Deshka River '09

Alaska is about as wild and pristine as it gets. The vast outdoors, teaming with wild animals nearly everywhere one could possibly look. There are literally many adventures available to me I would be hard pressed to find anywhere else. Coupled with the wilds of Alaska are things that I would not expect to see anywhere and can even be a bit of a surprise. One of these small surprises was my experiences on a four day float/fishing trip on a fairly remote Alaskan river, the Deshka. As the above picture shows, this trip down the river was filled with large, decaying salmon along the rivers edge. I've known that after a salmon spawns it is the end of its life, but this was the first time really experiencing the end of that life so up close. Of course it makes sense, but I had never seen so much evidence of the salmons circle of life. It was just one new experience that was unexpected along this phenomenal river trip.



This first float trip was my first of hopefully many more to come. Only my brother in law, Richard (Luffinator) and myself were able to make it on this trip. The intention was to take advantage of the record numbers of silver salmon that had been recorded traveling up stream. In our first fishing attempt all that we were rewarded was the small trout you see below, which I was extremely ecstatic about.

That tiny trout however, was to be quite telling of our fishing yet to come. Our second (first full) day on the river we began looking for the ginormous swarms of silvers that we were expecting, only to catch a few small trout early in the day, and then be completely drenched in rain the rest of the afternoon. The rain filled our inflatable kayak's soaking us from the waist down, and we saw no sign of any catchable salmon, only paddled and paddled towards the end of the day. There are no pictures of this tremendously wet day, because it never let up even one iota for me to pull my camera out and document the down poor. Both Richard and I were extremely grateful for wool clothing, as well, I cannot emphasize enough how grateful we were for our uncle's suggestion that we take a can of charcoal lighter fluid with us to start fires with. If it had not been for that one suggestion we would have been much more miserable that night for sure.

The next day was a complete opposite of the previous one. The sun was absolutely gorgeous and the weather totally perfect. It was literally as if the whole river, wildlife and all, was out to play and bask in the warm sun. We saw numerous birds from the mighty Bald Eagle to ducks and geese. We even had quite the experience with a whole family of swans that we thought was going to lead to the mother dive bombing us from the air as she circled us from above and the babies swam next to our kayak's. The river also ran us right into a grizzly bear, that was scared off fairly easily by Richard yelling at me to get the camera, so no picture of him, but it was a bit of a exciting sight. There were piles of river otters, that would spook easily, but when we could were fun to watch play around.

We did finally get into some silvers on the last day, almost as we were ready to give up trying to find them. The river was fairly high from the rain and we probably floated right over most of the Silvers. We did have some fun catching a couple nice salmon, as well caught quite a lot of nice rainbow's as we figured out how to fish sitting up on our kayak's as we floated down the river. The fishing was not as we had hoped, but for our maiden river voyage it had a lot to take in and enjoy along the way.

(Click to view large images)

First campsite













Second night campsite (morning)




















One of the nice trout caught













































Our last nights camp









Hauling in my monster



















Sleeping next to the bear repellent












One of Richards Silver's

Had to post the pic of the nice lake trout that I caught over the 4th of July weekend. It seems that I may have figured out the fishing a bit more on the lake, but did not get a whole lot of time to really see the full potential of the lake. One of the nights the boat we had up there quit working and took us until the next morning to figure out what was wrong with it, and really it was all my brother in law, Kevin that got it going again. Then again on another night of fishing we actually ran out of gas, so we ended up paddling most of our way back to the cabin until we were towed in by another boat, driven by Kevin no less.

The family cabin on the lake is really nice and great for all of us, but I definitely look forward to getting back out and fishing for some of the monster lake trout that I know are in there. There is a lot to enjoy around the cabin, on a nice beach, or around the lake, but it seemed that despite the nice weather and great weekend not everyone enjoyed themselves, but their loss I guess!

Willow Creek, Alaska

Amy and I used to travel to Alaska during the summer months and work different jobs in the area between school years. That time frame was typically from the first of May to the end of August. We have now lived in Alaska for approximately seven months, which is by far the longest stretch for us, but it still feels like any day now we are going to have to pack our things and head back to Utah. It just feels like we are on another temporary summer trip and it will be coming to an end soon.

There are some things that assist me in realizing that we are permanently living here is that I am starting to get out and do things that are new to me and see parts of Alaska that I never had time to when we were just here in the summer. One of those is some fishing and camping trips that we've never done before.One such trip was a recent float down Willow Creek here in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley. A buddy here has a raft that he recently purchased and has started floating the local rivers as often as possible. We fished for rainbows and used fly rods with some technique's that I have never used before, but it was quite fun and we caught a few fish. I lost probably twenty dollars in fly's but it was pretty fun and that loss should decrease as we go more and get used to the rods.

Prince William Sound

Fishing in Prince William Sound is one of the greatest things I have ever done. Really,... being out on the water in a a spectacular boat and such an incredibly beautiful place has got to be one of the most epic things that I have done as far as my adventures go. It is simply amazing all of the different sites and adventures that there are out in the Sound. We saw almost everything on our recent trip. We saw whales, dolphins, and did a lot of great fishing. It is such a fantastic day when you can fish for halibut and other species until you get your limit and then take off to a different location and catch your limit in Salmon or Shrimp. A lifetime could be spent discovering new places in Prince William Sound and you would never see it all. It is an experience that is so different from anything that I was able to do in Utah growing up. I have come to really love the ocean and greatly look forward to getting out again.

Got's to Love Pike

Sucker Lake is about a forty-five minute flight in the float plane, from Palmer were we live. The float plane is an awesome toy and is something I am going to have to get someday. The lake is out in the Bush, over the Susitna River and really in the middle of nowhere. I have been there before and there are a couple of canoe's that folks have stuffed in the tree's, so we just borrow one of those and can fish for pike almost 24 hours a day. There is a little point that is decent enough to camp on, so that is exactly what my by, Dane and I did. We set up the tent and hung out eating some good food and fishing for pike that are so full in the lake that it really is a piece of cake to catch them. Though not difficult to catch they are extremely fun, because we fish with top water frogs or something that causes those pike to be fairly explosive when they strike and that is just a blast to watch.
The first night was a bit windy and Dane got cold so we did not fish too long, rather we got camp set up and started a fire so he could warm up. Eventually he was falling asleep in the camp chair so I put him in his mummy bag and he crawled down inside and was out within a couple minutes. He slept until 9:30 the next morning, so he played pretty hard.



Dane was able to catch a fish or two all by himself and was very excited about it. I was surprised how well he did and that he was able to hold onto the pole when those fish hit his lure only five feet off the bank. It was pretty fun to watch him hang on and reel those suckers in. We were picked up by Chuck that next day about noon and headed for home. Dane loves flying in Grandpa's airplane. It was very cool to take my boy out and camp in the Alaska wilderness with him. He loved it and I enjoyed having him with me, even though I could not fish near as much as I would have liked due to taking care of him, but I would not trade it at all, it was awesome.

Camping on Weiner Lake

This Memorial Day weekend we did get a little camping in. What started as a horrible decision to camp in a State camp site that would have cost $20 and been surrounded with other bonehead campers not fifteen feet away on all sides actually turned out to be an awesome camp trip. Rather than pitch our tents amidst the neighbors, we called a friend that has some property north of Palmer about 40 miles. It is actually the site of his home way out in the woods that burned down this last year or so. I believe that it caught fire due to his cooking a turkey in one of those deep fryers. That would suck!

Anyway, we ended up having about 70 acres all to ourselves with some sweet fire pits, and a beautiful lake with fish, beavers, and swans. We pitched out tents down by this lake and had great tinfoil dinners that Amy had made for us, hung out by the fire and chilled with our friends, Bryce and Tara.

The night was kind of crazy! Sometime in the middle of the night Tara had to get up with their little girl and go home. I think it may have been too cold for the little one. Dane and Ty handled it okay, we had been sure to put both of them in the 5 Degree bags and Amy and I took some less than stellar bags for ourselves. I have never had to endure such a cold night in such a crappy sleeping bag. At one point I was cold enough to get out of the bag and put as much clothing on as I could find and shoot back into my bag as fast as I could. Amy got cold enough that she woke Ty up and put him in her bag to help warm her up. So we need to get some sleeping bags that are made for Alaska. They may have worked fine for Utah, but they are not going to cut it here.

One cool thing about being awake, freezing to death is that I could hear a pack of wolves howling all night. They sounded to be fairly close to where we were camping and kind of scared me at first, I have never been camping in a tent when I can listen to the wolves at night. The closest thing to that would be sleeping in a hammock in Island Park Idaho and hearing the coyote's around camp, but that is not as cool as the wolves.

We headed home that morning fairly early, because our friends had pretty much left in the cover of darkness and we were just chillin now. The boys had fun though and we came home and got to go flying in Grandpa Chucks airplane, which the boys loved. They crammed in the back seat together and had a lot of fun. There are a few perks about living in Alaska and having a Father in Law with a lot of great toys.





































































This ugly thing was hanging in the tree where we had our dinner, sadly we did not notice it until after we had started eating. Pretty Gnarly!

Summer Time

This summer so far has been filled with so much chaos and activity that I have not been very good at posting, but I think that is not necessarily bad, because we have been somewhat busy with all the cool stuff we have been doing.

The fishing bug has finally bit me hard. I have been out fishing with Jason on a stretch of river that I have never fished and it has been phenominal. The picture to the side here is of a nice brown that was caught not too long ago. It was probably around 15 inches or so and was a really good fight. The fish we had been catching here have been almost all Brown Trout and they are as fiesty as any trout I have ever had on my line. The first night Jason took me out with him I fished him into the ground catching about 30 nice browns where he caught 10 or 12, he was a bit frustrated, but it was a good night all in all.

I have also been fishing a couple other new spots with some old friends that I grew up around. One of the areas that I have been to is out to Willard bay, which I have been to with Kirk, but with Dale he took me to a different area and taught me some new techniques. It is really fun, because we wade out into the water up to our belly buttons and fish for various different species and have caught quite a few of them.

I was able to take my boys out the other night and show them this new fishing that I have learned. With the good fishing being out in the deep water we got the boys a 6 ft inflatable raft so they could hang out with me out in the water and even fish a little. We had a fun night and even caught a lot of fish. The boys were able to reel a couple of them in and Dane even caught a fish all by himself, which actually surprised be.

Other than the fishing I have been riding my bike more than I ever have before. I have been in better shape this spring and summer than I have for a few years and it sure feels good when I ride or so anything active. I am not sucking wind as bad and can go a lot further than I have in the past.

I am also discovering that there are so many great trails here in the valley, and many of them are closer than I previously thought as well. It would be rad to get down to The Canyons or another mountain that rents downhill bikes and ride that type of scene for a day or so.



Thats all for now, so Trek On.

What the Willard

The weather here in Cache Valley has remained quite cold and has yet to feel like spring in anyway. A couple weeks ago Kirk and I set out for Willard Bay with the boat in tow. I had never fished at Willard at all, but Kirk informed me that there is all kinds of fish in that little sea, and that day it did indeed feel like a sea. The wind was howling across the water and was bone chilling cold. Of course ours was the only truck in the parking lot. The little 12' Jon boat we were in was not a fan of the two foot waves that kept pounding the sides and even spilling over into the boat. Though small in comparison I felt as if we were crab fishing on the Bering Sea tossed too and fro by the powerful waves on an episode of The Deadliest Catch. In all seriousness it was very intense and Kirk for the first time in his life put on his life jacket and cinched it up tight. At one point during our weathering the storm it actually snowed on us. Needless to say we did not catch any fish that day and did not stay long at all.

The next trip to Willard Bay we made a couple of weeks later and it was a completely different trip. The weather was nice and even felt a bit like spring. We had Kirk's cousin, Chad, on board with us this time and we were heading out to fish for walleye or wipers, either one would do. We fished for hours and hours with no luck at all. We had crisscrossed the entire bay and had not even had so much as a bite. Then all of a sudden out of the blue I snagged into what I thought was just a log or rock, but as I quickly noticed it was a fiesty little fish. Kirk and I had been fishing all day for the wipers and then quite unexpectedly I had one on the end of my line. I did not waste anytime fighting the fish for fear that I might loose him, so I just muscled him in and Chad netted the fat sucker. It was a beautiful wiper bass, pretty good size, but definitely thick and fat. It was really the only moment of excitement the entire trip, but those few seconds of intense reeling action on my pole was worth the entire days work to catch that bugger.


With three of us in the small Jon boat it makes for a much more intense fishing trip. The weight loads the boat down so as we push through the water, it seeps over the front and in the rivets, which soaked my rear and most everything else as well. Once I caught that fish it gave all of us a energy boost to fish that much harder and before we knew it we were fishing in the dark with a long way to get back to shore. Once we stopped fishing and started back to the marina it took us forever to get back. I don't recall exactly but it seems that it was around 20 to 30 minutes of travel time, which is not really too bad, except that when our top speed is 5 mph it makes for a slow trip home.



That Wiper is one of my top notch fish, at least here in Utah. The Silver and King Salmon in Alaska are hard to top, but Utah fishing is still incredible.

A New Hobby

The winter of 2006 was the most boring I have ever endured. My family usually gets out on the sleds or snowmobiles and we have even been snowboarding on the mountain in recent years, but '06 was altogether different. No one had any snowmobiles, and no snowboards, so all my wife and I seemed to do for fun was watch movies. I enjoy a good movie, but that winter was just flat boring.

This winter, again due to my good buddy Kirk, I found a new hobby, ice fishing. I had never been ice fishing until earlier this winter, and actually the first time I went I was not that impressed. Kirk took me out to Mantua Lake and we didn't catch a thing, plus it was cold, windy and fairly miserable. Well, the next trip redeemed Kirk and his crazy idea. We started going to a local place called Porcupine, and just like other fishing I had done, or hunting as well, I got that adrenaline rush and feel in love with a new hobby.


Though it can get fairly extreme at times, especially when Kirk drags me out for a midnight ice fishing attempt. Again my wife and all others I know view it as stupid, it is incredibly fun and my son, Dane has gone out with me a few times. He likes it quite well, and of course loved that he caught the bigger fish that day.

The first trip to Porcupine was earlier in the season and being out on the ice was still a bit sketchy to me. Early in the year the ice was about 5 or 6 inches thick which is plenty to fish on, but out in the middle the ice was crystal clear, and when the snow was cleared from a good area it was as if we were standing on a pain of glass about 3 inches thick. That was a bit scary to me and just overall creepy the way it made you feel peering down, deep into the water, know that it was hundreds of feet deep, and all you stand on is a nearly invisible sheet of ice. Truly the closest thing I think I will get to walking on water.

The ice fishing season is almost over. The temperature is getting quite warm, though it is still fairly cold at nights. In fact we went ice fishing this morning up to Porcupine and the ice was over two and a half feet thick, which burns the arms hand drilling the fishing holes through ice that thick. It is plenty deep to fish on for quite a while, the problem is the edge melts enough that it becomes impossible to get out onto the ice. That's okay though, its almost mountain bike season and I need to get in shape.

Horses in the High Uintahs

I was recently invited to go on a camping and fishing trip with my friend, Kirk and his father in law. They were headed into the Uintah mountains, a place that I had never been, but heard much about being the location of the tallest mountain in Utah, King's Peak.

Our trip began much different than I had anticipated and I knew I was in for one stupendous weekend when we finally headed up the trail with only a couple of hours of light left in the day. Getting ourselves and the horses ready was a lot of work. Once on the trail we only had some real fun things happen. The pack horse had a panic attack throwing and trampling all of our gear until it was scattered all over in the woods. In all of the chaos and panic the lead horse took off on its own down the trail, leaving Kirk and I chasing after it on our own out of control horses. We did finally make it to a respectable camp spot for the night after repacking the horses and building up our courage again to get going again. Kirk and I both are quite far from horse folk.

The rest of the weekend went much better than the first day of adventures. We were able to catch many Brook trout in the high alpine lakes and even enjoyed some fine dining while roughing it in the outdoors.

The Uintah mountains are extremely pretty and full of great scenery that is unique from other mountains in and around the Utah area. I was taken back by the beauty that I had lived so close to for most of my life, but had never enjoyed until this weekend. I look forward to returning to this high mountain trails, though I hope to experience them in a much more foot to trail way, rather than hoof to trail.