Mosquito King

I first went to Alaska king fishing in 2004, almost 20 years ago. It was a magical, mysterious place and I was stepping into the unknown. I was actually heading there to guide, I was familiar with catching steelhead, casting a Spey rod, and rowing drift boats but that’s about where my experience ended. When I did a phone interview with the owner Mel Gillis, I told him I’d never run a jet boat, but I had a drift boat and a raft. He said it was basically the same, except you get to go back up. At the end of our phone conversation, he asked me for my information so he could book the ticket. I responded in a confused manner and was like “Don’t I get to think about it?” He responded in disbelief with, “You need to think about it?” Little did I know that this was probably the absolute best place you could go king fishing with a Spey rod anywhere in the world. At that point, the river was secretly referred to as “River X” now it’s just called the Sandy River. I couldn’t turn the job offer down I mean, I guided on the Sandy River in Oregon, and it seemed like an omen for me to guide the Sandy River in Alaska. The other interesting thing was that George Cook was the person that got me connected with that job.

Now almost 20 years later, we would be fishing kings again together, not on the Sandy but on the Nushagak. George, also known as “Geo,” started guiding and fishing for kings in Alaska in 1983, so this would be his 40th year. When he started guiding, there were hundreds of thousands of kings returning to the Nush, now they were lucky to get 60-70,000. When I started guiding the Sandy, it was never like that, but it was consistent and very, very good. Now the runs are depleted, from overharvest, poor ocean conditions, mankind, or something entirely unknown. But if you just started fishing for kings, you wouldn’t know anything else, and the fishing would probably be good. In today's age, it’s all about the shifting baseline. When you’ve seen the good times, it’s easy to wax poetic about the old days and the great memories, and that would certainly happen on this trip.

We were joined by one of Geo’s best friends, Jeff Watt, arguably the best Spey caster in Missouri. Jeff has a nickname as well, he’s referred to as “The Mayor”. I haven’t seen or fished with Jeff in well over ten years, and I was excited to see him again.

We all met up in Anchorage on Friday night, so we could have some dinner and cocktails before an early flight to King Salmon the next morning. I promise that by skipping over the night's details some people’s reputations (like mine) will hopefully go unscathed.

We arrive at the lodge and met up with the owner Dan. At this point, the machine is in motion, and what happens in the next eight days is out of our control. We are just basically along for the ride. Hopefully, the camp is set up, stocked with food, and the fish show up as predicted.

We make the quick flight out to the Nushagak and unpack the Plane. We are greeted by our camp host Nigel, an older gentleman from the UK who started guiding before I was born. Nigel has basically been everywhere and done everything. He would give us a history lesson every night after dinner, he also typically stayed up later and was always awake before we got up. He’s the real deal.

Our first mission in camp is to stow our bags and set up the arsenal. We upped the ante this year with 16 Spey rods. Quite a few didn’t make the cut from last year, and there were new ones that made the cut. Every morning we would have a rod draft. Everyone got to pick three and maybe a wild card. As the week wore on, there were quite a few favorites picked that made the draft every day. As per usual, we had a few top-secret prototype rods that were very, very good. And we’re literally a joy to cast. I’ve cast a lot of Spey rods, and they do t all give you joy, believe me!

We headed off for our first afternoon and fishing, we were like kids with the keys to the car for the first time. But we didn’t go to McDonald’s we went straight to the bucket, Portage Creek.  Last year portage kicked out an obscene number of fish for us, and we had expectations for the same. This year the water was higher and colder. On the flight in, I could see patches of snow on the tundra that hadn’t melted yet. Apparently, King Salmon and Naknak had record snowfall. So I would expect the same thing to happen here.

That night we didn’t have a single grab, but that didn’t really phase us. Last year was the same. On the way back to camp, we pulled into the Portage Creek Boat launch and radioed Chris Carr for our night's ration of ice so we could head back to camp for a nice dinner and a cold beverage so we could be up early for a long day chasing kings.

Geo had a game plan in place, and I had a good idea of what it was based on last year. Up early and out of camp so we could get one of our two runs before the camps obliterated it with roe and any other method of mass destruction they might have.

The next morning would be the earliest of the King tides. We expected the high around 8:00 am where we were at. We would fish the flood and hopefully hit fish as they rode the wave in. The high tide and the high water only let us fish that run till about 7:30 before we were pushed out because we didn’t have any bank left to fish.

The Nush is not your normal swing river. It’s massive and easily the size of the Willamette or maybe bigger. We are camped on an island that splits the river in half, and they run close to 100’ barge up either channel. To help you judge your furthest Spey cast feels like it’s falling down at your feet even if it’s 90-100’ away. We are mostly fishing 8 and 9 wt Spey rods with Skagit heads ranging from 600-750 grain loaded with an array of sink tips, but the most common being 12.5’ or T-17. The river is so big and deep that you’re never going to hang up on the bottom, and if you feel something, it’s definitely a grab.

Late in the morning, we headed back to camp for breakfast and to lick our wounds. Not jaded or beaten down but to regroup and get ready for the next battle.

We didn’t spend much time in camp and quickly headed back out. We moved upriver to go fish some spots out of tidewater and to explore a little bit upstream. This evening we would hit our second money spot with hopefully a little more success. We worked our way up, hitting a few spots and finally making it to our destination around 1:00 or so. Geo dropped me and The mayor off, and he too. The boat up to the upper spot. The Mayor got the bottom spot, and I got the middle. Geo and I had high expectations for this spot based on last year's experience. About an hour into the run, I finally hooked my first fish. A little timid and excited, I didn’t fight it with all my might. I was still getting into the Ruth’s of things. I finally landed the fish, a chromer of about 10-12 lbs with long-tailed sea lice hanging off of it. The Mayor came up for moral support and to snap a few pictures. Sadly that was the only fish landed for the day. Little did I know that was going to be the only fish landed by me for quite some time.

The week progressed slowly with the lack of fish. It was obvious to all of us there weren’t any fish in the river. On Wednesday, we talked to Fish and Game, and they gave us some bad news about the fish counts. They had been passing about 20-30 a day. Last year during this week, they passed around 25,000 kings, and this year was very different, with only about 3,500 being passed. And the majority of that was on our departure day. By the end of the week, we landed six fish, two apiece. We probably each made about 10,000 Spey cast and fished about 80 hours each.

Now we all know some trips are better than others, and if steelheading has taught me anything, it’s really about the experience and the moments, not the fish caught or not caught. I know we are all wondering if this is the end of Chinook fishing as we’ve come to know it. But believe me, if there’s a chance, I will be back next year