22 CROSS-COUNTRY FOR KINGS

Brian Kelly’s upper Midwest roots include lots of Chinook fishing in and around the Great Lakes, but as a regular visitor to Alaska’s salmon fishing scene, he hadn’t been able to check catching a chrome-bright king off of his wish list. But in June, Kelly and a buddy flew to Juneau to try and do just that. Find out how they did, as Kelly recaps his 14th Last Frontier fishing trip.

43 RIDE THE SILVER STREAK

August marks the peak of a mostly solid coho return to Last Frontier streams. These salmon offer some of the state’s best sport fishing in terms of quantity and quality, as well as sheer variety of lures and methods that work. In their From Field to Fire Column, Scott Haugen details all the ways to catch Alaska silvers, while wife Tifffany shares a great potato fish cakes recipe.

50

A CALIFORNIAN’S ALASKA ADVENTURE

Northern California resident Ian Rigler has long yearned to have an epic Alaska angling experience. And this year he was able to join cousin Gary Cook at a Petersburg lodge for some self-guided halibut fishing. While the flatties the guys targeted weren’t biting regularly, Rigler would get his chances to battle these famed denizens of the deep. Correspondent and fellow California resident Mark Fong chatted up Rigler for highlights from his trip to the Alaska Panhandle.

61 GRIN AND BEAR IT

Hampered by a persistent cough and frustrated by fewer brown bears than expected around his bait stations, our Brian Waktins’ spring bruin season was at times a trying venture. But Watkins, longtime hunting pal Trevor Embry and new Alaska resident Zach Welch aren’t the kind of guys to give up easily either. Find out how this trio fared during a demanding hunt.

Earlier this year, I was spending some time in my home state of California and decided to enter a fishing derby. It had been a long time since I’d signed up for such an event, but I really was itching to get on the water.

A local lake I have plenty of childhood memories at, San Pablo Reservoir, hosted a contest that was part of a season-long series, the NorCal Trout Anglers Challenge, hosted by Angler’s Press. I registered online and then got up early on a Saturday morning and headed out for the lake, located in a quiet valley in the heart of the San Francisco Bay Area.

By the time I arrived with my sister, who was tagging along with me, the shoreline was packed with fellow anglers (I assume many, like me, had purchased a $25 ticket for the event, which featured plenty of cash prizes for the adult winners and lots of swag for the kids). It took us a while to finally find a spot on the bank close to the boat launch area.

But it turned out to be a tough day for trout heads. A steady rain had been falling all week, muddying the lake bottom and making anglers work hard to catch anything that day. As showers fell off and on that cool winter morning, I got one bite over about four hours and by the end of the day, only 11 adults and two kids had weighed in fish. Still, it was fun to just be competing, knowing that at any time I might be reeling in a winning fish. I chatted up the derby hosts at the weigh-in and vowed to try and return for future segments of the overall series (there’s one more event scheduled in November).

Alaskans normally have to wait until summer for the real derby season to get underway (save for some ice fishing events and the popular Homer Winter King Salmon Tournament in March). But this month and next are full of opportunities for anglers to try their luck. This month, the Seward Silver Salmon Derby runs from Aug. 12-20, while Valdez’s summer-long silver and halibut events continue through Sept. 3. August also features the Golden North Salmon Derby in Juneau and the Ted Stevens Kenai River Classic tournament. In September, the community of Kenai hosts its own Kenai Silver Salmon Derby. (Check out our calendar on page 15 for more contact information for these great fishing contests that highlight their respective communities.)

If you’re headed to Seward, or Valdez, or Juneau, or Kenai this summer, buy a ticket, grab your gear or get on a charter and try your luck. You’ll have a fishing experience of a lifetime, and you just might win some cash in doing so! -Chris

Cocoles