The Day is here Situk are YOU Ready

 Here it is Sat Apr27th 2013 Yakutat here we come. My gear all packed just having my morning coffee and the trip begins

 

watch for this blog to expand as we make our way to Yakutat

 

Trip coming fast

 

well the trip to Alaska is coming fast and the other 2 guys giving me a hard time about being the old guy and both being faster then me. So I've been training in defensive tactics for my trip. Here is a small video of me practising on the local bear population in preparation for our trip

A Bad day Fishing Better than a good Day at Work

Took the day off work to fish with my friend from Soo North who had to come back home for some business and had a few more flies for me for my trip to Alaska, the only problems all the rivers were hi so we thought we give the Nine Mile a try. A smaller river but always teaming with fish.You can only fish it 200 feet from the lake so not a lot a river to fish. The fishing was tough with only a couple feet of visibility  if that .Saw a couple fish caught, got to try out my new Redington switch fly rod and  managed to land a couple carp that for some reason didn't think was camera worthy. So after a couple hours of flogging the river we decided to go to the dam and watch the fish trying to jump over the falls. I took a small video witch i will post at the end of this blog

 

 

After about 20 minutes viewing the fish jumping got the urge to get my rod wet again so we headed to the Maitland knowing it was very high but what the heck a day off might as well try. Well got some good casting in there too. With all this practice casting hope I have a good trip and do some catching in Alaska.

Joe in the picture below travelled all the way down from the Soo to wet his line in the mighty Maitland

Well here is the video of the fish trying to over come the falls on their journey to propagate their species

016 from Just An Aging Steelheader on Vimeo.

Some Winter Reminders

The winter sure seemed long so took a day off and went for a morning fish on the river.The fishing was tough, but father winter left some reminders behind to enjoy before he fades from the past season existance.

Preping for Alaska Situk River Trip

Well my good friend Brian asked me if I like to go to Alaska for some steelhead, with my reply "in a heartbeat". Well the heart took that beat and we are going late April on a quest for some wild Alaska's steelhead. Starting to tie some flies for the trip. Started with some yarn and I know I likely never use these on our home rivers but here some yarn that I've been told are pretty productive.Crazy multi colors.

My good friend Brad from Soo North Fly Shop tied up a few patterns and shipping then to me A.S.P

Here where we will be staying in Yukatut Alaska and floating the Situk river

Ccounting the days down

Jigs

Well you hear me talk about Jigs, well here is one I've tied myself. I've been using bought jigs but always fun to tye and fish baits tied with your own hands

 

jigs from Just An Aging Steelheader on Vimeo.

The 2013 Derby Begins

Here it is 3 days after Christmas and Kory biting the bit to get out and start working on the trophies. I talked to a friend on face book and he told me the rivers were slushing and lots of shore ice so pretty hard to do any steelheading. Well we thought we see if our secret pike spot would be worth a try.

 Yea we were pretty desperate to get out when its snowing and 0 degrees C but we had to get it out of our systems. So we arrive to our destination to only find the bays off the main river froze. So we cast our lures just where the bays meet the main river but all I could catch was cat tails as seen below

 

After a hour of frustration 2 lost cyclops lures ($14 loss) we decided to cut our lost and try the hot water out flows for the Hydro power plant. Well there was a ton a Guiser Shad and that's all we could produce. It been know to be the odd muskie cruise this area but not this day.

 

 

Kory with his big catch of the day.

 

 

 

The coolest part of the whole trip was when a big freighter pass by us. I hear from local how these big boat displace water but never experienced it until today. When this big boat was passing us it drew the water away from shore, likely dropped the river 2 feet then once it passed us it came back to the previous level. I was slow to getting the camera out and getting it on video but I did catch the water rushing back to the previous level.

 

 

 



Freightor from Just An Aging Steelheader on Vimeo.

Its not all about the catching of fish. I not saying that I don't mind not catching any fish because I do but that's not what the whole experience is about. What not a better way to spend a day out fishing with your son and being able to witness the phenomenon of a big freighter passing. Its the whole experience of the trip.