Russian and Alaskan TRs

Dave and Steve (& Chas & Willi), Just found time to look at all the pix
at leisure. Very good stuff. Thanks.

Papa Bear Floaters: other than packing heat, what precautions did you all
take for bears?

It seemed that the silvers were a mix of bright chromers and dark fish.
Is that the case? If so, what was the approximate proportion of each
would you say? How was the fight of these fish, compared, say, to the
fight of a fresh steelhead of the same size?

JR
(thinking the chances of a $1500+airfare trip to Alaska is a lot more
likely ever to happen than a $6000 one....)

On Sat, 10 Sep 2005 18:49:30 -0700, JR wrote:

It seemed that the silvers were a mix of bright chromers and dark fish.
Is that the case? If so, what was the approximate proportion of each
would you say? How was the fight of these fish, compared, say, to the
fight of a fresh steelhead of the same size?

A dark fish means they are pretty far upstream from the sea and are
either ready to or have already spawned. The farther upstream Silvers
go, the less feisty they get. The ones we caught at both the Kamishak
and the Big River were fresh from the sea as evidenced by their green
backs and sea lice on their sides, and we were fishing only a few
hundred yards from Cook's Inlet. I have taken Chinook (King), Chum,
Silver, and Pinks when they were in the spawn and they fight a helluva
lot less than when they are fresh from the sea. In fact, this time if
we hooked into a chum all colored up, we broke it off rather than land
it. We didn't see any colored Silvers.

Dave

JR wrote:


Papa Bear Floaters: other than packing heat, what precautions did you all
take for bears?

In addition to a revolver we had bear spray. The guides carry shotguns.
As far as bear proofing the camp, forget about it -- not practical. We
at least completely unloaded the rafts every night because the last
piece of equipment you want a bear to mess with is your raft. Bears are
hunted in that region, so they're afraid of people for the most part.

It seemed that the silvers were a mix of bright chromers and dark fish.
Is that the case? If so, what was the approximate proportion of each
would you say? How was the fight of these fish, compared, say, to the
fight of a fresh steelhead of the same size?

As we got down the river the proportion of bright fish increased, as
you'd expect. I was surprised that the dark fish seemed to fight just
about as hard as the bright ones, and that bright fish and dark fish
were mixed together in the same schools.

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

JR wrote:
Dave and Steve (& Chas & Willi), Just found time to look at all the pix
at leisure. Very good stuff. Thanks.

Papa Bear Floaters: other than packing heat, what precautions did you all
take for bears?

Steve hit this on the nose. On other trips we've camped well away from the
food, this time we only left 100 feet or so, but despite the ever present
footprints we only saw one bear on the trip, and as soon as the other guys made
enough niose to alert me, he took off. We were fishing a small backwater for
silvers, and the bear came to about 30 to 50 yards from us before he heard us
and took off.


It seemed that the silvers were a mix of bright chromers and dark fish.
Is that the case? If so, what was the approximate proportion of each
would you say? How was the fight of these fish, compared, say, to the
fight of a fresh steelhead of the same size?

There is always some confusion about what a "dark" fish is. No confusion about
bright, but often the fish darken early, sometimes still in the salt. Also,
even bright fish sometimes don't fight too hard. I have pics of a great fish
Willi caught that jumped 6 or 8 times. Enough jumping that I had time to pull
the camera out, adjust the telephoto, and get a couple great pictures of the
fish in mid air. That one was colored a bit and might have been looked down on
by snobs who don't understand these fish.

On the culinary side, it's not such a clear line either. Some of the darker
fish can be prime eating, you can judge them by the firmness of the live fish.
Also, some of the bright fish are soft, and if you keep them you'll discover
the meat is unappetizing. I can't remember the name of the bacteria that
infects a few of these fish, but it causes the fresh raw meat to flake like
it's already been cooked.

On the river it's just like at home, don't make your decisions purely on the
basis of color.

I almost forgot the comparison of the fight with a fresh steelhead of the same
size. Silvers are similar size to steelhead, and can fight nearly as well. I
think steelhead run farther, but not faster, and fight longer but not harder.

Chas

JR
(thinking the chances of a $1500+airfare trip to Alaska is a lot more
likely ever to happen than a $6000 one....)

Chas
remove fly fish to e mail directly

JR wrote:
Dave and Steve (& Chas & Willi), Just found time to look at all the pix
at leisure. Very good stuff. Thanks.

Papa Bear Floaters: other than packing heat, what precautions did you all
take for bears?

I think I was the most paranoid in the group about bears. Bears
were my biggest concern before the float. I felt I could deal with them
during the day, but I was concerned about not sleeping at night because
of "night sounds." The spot that was picked for our camp after the first
day's float was full of fresh bear sign. I didn't like that in the least
and wanted to find another place to camp. Cooler heads prevailed and
after I did some more walking around the area, I got more comfortable.
We ended up staying there and it was probably our best camp. From that
point on the river, until we got close to the end of the float at the
natives' village, we saw fresh bear sign at virtually every point we
chose to stop and fish.

Like Steve mentioned in his post, the bears in the area are hunted and
because of this, unlike the bears in some other areas of Alaska, they're
afraid of people. In spite of seeing fresh bear sign along virtually
the length of the river and at most of the spots we stopped to fish.

We only saw one bear on the float. I saw it about 100 yards away walking
toward the salmon slough we were fishing to do some fishing of its own.
I called out "Bear" and Andy and Steve turned to watch it continue
walking down toward us. Chas continued fishing. Then I called out
"BEAR!" and Chas raised his head but didn't seem to understand, so I
shouted "BEAR!!!" Chas turned and looked at the bear and the bear rose
up on its hind legs, looked around and smelled the air. It got a whiff
of us and ran off into the tundra. I became much more assured the bear's
response to us. I slept fine every night and had hoped to see more
bears, during the day at least!



It seemed that the silvers were a mix of bright chromers and dark fish.
Is that the case? If so, what was the approximate proportion of each
would you say? How was the fight of these fish, compared, say, to the
fight of a fresh steelhead of the same size?


Our float covered 90 air miles, and along the way we ran into silvers
ranging from very silvery fish fresh from the sea to fish "brightly"
colored up. (I know it's how they are "traditionally" described, but I
find it funny to call the fish in their bright spawning colors "dark"
fish) Compared to the Red Salmon that were still around, even the darker
silvers were very fresh.

The day the plane dropped us off, I got excited by all the Reds we saw
at the outlet of the lake. I didn't understand why Chas and Andy didn't
seem interested in them. I asked Chas and Andy and they told me I didn't
really want to catch them. After I caught the first one, I saw they were
right.


JR
(thinking the chances of a $1500+airfare trip to Alaska is a lot more
likely ever to happen than a $6000 one....)


There are a few other floats, even some in pretty remote areas, I found
that could be done considerably cheaper because the floats end in close
proximity to the outfitter and the pickup can be done by boat or car
instead of float plane.

I think for me, the Kanektok turned out to be an excellent choice for a
first float to Alaska for several reasons:

It was a non technical float and aside from some tricky sweepers, it
was a relatively easy float

It is in an area that gets much less pressure than most of the other
more popular rivers, there are no lodges on the upper two thirds of the
river, and we only saw one other party floating on the whole 90 ninety
mile trip. However, it gets enough floaters that that if something went
wrong, other people would be by in a day or two

Camping in an area whose bear population gets hunted, makes for a safer
and, at least for me, more comfortable camp.

Willi

chas wrote:

Steve hit this on the nose. On other trips we've camped well away from the
food, this time we only left 100 feet or so, but despite the ever present
footprints we only saw one bear on the trip, and as soon as the other guys made
enough niose to alert me, he took off. We were fishing a small backwater for
silvers, and the bear came to about 30 to 50 yards from us before he heard us
and took off.

I'm really good at quantitative estimates of time and space, as Willi
can testify. Also weight (our 150lb cooler, for example.) It was 70
yards, +/- 5.

:-)

I can also estimate costs with astonishing precision. I'm a dunce when
it comes to the larger picture, however.

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

rw wrote:
context totally snipped
I'm really good at quantitative estimates of time and space, as Willi
can testify. Also weight (our 150lb cooler, for example.) It was 70
yards, +/- 5.

Steve: This and the posts about the action principle make me think you
might enjoy reading this unpublished book I've been reading off and on for a
while. Some interesting perspectives on physics. I got some good nuggets
from it.

http://www.ph.utexas.edu/~gleeson/httb/httb.html

--
Stan Gula
http://gula.org/roffswaps