Outdoor calendar

Kodiak Island (Game Management Unit 8) caribou season opens Aug. 1, with mountain goat hunting opening Aug. 20 (BRIAN WATKINS)

Aug. 1 Deer season opens throughout Game Management Unit 1 (Southeast Mainland) Aug. 1 Deer season opens in GMU 2 (Prince of Wales Island) Aug. 1 Deer season opens in GMU 3 (Petersburg/ Wrangell) Aug. 1 Deer season opens in GMU 4 (Admiralty/ Chichagof/Baranof Island) Aug. 1 Mountain goat season opens in GMU 4 (Baranof Island) Aug. 1 Mountain goat season opens in GMU 5 (Yakutat) Aug. 1 Caribou season opens in GMU 8 (Kodiak) Aug. 7-Sept. 16 Valdez Silver Salmon Tagged Fish Contest; valdezfishderbies.com/tagged-fish-contest Aug. 8 Valdez Women’s Silver Salmon Derby; valdezfishderbies.com/womens-derby Aug. 10 Caribou season opens in GMU 7 (Seward) Aug. 10-18 Seward Silver Salmon Derby; salmon.seward.com Aug. 14-16 Golden North Salmon Derby, Juneau; goldennorthsalmonderby.com Aug. 15 Mountain goat season opens in GMU 1C (Revillagigedo Island South) Aug. 15 Mountain goat season opens in GMU 6A/6B (North Gulf Coast/Prince William Sound) Aug. 19-21 Ted Stevens Kenai River Classic; krsa.com/events/ ted-stevens-kenai-river-classic Aug. 20 Black bear season opens in GMU 6A/6B Aug. 20 Moose season opens in GMU 7 Aug. 20 Mountain goat season opens in GMU 8

Note: Check with local contacts before attending events that could be postponed/cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Most springs over the last two decades have seen Chicago-area resident Tony Ensalaco leave his Great Lakes fishing home base to test the steelhead of the Situk River. He’s had some lows, but like this 2006 beauty, plenty of highs. (TONY ENSALACO)

SITUK STEELIE SECRETS IT TOOK MULTIPLE YEARS OF FISHING THE YAKUTAT-AREA RIVER BEFORE AN ANGLER FINALLY UNDERSTOOD HOW TO FISH IT MOST EFFECTIVELY

BY TONY ENSALACO

When the Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced that the spring steelhead run in the Panhandle was almost finished, it officially ended my streak of annually venturing to the Last Frontier to chase sea-run trout over most years of the past two decades.

My obsession with the fishery started back in the late 1990s, when I first felt the urge to explore new challenges and realized a desire to expand my piscatorial horizons outside of the Midwest. But I couldn’t decide where.

At first, Alaska wasn’t initially on my radar, and it was looking like I was going to be heading to British Columbia – probably somewhere in the Skeena River system. The only thing that made me apprehensive was the rivers that drain into it are generally larger than the ones I was accustomed to fishing. My ultimate goal was to target West Coast steelhead in a small-stream environment, so I decided to keep my options open.

Then, one day while I was browsing through some old magazines, I stumbled across an article touting the Situk River. I originally scoffed at the idea because I was under the impression that Alaskan steelhead don’t grow as large as their Pacific Northwest cousins; I could catch fish of that size around my backyard.

Truthfully, the only reason I even noticed the story was because there was a picture of a guy holding a dime-bright steelie in front of an aluminum drift boat. Since I had recently purchased one myself, the image sparked an interest and prompted me to investigate.

The more research I did, the more intrigued I became. From the intel I was able to gather, it sounded like the river was similar to some of my favorite Michigan stomping grounds – small, wadable and gentle flowing, with plenty of log jams for the steelhead to use as shelter. The only difference was there should be more fish.

Also, if I was going through the trouble of traveling across the country, I wanted to fish on my own terms and was adamant about using the same techniques that I practiced on the Great Lakes tribs.

Back then, I was beginning to learn

The adventures began when Ensalaco and his buddy Ricky Dunnett (right) got their welcome-to-Alaska moment in 2000 with lots of hookups right out of the gate. But as true steelheaders will attest, the rest of the trip was an “emotional roller coaster.” (TONY ENSALACO)

how to pull plugs and yarn fishing was already my passion, so the Situk appeared to be right in my wheelhouse. Done. Now, all I needed to do was persuade a victim to join me.

THE MAIDEN JOURNEY: 2000 I didn’t have to try very hard to convince my buddy Ricky Dunnett to accompany me. All I had to do was mention the words “wild steelhead” He was all in. When I told him that the destination would be Alaska and the expedition involved two airplanes, his only concern was how much gear we could bring.

It took about 10 minutes of floating the river before Ricky and I knew that we had made the right decision. Neither one of us had ever witnessed the astounding numbers of steelhead the Situk attracted. To put it mildly: fish were everywhere!

We finally stopped getting excited when we saw a school of steelies clustered together under the tag alders – groups of 10 to 25 fish stacked on an exposed flat.

The sightings went on all day. By the time we got off the river, we estimated that we must have passed at least 600 to 700 fish throughout the stretch, and those were the ones that were holding in plain sight. Heaven only knows how many fish were in the dark water.

Even the weather was perfect; it was dark, drizzly and dreary. When everything was said and done, we managed to land quite a few coloredup, fall-run holdovers, as well as an occasional bright fish.

We never got a chance to explore the bottom section of the river because we spent too much time fishing upstream. In fact, we had to leave good fishing and row straight out to make sure we got off the water before dark.

Back at the lodge that evening, we discovered that many of the guests hadn’t done as well, so we decided to celebrate our good fortune by hanging out at the bar until last call and offer advice to whoever would listen.

After all, we didn’t have much trouble figuring out those Alaskan steelies on our first attempt, and the fishing should only get easier throughout our stay, right?

Day two was ugly – and not because of the hangover. To put it mildly, the fishing s-u-c-k-e-d! The light rain and thick cloud cover gave way to dry air and partly cloudy skies. Places that had produced the day before were now void of fish.

We tried every ruse in our repertoire and only managed to land a handful of small uneventful steelhead, which left us second-guessing ourselves. That evening, we decided to drown our sorrows by

hanging out at the bar until last call.

The next three days were an emotional roller coaster. When fishing looked like it was starting to pick up, the fish gods shut it down. Then, when we were about to lose hope, a chromer would come out of nowhere and waylay one of the lures, which would refocus our attention for a while.

What we couldn’t wrap our brains around was how there could be so many fish, but that most refused to cooperate. The only consistent pattern that made sense that week was the time Ricky and I spent frequenting the lounge.

I wouldn’t say that I left Yakutat that year with my tail between my legs, but I definitely had more questions than answers. What I did know was that there was going to be a rematch someday!

A PEDESTRIAN EXPERIENCE: 2005 I finally returned to Yakutat after a fiveyear hiatus with the intention of settling a score. And in my corner were my father, Bob Ensalaco, and one of my longtime friends, Danny Kozlow, both first-timers to the area.

Nothing in Alaska is predictable, especially the weather. Consequently, when I bought my dad the best raincoat that I could afford to protect him from the brutal Alaskan elements, I should have known that there wouldn’t be a drop of rain in the world’s largest temperate rainforest during our entire stay. Every day was sunny with temperatures in the 60s. I actually returned home from Alaska with a suntan. If I didn’t have my dad as a witness to my whereabouts, my wife would have accused me of going on a beach vacation.

Despite the bluebird skies, my crew still tussled with a fair amount of steelhead, even though we had to work for them. Hot shotting was basically a bust once the morning sun rose over the tree line and the shade on the stream’s surface disappeared. We had no choice but to resort to bank fish any dark water we could secure. Once we discovered

In 2006, drift fishing proved to be the perfect technique for Ensalaco to “crush it” on the Situk River, a prime steelhead fishery. (TONY ENSALACO) a spot that held steelhead, we would bottom-bounce yarn flies until one was provoked into hitting.

Our strategy that week was to practice a strict policy of not leaving fish to find fish – even if they appeared stale. We would park on a hole and grind it out in hopes that the steelhead would turn on. In retrospect, we probably spent too much time trying to coax negative fish into biting.

I also didn’t realize how sensitive the Situk steelies are to the sunshine, and if I could do it all over I would have taken a completely different approach. The trip was fun, and the fishing was better than average for any other steelhead river on the planet. It just wasn’t the revenge I was looking for.

A GODSEND: 2006 Every adventure has its share of quirky anecdotes, including one that happened right from the jump this year. While I was schlepping my bags back to our temporary abode, I noticed a room that had enough equipment piled around the entrance to open a tackle store.

In the center of the mess was a man who was frantically rigging rods like he was about to float the river, even though there wouldn’t be enough time to make it off the water before dark.

I nonchalantly said, “Hey” in passing, but he must have interpreted the polite acknowledgement as, “Hey, let’s start a conversation.” He immediately dropped what he was doing and popped up to

introduce himself and tell me that he was

an outdoors writer.

“Cool,” I thought to myself. “Right on!” I did ask him if he was planning to fish that evening and he said no; he was getting ready for an early start the next morning. Those were the only words I was able to get in.

During our brief, one-sided dialogue, he made it a point to inform me that he had fished the Situk before and always did really well. The man also reiterated twice that he did some outdoor writing. Got it! When I was finally able to break away from the unsolicited monologue, I needed a cocktail.

As soon as we saw the river the next morning, our anticipation turned to concern. The stream was running high and super dirty, conditions that steelheaders definitely don’t want to see. So the question came up, “What do fishermen do when they’re 3,000 miles away from home and the conditions are less than ideal?” Travel companions like dad Bob Ensalaco (above) and good friend Danny Kozlow have shared some of

Ensalaco’s adventures on the Situk. (TONY ENSALACO)

Easy answer. They try to keep positive and fish hard, and that’s what we did. The first day didn’t produce huge numbers of steelhead, but we still managed to land a dozen fish, with three monsters over 17 pounds and the largest one pulling the scales down to the low 20-pound range. Needless to say, our confidence was restored.

After returning to the lodge that evening, I noticed our new neighbors’ room was empty. When I inquired about them with the lodge’s manager, he told me the group fished that morning and didn’t like the conditions, so they hightailed out of dodge on the evening jet. I guess some guys aren’t up for a challenge.

To make a great story short, we crushed them for the next four days! By the second day, the river must have dropped 2 feet and the water’s clarity dramatically improved. Most guests didn’t stick around to see if the conditions would recover and they missed out. We had the stream virtually to ourselves, catching fish in every spot we dared to cast. The fishing was so mind-blowing and off the charts fantastic, there was never a significant lull in the action.

Every trick and technique that we brought from home worked wonders on those native steelies. When we were pulling plugs, the wait time was only a couple of minutes before the next takedown. Every hole we stopped to drift fish rewarded us with multiple battles. This went on from the start of the day until it was too dark to see.

Besides the staggering numbers of hookups, the average size was just as impressive. While plug fishing, we had several psychotic steelhead wax the lures so violently that they almost tore the rod holders off the gunwales.

To put things in perspective about how great the catching was, we didn’t even break out the camera if a fish was under 3 feet long. We were genuinely

It was 2010 when “it all came together” on the river. “We were finding steelies in places that we had been overlooking for years,” says the author. (TONY ENSALACO)

disappointed if any fish that we encountered was less than a 10-pounder.

Every steelheader who has persevered through the anguish of miserable weather and countless fishless hours deserves a trip like the one we were blessed with. That year taught me how fast the Situk can fall into shape and how a poor situation can quickly change for the better. You just have to be there when it occurs.

It was by far the best spring steelheading that any of us had ever experienced, and looking back, I wish it didn’t come so easily because it severely delayed the learning process.

A PRELUDE: 2007 That year was almost a facsimile to the previous one, including the roster. The only difference was the stream was running extremely low and clear on the first day, which contributed to another slow start. My party only hooked a few steelhead and ended up losing most of them during a grueling 12-hour shift.

We hardly saw any fish, leading us to believe that the run hadn’t started yet. Towards the end of the float, I was standing in front of the drift boat as we thankfully approached the takeout when I looked off to the side and saw a mass of ocean-bright steelhead holding on a gravel bar.

There must have been 50 to 75 chromers in the school. Of course, we pulled over and tried for them, but the fish weren’t interested in playing. Danny did salvage the evening by eventually beaching two smallish steelies in the 8- to 10-pound range that were carrying sea lice. The pair of hens weren’t the most impactful fish ever landed, but they did bring hope for the next day.

On the way back to the lodge, it started to drizzle. We didn’t think much of it until the drizzle turned into a steady rain throughout the night.

The boat was launched the next morning under heavy grey skies and low expectations. The assumption was that there weren't a lot of fish in the system, yet we remained optimistic that the ones that were there might become active with the rise in the stream’s water level.

To our surprise, all of the spots that let us down the day before now had fish – lots of fish – and they were super aggressive. Our time was divided between running plugs and stopping to drift-fish some of the better runs, which resulted in coming in contact with too many steelhead to count. If there was a downside, it was that we were only able to haphazardly fish a fraction of the spots because of a time constraint.

The stretch is 14 miles long, so anglers who float the river are always up against the clock and drift fishing takes time to cover the water. I don’t appreciate feeling rushed, so I started thinking about more efficient ways to fish.

My dad was already ahead of me. He decided to take a page out of the Great Lakes salmon angler’s playbook and started casting crankbaits as we transitioned downstream. I immediately thought that he was on to something, but the experiment was inconclusive because the action was sporadic at best and his catch rate wasn’t substantial enough to get anyone excited. My takeaway that year was to think about how we could fish more water in less time. (A quick side note: Remember that outdoor writer who I met the previous year? Well, I ran into him at the airport on my way home while he was waiting for his bags at the luggage carousel. When I approached him, I said with a fake sense of enthusiasm, “You’re ____ _____, right? I met you last year. You left early. Big mistake! We killed ’em!”

All I remember after that was the guy standing there speechless with a blank look on his face. In retrospect, I probably should have kept my mouth shut, because karma is a bitch. As I was about to find out.)

AN EPIPHANY: 2008 Truth be told: I was a hardcore, dyed-inthe-wool bottom-bouncer who craved the pulsating sensation of lead ticking and tapping along the gravel bottom being telegraphed through the mainline into my fingertips.

However, there have been numerous occasions back home when I would ditch the drift rod in favor of using a bobber and fresh salmon eggs. Since there is a scent ban on the Situk and using the junk would be a major no-no, I rarely had a

need to carry a bobber rod with me in Alaska – until that year.

The rumor when Danny and I touched down in Yakutat was that the run had barely started. The trickles of steelhead that were in the stream were supposedly scattered throughout some of the deeper holes. Our plan of attack was to stop and bank fish any likely holding water that was available.

I would start at the top of the run, like any drift fisherman would do, and methodically work my way down to the tail-out. It was a tedious way of fishing, but that’s what I enjoyed. Danny, on the other hand, would position himself in the dead center of the run and cast a bobber and jig upstream as far as he could and follow it down to the tailout. It would only take about a half dozen casts for him to thoroughly cover a typical run.

Since he was fishing quicker than I was, Danny was able to pick off several of the active fish before I could get my offering in front of them. He was fighting the majority of the steelhead, while I was inadvertently appointed to being the designated net jockey. It was a three-day-long wake-up call that took an old-fashioned ass kicking

“Competent anglers are always developing their craft because they expect every season to be dierent, and being prepared to adjust to the changes separates the best from the rest,” writes the author, who is eagerly awaiting his next opportunity at this crazy thing called steelhead fishing. (TONY ENSALACO)

for me to see the light.

By the end of the week, I scrapped the drift tackle and was exclusively running bobbers. My partner and I fished in perfect tandem, bopping from hole to hole and targeting the aggressive fish. Places that used to take several minutes to cover using drift rigs now took only a few casts fishing with floats. My catch rate dramatically increased as well.

Even with all of the success we were having, there was still room for improvement. There was a tremendous amount of untouched water we would pass by, and it bothered me that we were probably missing out on several opportunities.

ALMOST THERE: 2009 This was a good year for big fish if you were able to land on certain holes. Otherwise, you needed to do some searching. The Situk wasn’t loaded with steelhead the week we were there, so the obvious areas were getting pounded pretty hard by anglers who were familiar with the stream.

Danny and I were having difficulty finding decent water to fish, so that’s when we started to improvise by tossing a bobber and jig combo in front of the boat while we drifted downstream. I conceived the idea when I remembered my dad chucking hardware between holes and occasionally hitting an unexpected fish out of an unlikely spot. Plus, I am always a firm believer of keeping a bait in the water. I would try to encourage Danny every season to sidedrift as much as possible.

The funny thing was, whenever Danny would attempt to side-drift, he would usually hit a steelie right away. Unfortunately, when the bite would slow down, he would inevitably start to snag up. After about a half-dozen consecutive break-offs, he became tired of sacrificing his gear, which made him quit sidedrifting for the rest of the day.

I was usually on the sticks, so when I found an open section of river, I would do some casting from the rower’s seat. For the small amount of time I was able to experiment, I received a fair number of takedowns, telling me that side-drifting was a viable option and should be added to the arsenal. I just had to convince Danny to start risking some tackle.

EUREKA: 2010 I should be too embarrassed to share this, but this was the year that it finally felt like things came together – and it only took seven trips.

The usual suspects couldn’t make it, so I brought a guy with me who wasn’t the most knowledgeable steelheader to ever wear a set of waders, but he was still a tremendous asset. What he lacked in experience, he made up for by being a serviceable oarsman. This permitted me to take a much welcome break from my rowing duties, and it allowed me to spend a good portion of the day fishing from the bow of the boat.

Right from the start, I was having good luck side-drifting bobbers and jigs along the brush lines and pitching into the pocket water. Once I turned, hooked or landed a fish, we would make mental notes where that potential hot spot was, and we made it a point to return there the next day.

Sometime during the third day of the six-day trip I had a revelation. I told my partner that the next time we connected with a steelhead, “Let’s drop anchor and fish instead of waiting until tomorrow to come back.”

Shazam! That was the moment when I discovered something that every veteran Situk fisherman has been doing all along: find a fish and fish! What a novel concept that took me much too long to grasp.

In my defense … never mind; I don’t have anything other than I blew it all those years. This turned out to be the key piece of the puzzle! Prospect for steelhead while moving. Discover proof of life and investigate. When action ceases: move. This rudimentary concept accounted for the most efficient and productive fishing that I had ever experienced.

We found steelies in places that we’d overlooked for years, and we were able to uncover several obscure pockets that would hold multiple unmolested steelhead – hidden gems that inexperienced anglers (apparently like myself) wouldn’t have given a second look.

The best action came from nondescript areas that I never dreamed of trying, and that wouldn’t have happened if we were stubborn and stuck to the original game plan of “only fish once we moved to the next spot” routine. I finally left Yakutat feeling satisfied, rather than thinking about what I could have done differently. I’m not going to lie; it felt good.

Since then, I have been tinkering, tweaking and adding new tricks to my collection. Competent anglers are always developing their craft because they expect every season to be different, and being prepared to adjust to the changes separates the best from the rest.

One spring, the river might be blown out; the next year the steelhead will run a month early, as how trips of 2015 and 2016 went. Those are some of the many challenges that steelheaders unfortunately have to contend with.

Then, there are those extraordinary – but extremely rare – occurrences when the fish gods shine down and everything goes right, like the trip I had in 2017. That story would blow you away and I would love to share the gaudy details, but it would be too painful for me to relive while I’m forced to wait another year to get my Alaskan steelhead fix.

Maybe next year! ASJ