Keith Mulligan

Alaska Salmon Fishing by ATV

fieldandstream-editor — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:46:20 -0500

Alaska Salmon Fishing by ATV

fieldandstream-editor — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:44:55 -0500

Alaska Salmon Fishing by ATV

fieldandstream-editor — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:39:48 -0500

Four One Wild Ride: Fishing Alaska By ATV (16-November-2006)
Five riders who couldn't fish teamed up with one fisherman who couldn't ride to find out if ATVs are the smartest way to access the best salmon rivers in Alaska. Here's that fisherman's trip diary, along with unpublished photos, only on fieldandstream.com

Alaska Salmon Fishing by ATV

fieldandstream-editor — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:39:47 -0500

My personal highlight of the whole trip was that ride. Funny to think that the angler would go to Alaska and have the riding be a highlight. I'd venture to guess the riders probably were keen on the fishing. They let me drive the Rhino with Glenn. The Rhino looks like a golf cart on steroids, but it was all business on this ride. I had a blast.

We pulled off the trail at dark, and as we loaded the quads for the last time on Tim's trailer, I saw the Northern Lights for the first time in my life. It was my 40th birthday. Pretty cool.

In all, this was one of the best adventures I have ever been a part of. Maybe because it exceeded expectations, maybe because we pulled off the fishing in tough conditions â€¦ probably because I did it all and lived to write the story.

To be honest, I wasn't exactly a quad loving guy before, and the thought of being in the "promised land" with a bunch of newbie flyfishers didn't exactly have me enthralled. I thought it would be a long trip for an "almost" type of fishing adventure. I was wrong.

It reinforced in my mind that the true essence of fishing is becoming less about the fish, and more about the journey â€“ in this case, literally, the ride. We saw loons, eagles, sheep, caribou, moose, hawks, silver salmon, rainbow trout, Dolly Varden, pink salmon, grayling, sea lions, whales, and more. I learned some tricks on the fishing side, and learned a ton about riding quads. And I made a handful of good friends. When all is said and done, that's what a perfect Alaska adventure is all about, isn't it?

Alaska Salmon Fishing by ATV

fieldandstream-editor — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:39:47 -0500

By Kirk Deeter

Day 1. Wednesday. What Have I Gotten Myself Into?
It was an offer I could not refuse. After all, when you get a writing assignment that involves fishing in the Alaskan wilderness, you have to jump at it, no matter what the catch, right?

Well, this story did come with a catch ... actually, four catches. And on the first day in Alaska, I realized I might be in deep trouble.

The plan was for me to join an entourage from Field & Stream's sister publication QUAD Off-Road Magazine on a week-long expedition. It was supposed to be a whirlwind "groundstorming" tour, where we'll sample ATV adventures along the coast near Homer, and then bushwhack deep into the Talkeetna Mountains north of Anchorage, sampling the fishing along the way.

Sounded great ... but catch number one was that none of the other guys flyfished. And, while we'd be in the hands of expert ATV guide Tim Cook of Alaska ATV Adventures (who more than knew the lay of the land), I'd be the de-facto fishing guide. Tim's job was to find the water and steer us around the bears. My job was to find the fish and get them in the net.

Which would have been cool, if not for catch two. Namely, I had only been to Alaska once before, and that was in the early season (June), two years earlier. I'd never seen an Alaskan coho anywhere but on a dinner platter, let alone cast at one. What the heck. I figured I could fudge my expertise, ask some buddies for advice, bum a few flies, and learn on the job. In the worst case, I'd hope for a silver or two to commit suicide by eating one of my borrowed streamers, and everything would be hunky-dory.

Then came catch number three. Within hours of landing in Anchorage (I came in a day before the rest of the crew in order to score some last minute gear and advice from my friends at the Worldwide Angler flyshop), I learned that the local fishing report was bleak. Record level rains had been pounding south-central Alaska for weeks without interruption, and most of the rivers from Talkeetna down to the Kenai Peninsula were blown-out, brown torrents of glacial crud and debris. I thumbed through the Anchorage Daily News and noticed the pictures of washed-out highways and floating houses and began to curse my editor.

Yet, despite all of that, the thing that had me popping Maalox was catch number four. I wasn't sure I could ride a quad with these guys. I was going to be ATV-ing backcountry trails with the pros (and I mean pros -- Yamaha rider Pat Brown was asked to tag along with us). I had ridden quads before ... slowly, on easy trails. But truth is, I had more "seat time" in the dentist's chair than on top of a four-stroke, liquid-cooled offroad machine.

So on day one, I wasn't sure which I feared more: Being crushed under the weight of fishing expectations from America's oldest outdoor magazine, or literally being crushed under 600 pounds of steaming machinery on some isolated Alaskan mountainside.

I found a little restaurant on the shore of Lake Spenard, ordered a sandwich, and decided I'd kill time as I waited for the rest of the team to arrive by watching the float planes land and take off on the lake. The last time I was in Alaska I had flown on float planes like these to amazing fishing locations that had blown my mind. I couldn't help but wish like hell I could climb on board one of them and zoom away. I decided to describe this feeling in the lead paragraph of the magazine story.

Eventually, I made peace with the "four catches." If we did pull this off on ATVs, we would discover a vast, wide-open realm of outdoor opportunity, between the combat fishing zones near the roadways, and the expensive fly-out lodges in the bush.

I decided I was along for the ride. But I was certain it would be "One Wild Ride."

Alaska Salmon Fishing by ATV

fieldandstream-editor — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:39:47 -0500

Day 1. Wednesday. What Have I Gotten Myself Into?

It was an offer I could not refuse. After all, when you get a writing assignment that involves fishing in the Alaskan wilderness, you have to jump at it, no matter what the catch, right?

Well, this story did come with a catch â€¦ actually, four catches. And on the first day in Alaska, I realized I might be in deep trouble.

Sounded great â€¦ but catch number one was that none of the other guys flyfished. And, while we'd be in the hands of expert ATV guide Tim Cook of Alaska ATV Adventures (who more than knew the lay of the land), I'd be the de-facto fishing guide. Tim's job was to find the water and steer us around the bears. My job was to find the fish and get them in the net.

Yet, despite all of that, the thing that had me popping Maalox was catch number four. I wasn't sure I could ride a quad with these guys. I was going to be ATV-ing backcountry trails with the pros (and I mean pros -- Yamaha rider Pat Brown was asked to tag along with us). I had ridden quads before â€¦ slowly, on easy trails. But truth is, I had more "seat time" in the dentist's chair than on top of a four-stroke, liquid-cooled offroad machine.

I decided I was along for the ride. But I was certain it would be "One Wild Ride."

Alaska Salmon Fishing by ATV

fieldandstream-editor — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:39:47 -0500

Day 3 -" Friday. "Wake up, it's clear!"
When we climbed out of the cabins early the next morning, we were stunned to see blue skies, the Iliamna volcano and massive snowcapped peaks towering past the cobalt expanse of Cook Inlet. All of us paused to soak in the views. We decided to pass on breakfast, and head right toward the beach and the water.

Steve gave me a crash course on the new Grizzly. And I couldn't help but revel in its power and fluidity as I turned easy circles in the parking lot, waiting for the other guys to load up.

We drove from the camp down a steep, muddy trail to the beach, and then began zooming up the dark volcanic strand. It was a three-mile ride to the fishing spot. Along the way, Pat and Steve started "playing" ... jumping rocks, doing wheelies, flirting with the waves. I decided then that if ever I had less than four wheels on the ground at any one point, it would be a serious problem. Still, I couldn't help but admire the grace of the experienced riders. Soon enough, though, it would be my turn to show them my game.

Alaska Salmon Fishing by ATV

fieldandstream-editor — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:39:47 -0500

John "Doogie" Howell, of QUAD Magazine, hams it up with a dead salmon.

We pulled to a stop next to the creek, maybe a Â¼ mile from the ocean inlet. The creek here paralleled the beach. It's only about 100 feet wide, and the water was brown â€“ tannic. Tim said that was more a product of the wader seeping from the blueberry bogs and alders on the hills above than the rain. I checked the water visibility with the rod tip â€¦ about three feet. It seemed good enough for fish to see flies, but not good enough for us to spot the fish. We had to wait and watch for them to roll.

"They're in here," Tim said. "And they're fresh, right in off the last tide, probably."

Finally, we spotted a roller, and I ran up the bank with Doogie, flipped a cast with an 8-weight rod, rigged with a gaudy pink streamer, and bang, we were in business â€¦ thank goodness. I handed Doogie the rod. He didn't expect that kind of pull. This flyfishing stuff had some adrenaline factor also â€¦ Doogie whooped it up and laughed as a beefy silver first tailwalked, then ripped line across the creek. Doogie landed it.

Alaska Salmon Fishing by ATV

fieldandstream-editor — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:39:47 -0500

"Whew!" I thought, wiping the sweat off my brow. At least we're on the board. As it turned out, the fishing was tricky most of the day. Tim and I caught a couple more big silvers. I positioned Pat and Keith below a riffle with bead flies and they started hooking Dolly Varden.

We kept one silver, and grilled it with an impromptu peach-salsa. Sitting in a wood-heated hot-tub overlooking the inlet, eating salmon on crackers, I thought that this might not be that tough of an assignment after all.

Alaska Salmon Fishing by ATV

fieldandstream-editor — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:39:47 -0500

The author holds a nice silver (coho) salmon

Day 4 â€“ Saturday. We Slayed â€˜Em.
We woke up early that next morning to find it raining again. But that was good news as far as the fishing was concerned. I had been wondering in my bunk the night before why we hadn't hooked and landed more silvers, and I decided that, with the sunny day, I should have been pulling big olive and black streamers instead of the bright pink stuff. Now, with the clouds and wind, the pink stuff will work.

Tim, Keith, and I shared one of the cabins. The boys in the other cabin weren't awake when we went over to look through the window and check on them, and they didn't look like they'd be awake any time soon.

"What do you want to do?" Tim asked.

"Well, we should let Quad sleep in â€¦ but Field & Stream is going to work â€¦ sorry Keith, you're shooting for both," I said. "This morning you're Field & Stream, and we fish in the rain."

My hunch played out perfectly. After ripping back down the beach, we set up in the same spot. The fish were rolling like crazy. There had to have been 10 times as many as the day before -- big, fresh, unmarked fish that ran in on the night tide.

We started swinging those pink streamers, specifically some "Strung Out Rockstars" which my friend Derek Fergus had developed. Bam. Bam. The fish knocked the snot out of them. I was feeling dialed-in. We caught dollies (Dolly Varden trout) and humpies (pink salmon) also.