Resorting to Survival Mode in the Bush

[Sharphooks]

Did you ever take an outdoor trip where you ended up counting the days for the trip to end, and at the tail end being not only thrilled to have the experience behind you but actually surprised you pulled it off and made it back home in one piece and further still, once back in the safety of your home you make a firm clear-eyed decision never ever to return to that place again?

Well I just walked in the door from one of those trips. Never again.

I first started going to this river in Alaska in 1985 and have never missed a year since. The math tells me that last week was my 40 th year going to this same place.

I go for the wilderness experience and of course, the steelhead fishing which as far as numbers per square meter of river are concerned, is clearly the best steelhead fishing remaining in the Pacific Northwest. It's also the northern-most latitude you can find a steelhead on the West Coast of the Pacific so it's a very unique place.

It has a large winter run that arrives in November. The fish spawn in March and April and this year, there were a huge number of them in the river. There’s an equally large spring run that arrives in March and April and spawns in late May, early June. This year, it was a bit early for the spring fish. There were a few around but not in the large ghostly wads I’m used to seeing. The aggregate run size is anywhere between 4,000 to 15,000 fish, depending on the year. That's a lot of fish in a 19 mile long stretch of river.

The spring-fish are what make me go through all the effort of flying camping gear and my inflatable raft to Alaska then disappearing into the bush for a week long float back down to the Gulf of Alaska.

With the exception of the Russian Far East, I've fished steelhead in pretty much every river system they swim, including the Dean and the Thompson, and I'm here to tell you that the spring fish in this particular Alaskan river, despite the frigid cold water, are every bit as stunning a fighting fish as any of the famous British Columbian steelhead. Pound for pound, they are among the best.

It's not uncommon to lose count of the jumps after 10 of them, one of those special kinds of fish that have you thinking that because your line is down in the tail end of the pool, that must be where the fish is but meanwhile, they're already doing multiple cartwheels in the next hole 100 yards upstream from where you’re standing....you're just starting to figure out that this marvel of a fish you've hooked has taken twice the amount of line off your reel you thought it had and moved through the water so much quicker then you thought a fish could move. Yes, they are that amazing a race of fish.

But conditions have to be just right to catch these spring fish, especially on a swung fly without a float indicator or a big chunk of lead on your leader which is what most of the chuck-n-duck "fly" fishermen use up there. The challenge is to get them on a floating line with no weight. When everything works out with that method, it's like no other steelhead you'll ever hook on any other river you'll fish. They are stone-cold wonders using that method. For me it's always been the fascination of what's difficult and when you get them the difficult way, that’s the fish you’ll be remembering for a decade.

This is what those spring fish look like. I never saw one this year at my feet (after multiple jumps they were all off the hook) but they are stuck like glue in my memory banks from year’s past.



In 1986 and 2002 that river and its amazing steelhead run was almost wiped off the face of the earth. The Hubbard Glacier advanced into an inland fiord and created a moraine dam. In effect, the morain cut off the drainage of Russel Fiord and geologists were predicting that if the morain dam didn't burst, Russel Fiord would eventually overflow its retaining perimeters and cascade down the mountainside wiping out both the lake that feeds this river and the entire river itself— all the riparian bank systems and tributaries that contain and create the holes that produce such marvelous fish habitat; everything….gone in one apocalyptic glacial wave

But in both instances, the glacial moraine dam did burst. This picture captured the moraine dam burst in 2002. It was estimated that the larger wave in the outflow that created that huge shadow at the bottom right of the picture was 50 feet tall.

Great luck that there were geologists up there to capture the event.

 

[Sharphooks]

SURVIVAL MODE IN THE BUSH PART II

I hired a taxi to take me and my gear to the river. I got my raft inflated at the put in and loaded 75 kilos of gear onto the bow of the raft. I had set aside 6 days of camping to raft the 15 miles of river that would get me back down to the Gulf of ALaska---in years past, I'd drift approximately 3 miles a day and set up in a new campsite each night for the 5 or 6 days of the trip ....depending on the weather.





Oh yes, the weather. The weather is the weak link in this area. Three years ago after a few typical days that alternated between snow, showers and then a bit of sunshine, the last night of my trip brought 7.5 centimeters of rain which resulted in the river rising almost 2 meters in 10 hours....in that part of the world, when it rains, it pours.

The problem was that was the day I had to catch my plane. I threw caution to the wind, then brazenly broke Mariner's Rule No. 1---don't ever be in a hurry. Well I was in a hurry to make my plane and rather then staying put and waiting for the river to drop, I launched into a muddy tongue of swollen river in a bathtub sized inflatable and when just a few miles shy of the take out I almost wrapped my raft around a tree that had wedged in a bunch of other logs and blocked off a channel I'd thought was clear.

I came so close to buying it that I made a decision to never raft the river again when it was at flood stages....there are impassable log jams all over this river and they are continually changing so it's sketchy at best in a small over-loaded raft and even worse when there's increased flow.

So what happened this year to make me have my come to Jesus moment about why I'll never go back to that place and take that trip again?

Two words---Climate Change. There's no doubt that Climate Change is now the main driver in that part of the world. Weather systems are all expressed in extremes now. Either zero rain and not enough water to get through the log jams or so much rain you spend your time running laps around the rosary beads trying not to get sucked in to one of those same log jams.

Or huge snow events that are collapsing people's roofs or so little snow that bears are coming out of hibernation months before they used to. Everything has been flipped upside down ...weather predictions are a fool's game. The only way to predict anything is to wake up and see with your own eyes what the day has in store for you.

This year I saw monsoon-type rain for 6 straight days. Huge rain, like 5 - 7 centimeters per day. One day the river rose a meter. I set up my tent approx 2 meters above the current height of the river. By 9 pm, just as it was getting dark, it was clear to me that if I stayed put my tent would get washed away as the river rose an additional meter.




Those three sticks in the river along side the raft? Each mark the rising river. The next morning all three of the sticks were 1 1/2 meters under water

By 10 PM, in a blinding rainstorm, I was humping my camping gear through thick rainforest and swatches of Devil's Club trying to find higher ground

I dropped tent pegs on the trail, got my sleeping bag soaked, and then actually got myself lost trying to get back on to the game trail once it got dark. And it was only Day No. 2 of a 6 day trip……. All my gear was now properly soaked and the rain was only just warming up.

I could see that the river was already too high for any kind of wading the day I launched. It is said that wading mode is when the river at 300-400 CFS. The day I launched the river was running at 950 CFS and rising. It had basically rained all of April and all the normal beaches I usually stood on to fish were well under water. So fishing, at least fly fishing and the way I've always gone about doing it, were crossed off the list. A sad tale but that was clearly the deal.

The third night there was another 7 centimeter rain. The rain forest was now pools of water. Every morning I was bailing 20 gallons of water out of my raft to keep the tubes from distending. The river just kept getting higher and higher. By then I was starting to get that anxiety in the pit of my stomach about having to control a heavily loaded raft around huge log jams in a flooding river. And when beaching the raft to set up camp, stressing out about whether the raft was safe or not from the rising river and would I be able to safely get off the beach the next morning with another meter of water flow?

The fishing part started to really bother me. I had expended huge effort and money to get here. Was I going to go home with skunk on my breath?

I found a small patch of exposed beach one morning and took out my gear rod (which I’ve always referred to as “nuclear weaponry”.) The water was way too fast, no way I could effectively fish the hole with either fly or gear , but I'll be blowed; an instant take-down on the first cast and a stunner of a fish.

I lost count after 10 jumps. I had it to the beach at least 5 times ready to take the hook out when it just took off all over again like I'd only just hooked it and it was ready to fight all over again. What a race of fish...a big doe....maybe low teens....I took her all in, very aware that it might be the only fish I saw this trip.



Then more rain. Rain. Rain. Rain. I had a big rip in my Helly Hansen rain coat....what the hell...I only bought it 20 years ago and have ridden it hard and put it away wet all those years...what ever happened to quality?

But that left me with two sleeves of a coat that was soaked. Have you ever got into a soaking wet sleeping bag wearing a wet coat when it's 2 degrees C? That is the strongest memory I have of the trip....shivering all night in the tent, hearing the detonation of loonie-sized rain drops on the rain fly. Oh, that and the whoosh of a 30 knot wind coming in off the Gulf of Alaska, bringing branches and trees down in the woods all around me.

One night a branch fell on the tent. Not big enough to cause damage but making a noise that to me sounded like the swipe of a grizzly paw (I saw loads of grizzly crap in the woods this trip so I know they were around; another result of climate change )....in years past with 2 meters of snow still on the ground they were sawing logs this time of the year. Not any more. Up and about and looking for a cheap easy meal months before they should be out of hibernation.

So the word survival started rearing its ugly little head. I was soaked, my gear was soaked, and I'd just had a guide come by with his clients and in an obnoxiously jocular manner inform me there was another 7 centimeter storm coming in and to be prepared for another steep rise in the river height. They sniggered, knowing they’d be safe and sound back in the Lodge that night gargling on chicken friend steaks while I rotted in the rainforest in another biblical rain storm

I carried my raft into the rainforest....no way would I leave it in the river over night. Then in my tent that night, I knew I had to take care of the chill factor from my wet coat. The shivers were starting to worry me and I was no longer able to sleep. I had newspaper that I'd brought to keep the boots of my neoprene waders dry but realized that newspaper was too valuable to use for waders so i started shoving dry newspaper under my coat and up into the sleeves....wow, I woke up the next morning somewhat dry!


Then I had a Eureka moment...I'd brought lots of socks....why not take a thick pair of wool socks, cut the toe portion off, and then use them as sleeves to cover the damp sleeves of my coat and isolate it from my soaked Helly Hansen?

So this I did and that morning I actually felt somewhat human again...dry and ready for adventure.




I took a long hike in the rain forest to warm up then at appetizer hour, I opened up a new bottle of wine and went out on a small spit of grass that was sticking out in the river and I actually saw a bit of a slow-down spot in the river right at my feet. Long story short, while guzzling wine and luxuriating in the sock-sleave dryness of both my arms, I started hooking fish after fish after fish.

Not sure I've ever experienced such a blizzard of steelhead activity like this before in all my life. I never took a step (I couldn't; I was surrounded by unyielding alder trees and couldn't really move in any direction). But over the course of a few hours, I literally lost count… 15? 25? No exaggeration.

And these were alligators, some in the upper teens, a mix of winter and spring fish, coming absolutely unglued out in the fast water once they felt the full bend of my rod. I managed perhaps 6 or 7 to my feet to take the hook out and share in the perfection of their glorious colors but all the others were off after 5 or 6 jumps in the middle of swirling rapids which was just the way I wanted it. No muss, no fuss, but that lovely feel of an aggressive take down marinated in a bit of top-shelf wine (that I only buy for this particular trip)


My secret weapon for that stupid jag of fish? When I set up my tent in this new spot there were 4 small orange beads lying on the moss. Like the smallest bead they make. My first thought was....why not try them? And lickety-split I'm hooking crazy numbers of fish on those beads in absolute flood stages in water the color of strong tea with a little tiny orange bead. Who would’a thought? Crazy.

 

[Sharphooks]

SURVIVAL MODE IN THE BUSH PART III

Then all that fun of course had to have some non-fun mixed in. Throughout the trip I had been compulsively reaching up to my head to make sure my rain hood was in place to keep the hood of my inner coat dry. So I made this move but forgot I was holding a mono leader in my hand when I reached up to my hood. And attached to that leader was a small pink very sharp hook. With that move, and maybe a bit too much wine, I suddenly felt a sting in my lower lip.

Yup, I'd just planted a No. 6 Gamakatu hook deep into my lower lip. So there I was standing in a monsoon rain, a bit liquored up, and could clearly comprehend by touch alone that the upward movement of my hand holding the leader with hook attached had been so abrupt that the barb of the hook had gone clean through my lip and out the other side....no way I could back it out. It was self-inflicted facial bling and thank the Lord there were none of my fishing homies around to see how I’d decided to decorate my face.

Singing oaths to the sky in a bitter rain I did what I had to do—- I wrapped the leader around my fist and yanked the hook out. Instant gushing blood. How could a hook that small draw so much blood?

So standing there like an idiot, blood gushing down my chin, I did the only thing I could possibly think of doing under such ridiculous circumstances...take another gulp of whine and hook some more fish.

So, the last night of the trip. I couldn’t believe I’d actually made it through the week in all that rain. Yes, wadded up newspaper shoved into my coat at night and chopping up a pair of wool socks and pulling them up over my arms helped get me through that long week but there was another camp modification I used which I’d never done before.

Instead of using my groundsheet for the tent I used it as a tarp to have a dry (sort of) place to stand under to make dinner, fire up coffee in the morning, and to do my business with at least some type of roof over my head. It really made a big difference in dealing with the constant rain. Also for getting in and out of my waders, the most important piece of equipment that I knew I had to keep dry (after the sleeping bag)




So, here we were —-last morning, and I was all set to push off from the exact same camp that I’d pushed off a few years ago when I had the near-death experience of getting flipped by a tree. I had major pangs of anxiety because although the river wasn’t running the color of mud (no snow this year) the river height was similar—just shy of full-blown flood

For some reason I ran into a guide—-usually they didn’t show up this far downstream until later in the day but he had a Mom in the boat who at first glance looked miserable so I’m sure he was pulling the plug on his trip to get her back to the Lodge. But running into that guide was hugely propitious for me.

Dude, any tight spots I should know about?

What do you mean?

Log jams. I’m feeling a bit exposed in this rubber duck ( he and the Mom were sitting high and dry in a 17 foot aluminum Pavati Marine Warrior drift boat)

Yes, there’s a place we call The Pinch. Keep hard right, and I mean hard right. Then he drilled down on me with his brittle beady eyes and barked once more for good measure…….hard right!

I think I remembered the spot from last year but with all the high water I knew it must have changed into a majorly sketchy spot.

I stuck to the right bank like glue and funny thing, you could not see the escape valve on the hard right until you were right on top of it….the entrance was about 2 meters wide and covered by willow branches. The rest of the river was completely blocked off with a scimitar of deadly logs piled 3 meters high. If I had not gotten the scoop from that guide, if Mom hadn’t wanted to get off the river so early that morning, I absolutely would have gotten sucked into an impassable log because in my ignorance I would have followed the natural flow of the river

This was The Pinch last year during extremely low water…this year there was twice the amount of wood jammed in there with an even smaller escape hole. It looked like the perfect place to die at this water level.





So squeezing through The Pinch was the last stage of my come to Jesus moment with the flooding river this year. It was a great run for the last 40 years but I knew at that point that I was done.

And thanks to that Mom for being there when and where I found her and for helping me get back home safe and sound out of the rainforest with all that crazy rain back to my two daughters and puppy dog.

 

[chille51]

Jesus Christ... how do you fit your massive balls in that little raft?

 

[Pineapple Express]

Whoa...crazy story!

The thought of floating down a river without knowing what's around the next bend is scary to me!

I remember staying in a lodge in Kitimat when I was working at the aluminum smelter. The owner of the lodge had recently been up a river with some clients in a 17ft jet sled. They went up that river in the middle of an intense rain storm and the river was rising all day. When they were heading back downstream they encountered several freshly fallen trees across the river. Boat got swept in to the trees, jet pump seized with gravel, boat capsized and then was pushed under the trees. All occupants swimming in the river. Scary stuff!

 

[JWS]

Great write up and great adventure. Thanks for sharing!