces four thick filets. A “small” 30-pounder will fill several 1-pound bags, while “good fish” in the 60- to 80-pound class can provide the centerpiece for dozens of memorable meals.

Let’s look at what a Kenai Peninsula halibut adventure entails!

WHAT TO WEAR AND BRING

When fishing for halibut along the Kenai Peninsula, chances are you’ll be fishing inside Cook Inlet. Halibut caught outside the inlet are typically landed while targeting lingcod around reefs in the Gulf of Alaska.

Traditional halibut season runs from May through early September. Most of the time the Cook Inlet is calm and sea sickness isn’t a huge concern, but occasionally there are days when it’s choppy, with 4- to 6-foot wind waves. These conditions are fishable, but can

be challenging for anglers without much saltwater experience.

Cook Inlet features traditional marine weather, where you’ll be fishing under overcast skies more often than you’ll experience sunny conditions. Rain is always a possibility in Alaska, but most of the time it’s nothing more than a light drizzle.

A halibut boat is a wet, slippery place, so you’ll want to dress accordingly. Rain gear is a must, as are rubber boots. You should wear layers under the rain gear because you’ll get warm working the gear and fighting fish. Invest in a form-fitting high-tech wicking base layer and thank me later. The tight fit makes you feel like a superhero and the wicking properties ensure you’ll never have to endure feeling steamed up or clammy.

Make sure your rain gear features a waterproof hood. Headwear is a consideration you don’t want to overlook. I’ve always found beanies better suited for Alaskan fishing than ballcaps. Beanies work well under a rain hood, and they can be pulled down to keep your ears warm.

Finally, you’ll want a medium-sized

Putting back a 35-pound halibut in hopes of upgrading to a bigger, maybe even barn-doorsized flatfish is common on charter boats. “These crews release small fish and try to get the biggest fish possible for their clients,” author Cal Kellogg writes. (CAPTAIN STEVE’S FISHING LODGE)

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waterproof bag for personal items like cameras, gloves, wallet, phone, snacks and such. I prefer backpacks for this work, since they free up my hands when boarding and disembarking from the boat.

BOARDING, BEACHING THE BOATS

And this brings us to the boats. Most Cook Inlet halibut fishing is done from aluminum-hulled cabin boats that are capable of carrying six anglers, plus a captain and a deckhand. Unless you’re fishing out of Homer, where boats are moored in slips, you’ll likely be launching off a beach. This is quite a thrill and something you won’t soon forget.

When you get to the launch, a ladder or portable stairway will be set up and you’ll climb aboard the boat while it’s still on the trailer. Anglers stow their gear and take a seat in the cabin, the captain jumps behind the wheel and the deckhand is stationed on the back deck.

The boat trailer is connected to a big tractor and the boat is towed across the sand and backed into the water until the water is deep enough for the boat to back off the trailer.

Launching is cool; landing is even more exciting. On the way in, the skipper radios the landing and the trailer is backed into the water with a tender dressed in rain gear standing on the trailer’s tongue. The captain deftly drives the boat onto the trailer at a brisk clip, the tender hooks the keeper cable to the front of the boat and the trailer hauls the boat back up to the parking lot.

Most boats launching off the beach are serious fishing vessels hunting for big fish. These crews release small fish and try to get the biggest fish possible for their clients. Down in Homer, some of the slip boats are serious big-fish boats, but there are also tourist boats. These operators want to run up to two trips per day. They take anglers out to the nearest halibut concentration, and every keeper coming over the rail goes into the box. As a result, most of the fish harvested on these boats are on the small side.

TALKING ’BUTS

Let’s talk about halibut. Cook Inlet is literally paved with halibut of all sizes. When fishing for them you’ll get hit continuously. The more hits you get and the more

Whenever you’re soaking bait in the Cook Inlet, you’re just one bite away from the fight and reward of your life! (CAPTAIN STEVE’S FISHING LODGE)

Author Cal Kellogg was excited after landing this handsome 82-pound Cook Inlet Pacific halibut. (CAPTAIN STEVE’S FISHING LODGE)

fish you hook, the more intense the bite becomes because the scent and sound created draws fish in from a distance.

Tides are an important ingredient to optimum results, and here’s why: The Cook Inlet’s halibut grounds are subject to massive tidal changes. The amount of vertical water movement can range from 10 to 20 feet. Days with a lot of vertical movement are days with strong currents, and this limits fishing depth. Days with a small amount of tidal movement translate to gentle currents (by Alaskan standards) and allow boats to anchor on deep-water pinnacles. Since these deep-water spots can only be fished during days with small tides, they don’t get much pressure. These are the spots where you stand the best chance of hooking into a true monster halibut.

This isn’t to say that you can’t hook big fish in shallow water. On one of my hosted trips, a man nailed a 181-pound halibut while fishing just 30 feet deep. However, if your goal is getting a crack at something over 100 pounds, make sure you book your trip at a time with average or less than average tidal movement. Tide predictions are available online.

THE FISHING EXPERIENCE

Halibut are so thick in the Cook Inlet, you can catch them on artificial jigs. My first Alaskan halibut I ever caught was hooked working a Gibbs Minnow metal jig for silver salmon. The fish put up a massive fight on light gear. When I got it to the surface, Capt. Steve Smith of Captain Steve’s Fishing Lodge (captainstevesfishinglodge.com) lifted it aboard, unhooked it and tossed it back.

“Too small,” he said as I watched the 35-pounder rocket away. I was stunned. Having fished for halibut in California my entire life, it was the biggest halibut I’d ever landed by a wide margin.

When you’re anchored at the halibut grounds, the deckhand and skipper might toss out a 1-pound leadhead jig with a huge white grub pinned on it. They’ll bounce the jig on the bottom; if they hook up, they’ll pass the rod off to the nearest angler. The clients on the boat will be fishing with bait. Every boat runs the gear a little differently, but I’ll describe the basics so you’ll know what to expect.

Three anglers fish from either side of

the boat. The angler dropping down takes up a position nearest the cabin. When the angler in front of you reels in a fish or reels up for new bait, everyone moves down one spot toward the rear of the boat. This rotation keeps lines from getting tangled.

You’ll be using stout gear that’s spooled with 120-pound-test braided line. The final 20 feet of the line will be doubled. Big Pacific halibut are extremely strong and capable of lightning-fast bursts of speed. End tackle consists of a 2- to 4-pound sinker rigged to slide and a paracord leader armed with a pair of massive circle hooks. These hooks pin every fish in the corner of the mouth, allowing small fish to be released unharmed.

Chunks of herring are the most common halibut bait, but if salmon are around most skippers will bring some salmon heads along to use during prime bite windows. Salmon heads have a reputation for producing massive halibut, but there is a downside. They are also very attractive to the huge skates that call the Cook Inlet home. You haven’t lived until you’ve cranked a 100-pound skate up from 200 feet deep as it glides and bulldogs using the current as leverage. Take it from

me: It’s a muscle-burning experience.

WHEN YOU HOOK UP

Proper execution is an important part of success and it’s something I’ve never seen described in print, so here goes. You’ll be standing at the rail with the butt of the rod wedged against your hip. Yes, you’ll have a bruise there by the time you’re done. With your strong hand on the rod grip in front of the reel, you’ll lift the sinker off the bottom about every 30 seconds and set it back down. This movement attracts halibut and discourages the aforementioned skates.

A halibut bite starts with a series of taps. At this point the rod tip must be held still and your weaker hand moved to the reel, ready to retrieve line. You can’t set a circle hook with a traditional hookset. You’ve got to reel the hook into position in the halibut’s mouth.

Gradually, the taps and tugs get stronger. The firmer the tugs, the bigger the fish. When the rod tip starts to draw down hard, start cranking the reel smoothly. If you execute the routine correctly, you’ll be locked up with the fish.

The harder you fight the fish, the

Angler Mark was all smiles after successfully battling this quality 50-pound Pacific halibut. Flatties this size make great table fare – even if their filets sit in your freezer for months. The meat won’t lose its flavor. (CAPTAIN STEVE’S FISHING LODGE)

harder they’ll fight you, so you’ll just want to grind on the reel smoothly and keep the rod tip loaded against the fish. If slack develops, the halibut will execute some ribbon-like full-body gyrations and, often as not, they will toss the hook.

THE SLACK MENTALITY

Here’s a final piece of strategy you should really take to heart. I’ve seen more big halibut lost than landed and all of them gained back their freedom due to the angler giving them slack line.

When the current is moving, the current helps keep the line tight. Typically, you’ll anchor when the tide is moving and fish until it goes slack. When the tide is going slack, you have your best chance of hooking a truly big halibut, but

you won’t be able to rely on the current to aid in keeping the line tight.

By the time the current backs off you’ll have been battling halibut, skates, sharks and perhaps the odd Pacific cod for 90 minutes to two hours. When the prime bite window arrives, your arms are already as limp as a piece of licorice resting on the dashboard of a car on a sunny day. This is when you’ve got to suck it up and take the pain.

You’ll get from two to six opportunities when the tide is slow or slack, and it is absolutely critical to convert these bites into hookups and convert those hookups into landed fish.

Pace yourself when the current is ripping and never give an inch of slack when the current is placid. When I sense

the current weakening, I gobble down a chocolate bar to spike my energy level.

If you don’t work out, consider putting in a few months of work at the gym prior to your trip. Good endurance, a strong core and good shoulder strength will allow you to punish the halibut instead of them punishing you.

When your 100-plus-pound barn door hits the deck, you’ll forget all about the burn. And you’ll be part of a special fraternity made up of halibut anglers who’ve landed 100-plus-pounders! ASJ

Editor’s note: Cal Kellogg is a longtime California-based outdoors writer. Subscribe to his YouTube channel Fish Hunt Shoot Productions at youtube.com/ user/KelloggOutdoors

The author and the five other anglers in this group each landed Cook Inlet halibut in excess of 100 pounds. “When your 100-plus-pound barn door hits the deck, you’ll forget all about the burn,” Kellogg writes. (CAPTAIN STEVE’S FISHING LODGE)

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CROSSING KOOTZNOOWOO: PADDLING ADMIRALTY ISLAND LAKES ROUTE

BY MARY CATHARINE MARTIN

The 30-mile Cross-Admiralty

Canoe Route could be seen as a straightforward trip: Start in Angoon (Aangóon, or “isthmus town”), where Tlingit people have lived for time immemorial. Travel to the head end of the at times treacherous Mitchell Bay; don backpacks, hike into the rainforest and portage and paddle a series of Admiralty Island’s lakes, until you get to Mole Harbor, on the other side of the island.

Along the way, you may fish for cutthroat trout; you may see brown bears. You’ll clamber over slippery logs and use them to cross beaver-flooded sections of trail. You’ll glimpse deer along the lakeshore. You’ll see flickering schools of juvenile fish, eat wild mint, and you may get a few new blisters and calluses.

In another sense, however, the crossAdmiralty Island trip – which three Angoon high schoolers, two Southeast

Alaska Expeditions guides and a couple of storytellers, myself included, did for the first time last August – is much more than that. It’s Angoon’s backyard, and it’s a portal into the interior of the island. Our trip was the first of what will hopefully be regular trips across the island for Angoon residents and Kootznoowoo, Inc shareholders. It was an introduction to a potential career in land stewardship for the three youths on the trip. And it

KOOTZNOOWOO: ADMIRALTY ROUTE

was one of the first projects funded by the USDA’s Southeast Alaska Sustainability Strategy, a new approach in Southeast Alaska that finds ways to support community and Indigenous-led sustainable economic development and land management.

DAY 1: MITCHELL BAY TO DAVIDSON LAKE

Beebuks Kookesh, Sam Fredrickson and Trevor Fredrickson, all friends, cousins

and Angoon high schoolers, met the four of us adults who were along to guide and document the trip –  Haines-based Southeast Alaska Expeditions guides Beth Fenhaus and Jeff Moskowitz, U.S. Forest Service and Sitka Conservation Society storyteller and videographer Lee House, and myself – at the head end of Mitchell Bay, where we had all been transported by Beebuks’ father, Ed Kookesh. Along the way, Ed pointed to historically important

places and trees downed by windstorms the previous winter.

I’ve talked to people who have done the route who say the first 4-mile portage from Mitchell Bay to Davidson Lake isn’t very difficult. The previous winter’s windstorm must have complicated things, because that first portage isn’t something I would describe as “easy.” Downed trees lay across the trail, especially in the last couple of

Beebuks Kookesh and Sam Fredrickson, both high school students from Angoon, pilot packrafts last summer during a group trip exploring Southeast Alaska’s 30-mile  Cross-Admiralty Canoe Route. (MARY CATHARINE MARTIN)

miles. We had to clamber over them or squeeze ourselves and our packs along the ground under them.

One of the crossings had flooded due to beaver activity, and while crossing a slippery log set over a waist-deep beaver slough, one of us slipped backward and got soaked. (Only Beebuks still had dry Xtratufs at the end of the trip.)

Darkness caught us before we were where we planned to camp that first night. We pulled out our headlamps, contemplated and rejected the idea of camping amid a bunch of blowdown, then scarfed handfuls of dried fruit and jerky, refilled our water bottles at a muskeg pond and began what would become one of the most iconic parts of the trip – marching on while listening to music provided by Sam, dubbed “DJ Bear Scare.” Things just don’t feel the same when 2Pac is your soundtrack.

We arrived safely at Davidson Lake around 9 p.m. and Beebuks immediately got out his fishing pole and began to cast.

Brown bears are common on Admiralty Island, the Lingít name for which is Kootznoowoo, or “Fortress of the Brown Bear.” “Some of us did see a bear emerge from the woods across the harbor at the end of the trip, but we didn’t get a photo,” author Mary Catharine Martin says. (BJORN DIHLE)

KOOTZNOOWOO

Admiralty Island is called Kootznoowoo in Lingít, the language of the Tlingit people of Southeast Alaska. It translates roughly to “the fortress of the brown bear.” The island has one of the densest concentrations of brown bears in the world, at an estimated one bear for each of the island’s 1,600 square miles. It’s also home to runs of wild pink, coho and chum salmon, plus king salmon as well as cutthroat, Dolly Varden and other species of fish.

The island’s health is due in large part to Tlingit elders in Angoon, who traveled to Washington, D.C. and successfully advocated for the island to become a national monument, which would protect much of it from the clearcut old-growth logging taking place across Southeast in the last few decades of the 20th century.

Now, decades later, Kootznoowoo continues to be one of the most ecologically intact islands in Southeast Alaska, and Kootznoowoo, Inc., the Native corporation of the village of Angoon, is working to springboard that natural beauty – intact wild habitat – and the U.S. Forest Service’s new focus on sustainability, recreation and

From left to right, Trevor Fredrickson, Sam and Beebuks start a fire at the pit in front of Hasselborg Creek cabin on the second night of the trip. (MARY CATHARINE MARTIN)

resilience into economic opportunity for the village of Angoon.

DAY 2: DAVIDSON LAKE TO HASSELBORG LAKE

There’s no way not to feel lucky when you find yourself in the woods and on the water for three warm, dry, bluebird days in Southeast Alaska. As we blew up our packrafts and paddled into the sunshine on Davidson Lake that first morning, it almost felt like the island was welcoming us.

Pale green lichen hung down from the trees. A deer emerged from the brush and darted back into the forest. Sam immediately dug a piece of flagging from his pack and began imitating a deer call, trying to call it back.

We drank the muskeg “tea water” we’d gathered the day before and stopped for a delicious meal of crackers and coho salmon Beebuks’ uncle had caught in Yakutat and his family smoked and jarred in Angoon.

As we neared the end of the lake, a loon chortled across the water. Marsh

The guys had some productive fishing on the trip. Beebuks wetted a line at the start of Beaver Lake and caught a pink salmon with his hands in a stream on Admiralty. He released it back into the water. (MARY CATHARINE MARTIN)

grass waved in the breeze as we paddled through the lilypad-dotted slough leading from Davidson Lake to Lake Guerin. Big bull pines, their roots in muskegs, dotted the shore.

The interior of Admiralty Island is a ridge of mountains, and at Lake Guerin our surroundings began to grow higher.

We paddled past mountains with green alpine. Sam, Beebuks and Trevor, all of whom grew up hunting and had already gone out in search of deer to fill the freezer that year, speculated about where the deer might be.

At the end of Lake Guerin, we pulled up to a grassy, lilypad-lined bank and walked the one-and-a-half-mile portage,

through patches of devil’s club. As we descended a small hill to the three-sided shelter at Hasselborg Lake, Sam was playing Ice Cube’s “It Was a Good Day.”

That night, Trevor, Beebuks and Sam made a fire by the side of the lake, then took out the cabin’s rowboat to fish at the mouth of the creek. Reaching the lake before it got dark and getting to go fishing for cutthroats would be one of the boys’ favorite points of the trip.

DAY 3: HASSELBORG LAKE TO MOLE HARBOR

The next morning, after breakfast, Beth got us oriented with a map and a rundown of the plan for the day, which included staying close together, as Jeff’s

packraft had developed a hard-to-mend leak at the seam. (Later, the kids would say “don’t leave anyone behind,” one of the key lessons they learned from our fearless guides.) We set out across the lilypads in front of the cabin and paddled past the mouth of Hasselborg Creek.

At the start of Beaver Lake, we reinflated our boats and set off for the final paddle of the trip, through a sunny slough where we watched schools of juvenile fish flicker in the shallow water. From there, we paddled to Alexander Lake, where the wind picked up, blowing us backwards. As we paddled, we passed a cabin and people in a boat fishing. The breeze calmed, and it was so sunny that

Trevor paddles on Lake Guerin, the second of a series of lakes along the Cross-Admiralty Canoe Route. (MARY CATHARINE MARTIN)

one of them jumped into the lake to cool off. “Better now,” he declared.

At the end of Alexander Lake, we hiked up a hill into a forest of big hemlock and spruce trees, and then into stands of cedar. We passed through grassy muskeg filled with scraggly trees and puddled boardwalk, dodged our way around a few more downed trees, and descended the hill to the three-sided shelter at Mole Harbor. Lee, the kids and I walked across the tidal flat to the ocean to talk about the trip.

“You guys just paddled and hiked across Admiralty,” I stated. “What are your first thoughts?”

“It feels good to hear the ravens,” Sam said. As he pointed, one croaked on cue. “And to feel the breeze on the water.”

“Relief and accomplishment,” Trevor said. “I just got excited when I first saw it. I got happy, seeing the ocean through the woods.”

“It was rough, climbing over all those trees,” Beebuks added.

“I was surprised we made it here in two nights and three days,” Trevor said. “We covered the hard part the first bit. I’ve never hiked that long before … It was kinda cool to see all the lakes that people keep talking about in town that they really want to go to. A lot of people talk about Hasselborg and Davidson … This trip has gone by pretty fast, too. What really kept me motivated hiking was when Sam would play music for all of us. Music: It just makes you feel like you can go on forever.”

Later, as we got started on dinner, a bear emerged from the woods across the tidal flat. When it heard us, it turned and bounded back into the trees.

DAY 4 AND BEYOND: FLYING HOME – AND A NEW YEAR

The final morning, we packed up for

the last time and hiked down to the shoreline, then walked a mile up the shore to our pick-up point. A doe and a fawn emerged from the grass to forage along the beach. Shortly afterward, we passed a tidal stream full of spawning pink salmon. Sam immediately got out the fishing pole, and all three of the kids splashed through the stream in their Xtratufs, thrilled at the chance to see what they could catch. A flock of gulls lifted into the air. Eventually, reluctantly, we left. Sam, Trevor and Beebuks grinned as they boarded the plane.

This summer, all three students will be doing the cross-Admiralty trip from Angoon to Mole Harbor again –    except instead of being guided, they’ll be working, paid to help guide other Angoon residents and/or Kootznoowoo shareholders.

"As the Native Village Corporation for Angoon, one of our goals at

Along with the author, the paddlers on this adventure included (from left to right), Southeast Alaska Expeditions guide Beth Fenhaus, U.S. Forest Service and Sitka Conservation Society storyteller Lee House, the Angoon kids Beebuks, Sam and Trevor, and fellow SEAK guide Jeff Moskowitz. They gathered at the start of the Cross-Admiralty route on the banks of Mitchell Bay. (MARY CATHARINE MARTIN)

Kootznoowoo is to provide the hard skills and opportunities for young people in our community to make a living, sharing the traditional lands and values of their elders, with visitors to Angoon,” said Jon Wunrow, Kootznoowoo Inc.’s director of tourism and natural resources.

Guiding is a career path Beebuks is interested in, fueled by his passion for fishing.

Sam and Trevor are interested in being guides, though they’re also

interested in other career paths – Sam in joining the Coast Guard, Trevor in being a crime scene investigator.

Either way, after this summer they’ll have job experience coguiding two trips, one this month and one in July, in their backyard – and some of their friends are now interested as well.

“There’d be quite a bit of hills and long hikes, but it’ll be fun to be on the lakes,” Beebuks said he’d tell people making their first trip across the canoe route.

When they got home to Angoon, Sam said he would tell people “how fun it was to get to explore more of the island of our hometown.”

ASJ

Editor’s note: Mary Catharine Martin is the communications director of SalmonState, an organization that works to ensure Alaska remains a place wild salmon and people whose lives are interconnected with them continue to thrive. For more information, go to salmonstate.org.

For the young members – all cousins – of this expedition, the experience was a special journey. “Relief and accomplishment,” was how Trevor (left) explained it. “I just got excited when I first saw it. I got happy seeing the ocean through the woods.” Sam (middle) loved feeling the breeze off the water, and Beebuks added, “It was kinda cool to see all the lakes that people keep talking about in town that they really want to go to.” (MARY

CATHARINE MARTIN)

2.8L

The

Nearly

DESTINATION CANADA HUNT • FISH • TRAVEL

Events Calendar

JUNE 11-18

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JULY 9-16

Perfect fishing for the “Grand Slam of the Rockies” (lake trout, pike, walleye, rainbow trout, bull trout & Arctic grayling). For details visit nradventures.com

AUGUST 6-13

Prime fly fishing (rainbow trout, bull trout & Arctic grayling). Excellent pike fishing. For details visit nradventures.com

AUGUST 22-26

6th Annual Charity Fishing Derby For details visit joessalmonlodge.com

NORTH RIVER OUTFITTING

NORTHERN ROCKIES ADVENTURES

WESTVIEW MARINA

JOE’S SALMON LODGE

MILLERS NORTH OUTFITTING

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SCORING A PERFECT

Being based in Alaska has allowed Brian Watkins to harvest many of the big game animals making up a “Super 10” slam. But while he was able to stay in the Last Frontier to check Dall sheep, barren-ground caribou, moose and musk ox off his list, Watkins also went to the Lower 48 to help finish it. (BRIAN

WATKINS)

PERFECT 10

WITH A PAIR OF LOWER 48 TAGS IN HAND, AN

ALASKA HUNTER CLOSES IN ON A ‘SUPER’ ACCOMPLISHMENT

BY BRIAN WATKINS

The Grand Slam Ovis Club started recording what is known as the North American Slam back in the 1970s. To record the slam, one must harvest all 29 recognized North American big game species.

The 29 animals can be divided into 10 categories, known as the “Super 10.” The categories include moose, caribou, deer, bear, bison/musk ox, elk, sheep, mountain goat, pronghorn and mountain lion. This is often considered the “minislam,” as a hunter must actively hunt all categories of animals in North America.

It just so happens that Alaska is home to species representing eight of the 10 categories – black, brown, grizzly and polar bear; musk ox and bison; Yukon-Alaskan moose; Roosevelt and Rocky Mountain elk; Sitka blacktail deer; mountain goat; Dall sheep; and barrenground and woodland caribou.

Alaska affords the opportunity to tag out on eight game categories, most of which can be taken with an over-thecounter tag, with a few variables involved. The bison is a draw-only hunt, and there is limited opportunity for registration tags for musk ox and elk. There are draw tags available for all species. The woodland caribou is currently unable to be hunted due to declining numbers.

CONVENIENT AND AFFORDABLE

With the opportunities Alaska has to offer, being a resident helps hunters get extremely close to the Super 10 without breaking the bank. My personal chase for the Super 10 didn’t come to fruition until 2014 when I harvested my first moose. Up to that point, I had harvested whitetail deer (Pennsylvania), Sitka blacktail, caribou, mountain goat, black bear and brown bear. I was suddenly halfway to the Super 10 without realizing it.

Watkins thought bagging a Lower 48 pronghorn would be easy, but nearly 15 unsuccessful stalks taught him otherwise. Eventually, he was in the right place at the right time, taking this buck near Missoula, Montana, last fall.

I set the goal to harvest the Super 10 by age 35. At the time I was 26. This would allow me to take a new species every other year.

My past stories in these pages have gone over all my hunting within Alaska, from road-based hunts to fly-outs and boat trips. Flying out is my favorite, but for cost-base hunters road hunts can be just as successful. I have harvested deer, sheep, goats, moose and caribou while boot hunting after driving to an area.

GOING SOUTH FOR SPEED GOATS

This past fall, with two animals to go, I headed south to the Lower 48 to complete the Super 10. My good friend Trevor Embry and I drew Montana pronghorn tags. I figured it would be an easy hunt. Boy, was I wrong. We were hunting public-land bucks, and they are skittish. Their eyesight is better than any other animal I’ve pursued. One of the guys hunting down there said their eyesight is like always having eightpower binoculars.

Our plan was to drive with onX maps

(BRIAN WATKINS)

A great father-son hunt with his dad Tom in Nevada helped Brian check mountain lion off North America’s Super 10 list. (BRIAN WATKINS)

and pick out public land, then glass and spot and stalk any animals on that land. But soon we figured out that if we saw a group of antelope, we had to maintain speed and pass them. Then, when out of sight, we could park and hike back to see if there were any bucks in the group. If you so much as let off the gas, the entire group would take off out of sight.

I snuck into 60 yards of herds multiple

times, but as soon as I kneeled up for a shot, the group was off and running before I could even get my pins in sight.

Frustrations grew throughout the week as stalk after stalk was blown. Patience was the name of the game. After nearly 15 futile stalks, it came together with a buck chasing a doe right in front of me. I didn’t even need to stalk. We saw the group and were

getting into position as a buck ran directly past us and stopped broadside at 35 yards.

THE LION SLEEPS TONIGHT

With number 9 successful, it was time to plan number 10: mountain lion! I knew the most efficient way to hunt mountain lions was with dogs. I booked a trip to Nevada for this past spring and

Watkins scored this Sitka blacktail on Kodiak Island. (BRIAN WATKINS)

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A diehard bowhunter, Watkins has “added a new goal to harvest the Super 10 with a bow. Currently, I am sitting at nine of the 10 – with only an elk left on my to-do list.” (BRIAN WATKINS)

went with Canyons West Guide Service (canyonswest.com).

The hunting style was a blast. The guide had four-wheelers with tracks on them, and we would drive mountain roads looking to cut a set of lion tracks. It was blowing 40 to 50 mph gusts while we were there, so cutting tracks proved to be a bit of a challenge. On day one, we cut a set from the evening prior, but they were pretty blown out. We let the dogs loose and climbed up a mountain in pursuit. It seemed as though the dogs treed the cat, but by the time we got there the cat must have busted out and climbed up into the cliffs, where neither the dogs or us could get to.

The next day, we set out for a new

area. We cut a fresh set of tracks and drove the machines into the valley where they went. As we sat there deciding if the tracks were from a cat big enough to chase, we saw four deer on the hillside.

We figured the cat was actively stalking the deer. As we sat and discussed things, I saw the cat creeping along about 600 yards away! It was awesome. We let the dogs out after the cat and they treed it back across from where we’d just driven through.

We skinned and quartered that lion. That afternoon we went further into the mountains. My dad was along with me and had a tag as well. We didn’t cut anything fresh, so we planned to head back for the day. As we did, we cut a set of

tracks we had missed along the way out.

We set the dogs out and after a half hour they had the cat treed about 20 yards away from where we had just ridden past. These cats are elusive.

That hunt completed my Super 10!

NEXT UP: SUPER 10 BY BOW

In 2017, I joined the Alaskan Bowhunters Association and befriended a group of people who are predominately bowhunters. I added a new goal to harvest the Super 10 with a bow. Currently, I am sitting at nine of the 10 – with only an elk left on my to-do list. I have since joined the board for ABA and hunt predominately with a bow myself.

I’ll get that elk eventually. ASJ

ALASKAN MAY CABIN FEVER? HEAD WAY SOUTH

SONORA, MEXICO, IS A GREAT GETAWAY TO HUNT GOULD’S TURKEY

BY SCOTT HAUGEN

May in Alaska can be long. One year when Tiffany and I lived in Point Lay, the mercury barely got above 0 degrees Fahrenheit. Another time when we lived in Anaktuvuk Pass, it seemed like spring was never going to arrive.

About this time, many Alaskans get stir-crazy – eagerly anticipating the arrival of spring. If you’re a hunter, consider heading to Sonora, Mexico, where you can thaw out and enjoy a fun Gould’s turkey hunt. That’s where two buddies and I headed last year at this time – mid-May, to be exact.

My good friends Parrey Cremeans and Ted Lidie, both of Redding, California, invited me on this trip. Cremeans and I have hunted a lot together over the years, and he knew the last wild turkey I needed to complete my world slam – harvesting six subspecies of wild turkey, including eastern, Rio Grande, Florida Osceola, Merriam’s, Gould’s and ocellated – was a Gould’s subspecies.

But what I was attempting to accomplish paled in comparison to my comrades. Cremeans was trying to complete his world slam in a single season, and this was the last turkey he needed. But Lidie one-upped both of us. For Ted, he needed two Gould’s to complete a single-season double world slam. That’s right, two turkeys of each

Author Scott Haugen was elated with his Gould’s wild turkey, one that put on a strutting show on the first afternoon of his hunt. For Alaskans ready for summer but stuck in May’s lingering chill, a Mexico trip to chase these gobblers is a great getaway. (SCOTT HAUGEN)

Alaskans don’t have direct access to wild turkeys like hunters throughout the Lower 48, but if you tag out on one there, add some curry-inspired fusion for a great meal that can also work well for Alaskan upland birds like ptarmigan.

PUT SOME GOBBLER INTO YOUR WILD GAME MENUS

BY TIFFANY HAUGEN

Whether turkey hunting in Mexico – as Scott highlights this month – or pursuing toms somewhere in the Lower 48, here’s a recipe you’ll love, even in Alaska. It even works great with forest grouse and ptarmigan, so if you’re looking to clean out the freezer, give it a try.

When properly taken care of in the field and not overcooked, wild turkey is one of the best-tasting and most tender upland game birds there is, no matter if it’s a jake or an old tom. After taking a bird, don’t toss the carcass around, as the meat easily bruises. Turkeys are big birds and retain heat for a long time, so field dress and get it in a cooler with ice or a refrigerator ASAP.

Butter chicken is a popular curry throughout the world. Originating in northern India, butter chicken can be a less complicated dish with fewer spices than some curries, and it adapts well to wild turkey and other upland birds. The added healthy fat from cashews makes this dish extra creamy. Canned coconut milk can be substituted for the cream if desired. Using a blender or food processor will make this a fast and easy meal.

For slow-cooked wild turkey legs

and thighs to cook separately, blend all marinade and sauce ingredients together in a blender. Add everything to a CrockPot and cook on high for three to five hours or until meat falls from the bone.

1 pound wild turkey breast (or upland birds)

MARINADE

½ cup plain yogurt

3 tablespoons lemon juice

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 inch fresh ginger, minced

2 teaspoons turmeric

2 teaspoons garam masala

1 teaspoon cumin

¼ to 1 teaspoon cayenne or Kashmiri chili pepper

SAUCE

3 tablespoons butter plus 1 additonal tablespoon

1 cup cashews

1 cup tomato sauce

½ cup cream

2 teaspoons sugar, optional

1 teaspoon salt

Water

Fresh cilantro for garnish

Cut turkey breast into bite-sized pieces. In a blender or food processor add yogurt, lemon juice, garlic, ginger, turmeric, garam masala, cumin and pepper. Blend or pulse until marinade is smooth. Coat all turkey pieces with marinade, cover and refrigerate for three to 12 hours. In a small bowl, cover cashews in water and soak while refrigerated for three to 12 hours .

Remove marinated turkey and cashews from the refrigerator and drain water from cashews. In a blender or food processor, add soaked cashews, tomato sauce, sugar and salt. Blend or pulse until sauce is smooth.

In a large skillet, heat three tablespoons butter on medium-high heat. Remove turkey pieces from marinade and add to skillet. Brown turkey on all sides and remove from pan. Add another tablespoon of butter to the skillet and add remaining marinade. Once the marinade is bubbling, add the blended cashew and tomato mixture. Bring sauce to a boil and add the turkey to the sauce and reduce to mediumlow heat. Simmer four to six minutes, adding cream right before serving. Add additional hot water to achieve desired sauce consistency. Serve over basmati rice with fresh cilantro.

Editor’s note:

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

(TIFFANY HAUGEN)

FIELD

subspecies – all six of them – taken in a single season.

GOING INTO OUR HUNT, both Cremeans and Lidie had their single-season eastern, Rio, Merriam’s and Osceola turkeys. (The Osceola is only found in Florida.) They also had their ocellated birds from the jungles of Mexico, what many turkey hunters hail as the pinnacle of the world’s turkeys. All we needed were Gould’s.

We flew into Hermosillo, Mexico, where I’d been a few times to hunt mule deer and Coues deer. There we were met by a member of Wingshooters Lodge (mpuig@wingshooterslodge.com), which is owned and operated by famed guide Miguel Puig. Puig has been guiding in Mexico for decades. I was honored to

Parrey Cremeans completed his single-season world slam of wild turkeys with this Mexican subspecies, the Gould’s. (SCOTT HAUGEN)

Gould’s country in the Sierra Madre range is vast and varied, from creeks to rolling hills and stands of big ponderosa pines. Calling, locating a tom, then moving and setting up is the norm for strategy. (SCOTT HAUGEN)

FIELD

There are six subspecies of wild turkeys in the world that are recognized as part of the world slam. Ted Lidie took his second Gould’s of the trip and has now completed a double world slam with all six subspecies taken in a single season. (SCOTT HAUGEN)

so far I had my doubts. I kept calling. We didn’t move. Thirty minutes later it gobbled again, this time within a couple hundred yards. For the first time I thought it might happen.

Minutes before the sun dipped below the mountaintops, the lone tom came silently strutting into the decoy. I’ve called in hundreds of big toms over my more than 35 years of turkey hunting, but this was the most stunning strutter I’d ever witnessed. The shot was simple and just like that, two hours into the hunt my world slam was complete.

THE NEXT MORNING, LIDIE went one way and I followed Cremeans in another direction. We met up at lunch and Lidie had a big tom that came to a decoy. It was high on a mountain and several toms came strutting through the ponderosa pines, right into Lidie’s lap. Now he was only one bird away from his double world slam.

That afternoon Cremeans filled his first tag on a sparsely wooded hillside. It was a brilliantly colored tom, one you envision when thinking of Gould’s turkeys.

The next day I went looking for turkeys to photograph but had no luck. When I got back to camp for lunch, Cremeans and Lidie were all smiles. Not only had Cremeans taken a second tom, but Lidie too completed his singleseason double slam.

finally be in his hunting camp.

After a five-hour drive into the Sierra Madres, there was no time to rest. “Get dressed and be ready to go in 15 minutes,” Puig smiled as he handed me an ice water. “There’s been a big tom working a section of timber up high, and he’s most active in the evening. I want you to try for that bird tonight.”

Soon I was dressed and headed out with Jorge, one of Puig’s guides. Since we traveled on remote logging roads, it took nearly an hour to reach the hunting spot at over 7,500 feet in elevation. We set out a decoy and called, but I heard nothing.

Jorge pulled a box call from his pack and let it rip. A loud cutting series elicited the gobble we’d hoped for. The tom was on the same ridge we were, but so far away that I seriously doubted it could reach us by dark, even if it started running now.

I took over the calling with a Slayer diaphragm call. I’d used this call to bring in several Rios earlier in the season, and I wanted to see how it performed on the Gould’s. I like doing my own calling, something Jorge understood.

After 15 minutes of calling, the tom finally gobbled. It was closer, but still

Cremeans took his tom as it strutted around some hens, just outside the decoy, amid a beautiful forest of ponderosa pines. Lidie got his in a creek bottom amid another beautiful habitat where these turkeys live.

These hunts are quick, as there are a lot of turkeys in big and widespread country in Mexico, which the outfitter has access to. And it would be easy to tack on some vacation time, making for a memorable hunt and some fun in the sun, something all Alaskans yearn for this time of year. ASJ

Editor’s note: For signed copies of Scott Haugen’s popular book, Turkey Hunting The West: Strategies For All Levels, visit scotthaugen.com. Follow Scott on Instagram and Facebook.